Mt. Titlis , Switzerland - 15th August 2009
By:
I did something special today, I went up on the Titlis glacier.
First I had to drive to Engelberg and take the cableway up to Trübsee at ~1800m, then on to change again at Stand in 2500 m and up with a rotating aerial lift to the small Titlis at 3020m altitude (or 10 000 ft).
Here we are wating for our cabin, each seats 6 people, or 3 and a bear.
Looking back to the station and Engelberg:
The view out the window:
There are lots of cows below on the alps, cheese dairies, a mountain railway for transport of heavy goods, ski-lifts etc.
Waiting for the next lift at the station in Trübsee:
Here's Trübsee, a great place for kids to play in the water with floats and on slides or for older people to have an even surface to walk on.
From Stand we went up to the glacier
The sttion at Stand, Trübsee is on the plateau to the farr left of the picture
Snow
The cabin itself didn't rotate as we expected but the platfor the passegers were standing on did within the cabin. It was a bit surprising and hard for the older passenger who couldn't hold on to anything.
The shadows of our gondola cabin and another passing in the air
Nearly at the summit...
After exiting the gondola we decided to skip the lines waiting for the elevator and walk up the 5 floors to the observation deck. After 3 floors, we felt how thin the air had gotten. We were so quickly out of breath.
When we were outside we put on jackets as windprotection, even though it wasn't really neccessary, the sun was shining, making it quiet warm.
The view back towards Engelberg. The mountain in the middle is the Stanserhorn.
We went out onto the snow a bit.
Small streams are running in many places in between or under the snow.
View toward the Berner Oberland:
Another narrow valley on the other side
Climbing up here felt funny
With this drop at the side
But the view was very good and clear.
We're this far up from the observation deck and already adapted quite well to the lack of oxygen. But I feel bad for a the babies that have been dragged up here and aren't used to it.
It'S amazing to see how the mountain changs from snow covered to a kind of desert of rocks to tree covered to very green grass to the valley with the river in the middle.
Please don't let me fall into a crevasse!
Maybe my favourite view was to this side, possibly because I had to work bit and climb up further than most toursists go to get there, but probably because of the structure of the mountains.
The warning of the drop seems a bit flimsy...
The rocks do have their own beauty, but I can see when from time to time some come down and there are big steel fences above the roads in some places.
Here in the center of the mountainsrange in the distance you can see Mönch, Jungfrau and Eiger again plus a few other mountains of over 4000m. It seems that we see these from all sides.
Time to go back down, our gondola is arriving:
A last look up
I like all the patterns in the snow.
Trübsee again, about 1000m below us, we'll walk around there a bit on the way back.
Nearly in Stand, it's a bit disconcerting to see how little actually holds us up in the air.
I'm lucky I'm not afraid of heights, some people here are and they have been banned to sit in the middle of the gondola where they can only see the other passengers. I hope they aren't also claustrophobic.
Looking up to the Titlis from Trübsee:
Staying at the lake (See = lake in German) sees like fun too.
We'll take this cable way down
over the plateau and on to Engelberg: