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Pocket Switzerland

Jungfrau

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Summit · cantons of Bern and Valais · 4158 m

With the Eiger and the Mönch, the Bernese trio. Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe.

From the basket

Among the peaks of the Oberland chain, none is visible from farther off than the Jungfrau. It towers over the Lauterbrunnen valley, the Grindelwald valley and, much lower down, Lake Thun. From the balloon its north face is an immense wall of white and grey, topped by a dome of snow that is still glowing long after the valleys have fallen into shade.

Beside its two neighbours, the Eiger and the Mönch, it forms a picture in three panels: three north faces side by side, which you can take in at a single glance as you fly over the Kleine Scheidegg. Between it and the Mönch lies the Jungfraujoch pass, at more than three thousand four hundred metres. Since 1912 a rack railway has led up to it, after crossing the Eiger and the Mönch through solid rock.

Pass the ridge and the scene tips into a world of ice. Southwards, the snowfields of the Jungfrau flow down towards the Aletsch Glacier, the longest in the Alps. Since 2001 this whole group of peaks, glaciers and valleys has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site, under the name Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch.

The name means “young woman”, and it is often rendered as “maiden”. It was first climbed in 1811, by two brothers from Aarau, Johann Rudolf and Hieronymus Meyer: the massif is so vast that they needed three days to reach the top.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Jungfrau”; Alphonse Daudet, “Tartarin sur les Alpes” (1885, in French).

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