We didn't leave until probably 11 am, and needed to stop and rent some gear. The rental was going to come to about 60 Francs, so Siraj and I decided to put that money towards purchasing gear of their own. Going through the other entrance within the store, we shopped in the outlet area until we found two harnesses and two clip systems that were suitable for the two of us to use, but also small enough that Malorie would be able to use my setup in the future. We still rented the helmets, but we were finally on the road around 12:30!
We arrived in Linthal and parked at the base of the mountain around 1:45 and boarded the funicular railway to reach the tiny town of Braunwald. From here we hiked a short trail, took another chairlift up to Gumen, and scaled the hillside, scattered with broken stone, to the base of the Eggstöcke. We donned our new gear as paragliders were preparing to launch, and headed to the true test of our mettle. Two others were quickly gaining on us at this point, so we waited and let them proceed ahead of us. Good thing too, because they were much quicker (and in better shape than me). But we followed in their footsteps and attacked our adventure, head on and headstrong. It's hard to describe the climb itself afterwards, and I'm sure I would say things differently if you asked me in the middle, clipped to a wire with a seemingly endless fall below.
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| Is your equipment working properly? |
The Eggstöcke via ferrata is broken into three segments, so one can descend at different points along the climb. When researching the climb ahead of time, I knew the third section was much more difficult and getting such a late start we would certainly have to skip it. Talking to the two Germans before, we knew that we could finish the first section and get back to the chairlift fairly easily. Well we made it to the split in short order, and feeling confident in our speed, we followed them onto the second part. About 50 feet into this section, however, we came around a bend in the path that opened to nothing. Standing with each foot on an iron peg and gripping the wire, with nothing below, I began to despair in our decision to continue. But were we MEN, or were we MICE? Of course we swallowed our fears and steeled our resolve. I think we reached the acme of the Eggstöcke around 5:00, but were going to miss the last cablecar down to Braunwald. So we enjoyed the scenery a bit more, took a several pictures from the peak and started our descent, across a short suspension bridge and into steeper terrain. I'm not sure how Siraj feels, but to me going down took longer than going up, although it was less nervewracking. I was expecting more of a meandering trail, something similar to the hike from Gumen to the base - I was way wrong. We ended up going virtually straight down the face of the Eggstöcke.
Once we finally were able to unclip and eventually met up with the main trail, we headed back to the Gumen lift station. We entered a small restaurant and the kitchen lady graciously filled our waterbottles. We started our hike down to Braunwald, with the sun setting quicker than we would have hoped. We knew the last train left Braunwald at 8:25pm so it was a rush to beat the clock. We had to make the hour hike in about 40 minutes so, running when we could, we hastened downwards. And after all the worrying and jogging in the dark (surpassing 20000 steps along the way), we still beat the train by about 10 minutes. Victory was ours!
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| Three "Egg" sentinels guarding their Mother Peak |
The 15 minute train down and the hour drive home went quickly, and after showers and a late supper, I welcomed my bed with open arms.
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