The rain didn't get any heavier and, after drizzling a bit, stopped altogether. The wind, meanwhile, was picking up. It got seriously chilly. We bundled up. For those who haven't gone hiking: if you're dressed warmly, when you're stomping up a mountain, you start to sweat and soak your clothes with moisture. If you're dressed lightly, the wind cuts through and bites, and during stops it gets really uncomfortable really fast.
And there were stops, because I kept asking Garik to walk slower. Luckily, he listened, even though I had to whine every 10 minutes. I cursed the damn mountain, but methodically made my way up, albeit in snail-style. I personally don't like it when people seriously whine on hikes for no good reason, but doing it jokingly is fine. A joke, as we know, helps us work and live.
On the way, an important question came up: where was this highly advertised glacier? Having hiked up half the route, we'd only seen a tiny sliver of it. Even that was beautiful, but we wanted grandeur and scale! Garik just couldn't remember where he and Ulya had walked last time. There was a real chance that we'd gone the wrong way and wouldn't really see Aletsch properly. Bummer.
And so, with the finish line close, we rounded the last rock. In front of us was the cable car station, to the right was Eggishorn peak, and between them, in all its glory, the Aletsch Glacier. This sight is inspiring, and Ulya's praises for the glacier were justified. It is truly magnificent. From the Eggishorn viewpoint you can see its paw, and the glacier itself is huge, stretching for twenty kilometers, with an area of almost a hundred.
Garik and I couldn't resist and ran up to the actual Eggishorn peak, about 3 km high. It's not far from the cable car station, and the trail there is more or less accessible. On the way, we met some gals speaking Russian. At first I thought one of the girls was Kazakh, judging by her looks and a tracksuit from an expensive, albeit mainstream, brand. Figured she was some oil tycoon's daughter. We got to talking, and it turned out the girls were from Ukraine, but had been living in Switzerland for some time. Anastasia turned out to be chatty and told me all sorts of useful stuff about local hiking. She seemed to be at the glacier for the first time, just like me, and when we were riding down in the gondola, we exchanged funny winks out of overwhelming positive emotions.
What else we did at the summit, you'll find out in the next episode.
