Switzerland - Day 10

Another beautiful morning in the Swiss Alps, decided today to try to reach the Bluemlisalphutte which is I believe the highest Swiss Alpine club but locally. I have previously visited this put climbing up from Kiental which I believe is a shorter assent, if memory serves me correctly I previously descended along the route that we intend to try to send today.

From the campsite we took the cable car up to the Oeschinensee passing through Oberbergli. We encountered one quite tricky section which was protected by cables which made it an awful lot safer but we were soon up in the high alpine scenery, the use of several hanging glaciers to the east were spectacular.

Approximately one hour from the hut it became apparent that if we were to reach the hut and return and if that were to take us more than 2 hours we would have insufficient time to catch the last cable car from the Oeschinensee back to Kandersteg. Neither of us particularly fancied having to walk all the way back to the valley floor so the only option really left to us was to turn back at this point. Not long after turning there was a section of the route which was really quite exposed which Lorena was very uncomfortable on and it was clear at this point that the descent was going to take as longer than expected and that we had made the correct decision.

We followed a different route back to the cable car station, following a high traverse before dropping down steeply towards the station itself. The views along this route over towards the Oeschinensee were spectacular but along this route there were a number of sections where a slip or fall would undoubtedly have resulted in very serious injury or far worse.

We finally arrived back at the cable car station where we enjoyed a well-deserved ice cream before descending back into Kandersteg. After an enjoyable dinner of tuna, pasta and a Bolognese sauce we were visited by our Dutch friends from a neighbouring tent and we spent a pleasant while chatting with them about our days.

It is sad to realise that our stay is slowly drawing to a close but we still have a few days yet.