In June 2017, Ian gave a talk at the EPFL Summer Research Institute. Kat joined for the trip, and we extended it to a week in Switzerland.

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We had seen these dark horizontal stripes at the tops of the Swiss Alps from afar, and wondered what they were. On the way to Jungfraujoch, we saw them much closer up. They are avalanche barriers, it turns out.

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It was the first full day of summer, but we're getting up high enough that there's still snow here.

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The two domes are where we're headed. (There's an observatory there.)

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Our home base of Mürren, as seen from the other side of the valley.

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Another shot of Mürren. Note how it's right on the edge of a sheer cliff.

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There are a couple of stops on the train up to Jungfraujoch. But you can also hike (if you're a much more robust hiker than we are). Note that all of the directions have the red-and-white "difficult alpine trail" marker.

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At the penultimate train stop, Eismeer Station, you can get out an take pictures for a few minutes. The station is underground, behind the south-east face of Eiger and has windows overlooking Ischmeer glacier.

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And we made it to Jungfraujoch! Here at the bottom of the complex, we're at 3454 metres (11,333 ft) altitude. It was definitely a noticeable difference from the 1600 metre altitude of Mürren.

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We're sitting on top of a glacier! Thre are trails on the glacier here.

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At the top of the complex (not counting the observatory and science domes) is the observation deck, at 3571 metres (11,782 ft) altitude. This is pretty clearly the highest altitude we've been to outside of an airplane.

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The peak of Jungfrau mountain itself, not so far away, but considerably higher.

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We're up in the mountains!

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Views from the observation level

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Mönch! We're on a ridge between Jungfrau and Mönch ("joch" means ridge). We came through Eiger to get here.

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A closeup of the previous picture of Mönch. There are two people climbing the mountain!

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A diagram of what you can see from here.

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Kat takes in the view.

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Trails on the glacier

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The peak of Jungfrau (background) and one of the observatories, as seen from the observation deck.

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The contrast between the snow and the green was striking.

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Ian is pretty incredulous at where he is.

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Those climbers are making progress!

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Most of the deck is just this metal grating. Looking down, you can see the rocks and ice below.

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Some people out on the glacier.

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This bird was way up here at this altitude. It appears to be an Alpine Chough.

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The high-alpine research station here. (We weren't allowed in.)

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We ventured out onto the glacier ourselves. We're walking on a glacier! On the first day of summer! In the Swiss Alps! (We were pretty excited, but that may have been the oxygen deprivation talking.)

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There were a bunch of activities you could do up here, like bobsledding, ziplining, and the like. We opted for sitting in beach chairs with drinks.

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The footprints of those mountain climbers, who themselves were now out of view.

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The tall metal thing on the right is surely something sciencey.

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The top of the zipline. We saw some people partaking while we were out there.

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Back inside is the ice palace, with many ice sculptures.

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It's composed of tunnels through the ice.

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This one (from the "Ice Age" movie, I think?) seemed a little out of place.

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Back outside, you can take a photo with the Swiss flag ("a big plus").

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That's the peak of Jungfrau, right there.

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It was starting to get a little hazy at this point. (Up until now, the weather was perfect!)

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The two observatories.

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Not sure what this building on Jungfrau was for.

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On the way down from Jungfraujoch, we stopped briefly in Wengen. It's all summery "down" here (still at almost 1300 metres altitude). We were dressed in long pants and boots for the glacier, so we were pretty warm at this point.

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More avalanche barriers.

This page last updated: 28 Jun, 2017