a weekend in the Bernese Oberland

From Sheffield I diverted to Macclesfield to visit another lovely friend, Bruna, from my very first shiatsu weekends in 2001. In Macclesfield I counted twelve charity shops – where you can buy second-hand novels for a mere 25p, clothes are less than half the price of well-heeled B on Avon, and you can buy my regular French cheese, comté, not to mention manchego. Cheese. The barometer of life.

But it was a fleeting visit and my time in the UK was at an end. Flying from Manchester to Geneva was a mini culture shock. And from there, via Juan’s flat and out to Selden, a tiny hamlet in the Bernese Oberland valley of Gasterntal, another one. I knew I was in Switzerland because the farmers were vacuuming up the grass cuttings that fell on the road alongside their meadows, and we were staying in a picture-postcard auberge at the beginning of the Loetschental pass–Goppenheim track.

As we climbed up the valley, the views into the upper Gasterntal opened out and the Kanderfirn glacier came into view:

We walked without a map because GRs in Switzerland are like motorways: the two-metre cairns and half-metre red-and-white waymarking standing out unmissably.  At times, though, it was nerve-wracking as we plodded in blind faith across serious stretches of snow, not knowing quite where we were heading.  

The flowers were sensational: at mid altitude a generous explosion of colour…

profuse as we’d never seen them…

Higher up, around the refuge (2690m) they showed up as jewels in an alpine desert:

As usual, Juan had a happy time photo hunting while I stayed at the refuge, watching the sublime panoramic view that shifted every second as clouds, rain and sun came and went:

The best was only revealed the following morning:

And then came the long descent, 1500 knee-jarring metres, and a wonderful traverse of the lower Loetschental valley marred only by Juan’s anxiety about making our train connection back to Kandersteg – and (fate worse than death) a Swiss parking penalty. But we nevertheless enjoyed sumptuous vistas towards Koncordia hut, where we stayed 2 nights on our 2011 glacier walk (see link). At that time we had no idea that Juan would end up working in the country. How unexpected, therefore, to be seeing it again, from such a different perspective – in all senses. (And yes, we made the train.)