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Patches of dense fog are wafting around the village this morning and there is no sun. At 9.40 we set out on foot to Belalp, starting by going up the road to Rischinen and Egga. The latter place is reached after an hour of negotiating a hair-pin festooned road. It is very damp and at Egga, alt. 5400 ft, is only just below the cloudbase. Quite a few snails on the move as well. We walk through Egga and c ommence the serious ascent, into the fog and into the woods. Nothing is to be seen, partly due to the cloud we are in, and partly due to the fact we're in a forest. The humidity condensates on cobwebs. We finally get ourselves up to Belalp at 12.45pm. The fog is very dense, with visibility at 30 metres, decreasing to 10 metres as we approach the top station of the cable car. Just before we got to Belalp though, the clouds broke and we had a clear view of the Belalp Hotel and nearby houses. We did not see the cable car station until we almost ran into the edifice. The fog then began to rain out as we waited for the 1.20 cable car. The engineer had to sell us our tickets. On descending to Blatten, we pop out of the cloud and visibility extends to Brig, 5 miles away to the south. In Blatten, the temperature is 16C, 4 degrees warmer than up on Belalp. After dinner, we venture out onto the Massaweg track. It heads steeply up and equally steeply down, below precipitous rockfaces. Hairy. This is shown as the yellow track on the map above. We end up a few hundred yards south of the Gebidum barrier, and could have gone down the valley towards Ried-Mörel and Bitsch. We returned to Blatten at 9pm.
Egga
Fog in the forest
Cobwebs
Fog on Belalp
Outside the Belalp cable car terminal
On the Massaweg
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