Swiss Alps

My upcoming trip to Switzerland in May will now be even better than I had originally ever dreamed. Yes, because I will be going with Nauru (thanks Pa!) and it will be wonderful, exciting, and fun...but also because we're going to make a trip to the Eiger!

The Eiger is located in the Bernese Alps, rising 13,025 feet. The Nordwand (North Wall) is the spectacular north face of the Eiger and is one of the six great north faces of the Alps. It was first climbed in 1938 by a German-Austrian group. Subsequently the face has been climbed many times, and today is regarded as a formidable challenge more because of the increased rockfall and diminishing ice-fields than because of its technical difficulties, which are not at the highest level of difficulty in modern alpinism. Since 1935, sixty climbers have died attempting the north face, earning it the German nickname, Mordwand, or "murder wall", a play on the face's real German name Nordwand.

The Jungfraubahn railway runs in a tunnel inside the Eiger, and two internal stations provide easy access to viewing-windows in the mountainside. The railway terminates at Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe, located in the col between the Monch and the Jungfrau.

It is located approximately 50 km from Lucerne and Nauru is happy to visit the mountain for a day. With my newfound appreciation and admiration for mountain climbing and trekking, I am so incredibly excited to see such a great (in)famous mountain! No, I will not be attempting any sort of ascent, but I will definitely take the train up to almost 11,000 feet! How incredible!