Soaring Giants

Only seldom is it possible to take off from the 3,500 m Jungfraujoch and soar above the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau. A flight over the famous trio of giants counts as one of the most impressive flying experiences of the Alps. When wind and weather are eventually right, and it all works out, this event belongs in the “Once in a lifetime” category. Max Mittmann recounts his own timeless adventure from 2012.

There’s hardly a mountain that has so stirred the imagination of alpinists in the last hundred years as the Eiger. The dramatic attempts to climb the 1,650 m high north wall in the 1930s has endowed this mountain with mythical status. But it’s only one part of the most fascinating formation in the Alps, completed by Mönch and Jungfrau. Anyone who takes a first glance to the south from between-the-lakes Interlaken cannot but be astonished, year-round, by the colossal icy mountain world that is revealed. There is where we want to fly - Greg Blondeau, Chrigel Maurer and I. It’s an undertaking that will ask more of us than we suspect.

Day after day we look at the weather, checking all the available data over and over again until deciding that an attempt is not on. Nine times I set out that autumn for the Joch, always with the wish to fly up these Bernese giants – just once. Sometimes the wind was too weak, too strong, much too east. I almost became convinced that the three peaks just did not want to be disturbed.
But then, after weeks of waiting it’s on at last. Fully psyched up we climb into the Berner Oberland train at Interlaken Ost station. After an hour’s train ride we reach Kleine Scheidegg and change to the Jungfraubahn. This cogwheel railway, opened in 1912, is unique in Europe. On its ten kilometer track it traverses inside the Eiger and the Mönch and acquires another 1,400 m of altitude in about an hour. The Jungfraujoch mountain train station is the highest in Europe. The air here at 3,500 m is noticeably thin. Our gaze is drawn upwards. The Jungfrau summit is a good thousand metres above us. Powder snow streams from the top, indicating plenty of wind. We feel small and hesitant. But in a short time a renewed check on the wind figures at the Joch confirms it: conditions are perfect: 30 kph, gusting 40. Today it could work! A few minutes later and we are ready. It feels distinctly cold, but we’re bundled up warm and push heating sachets inside our gloves. Then we step out on to the glacier plateau. The wind whistles icy and gusty – luckily from the correct direction.

The choice of a takeoff place needs our full attention. If you go too high up the saddle there’s a risk that you could get lifted by the wind and pulled back, over the edge at the top. But further in front every step has to be accurately evaluated: numerous glacier crevasses lie in wait on the plateau. Now, in winter, you can barely make them out – they’re covered in frozen snow. But it’s not weight-bearing, and would give way immediately you stepped on it. We are aware of the danger, and our preparations are suitably tense. The wind repeatedly tears at our wings. What’s more, the takeoff surface slopes into it so that the canopy pulls strongly when you try to pull it up.

But then, at last! The wing comes up well, a few steps, a brief lift-off, down again, more paces. Then the feet finally leave the ground. I’ve hardly wriggled back into the harness when I’m shaken about alarmingly. This is uncomfortable turbulence; the rotor from the ridge in front reaches this far back. Full concentration is required. In front of the edge all is quiet, and suddenly I’m going up: fast! The tourists on the plateau become tiny dots. As a trio we hang in the wide lift band in front of the Mönch knoll. Chrigel flies north east towards the Eiger and suddenly reappears 500 metres above us. He is way above the Mönch summit. Greg and I also make our way towards the Mönch and park our wings in the wind a hundred metres in front of its north face. We go up like a lift, get above the summit and head back to the Jungfrau.

Over there it’s even better. In no time at all we’re going up, three hundred metres in front of the summit wall. Soon we are far above the third highest mountain (4,158 m) in the Berner Alps. Below us are spread out numerous peaks blanketed in snow. We get used to the feeling of hanging stationary in the jetstream. The Jungfraujoch lies a thousand metres below, the fog-shrouded midlands ahead four thousand. On the horizon run the sweet little hillocks of the Jura.
We head across to the Eiger, take a look at the frosty north face. It’s child’s play to fly over the Eiger summit, back towards the Mönch. The sun’s low already, and we soar out again. Even five hundred metres in front the air climbs smoothly into the evening. It’s a trance-like feeling - overwhelmed by the experience and hardly able to believe our luck. This is the middle of January, the first flight of the year, and we have already achieved our greatest paragliding dream.