As morning commutes go, this one wins. As I glide noiselessly above a Christmas card scene of spruce forest, log chalets and a smooth blanket of fresh snow, Eiger feels close enough to slam into should the wind suddenly change. The first sun is creeping down its North Face. Though a shade off the magic 4,000-metre mark at 3,967m, this Swiss mountain is a beast: feared and revered for its vertical wall of rock and ice that has broken many a rock climber’s rope and soul.
That you can reach the mountain at all is a wonder. That you can now whizz up there on a tri-cable gondola in just 15 minutes from Grindelwald is a stroke of Swiss genius. When the Eiger Express opened in December 2020, it carved 47 minutes off the journey to Europe’s highest railway station, Jungfraujoch, with an elevation of 3,454m. It set a precedent for ecofriendly mountain transport. The Eiger Express uses its wheels to generate green power and has its own heat recovery system. The landscape is pristine and the aim is to keep it that way.
