My Summer in the Alps, 1913

I had not been in the Alps since 1905. In the interval I had visited some of the splendid mountainous regions of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, but on horseback and not for the purpose of climbing. And now that an opportunity presented itself to return to Switzerland and again indulge my taste for mountaineering, I seized it with avidity, for the sport continued to appeal to me as strongly as ever. I can truly say that there is no pastime from which, during many years, I have derived such enjoyment as I have from climbing in the Alps.

Since I was last in Switzerland the long projected Jungfrau Railroad had become an accomplished fact as far as a point known as the Jungfraujoch, and curiosity now impelled me to seek first hand knowledge as to what it had to offer. Leaving Grindelwald early on the morning of July 30, I walked up to the Little Scheidegg in two and one-half hours and there took the train which, in a little more than an hour, carried me through a long tunnel to the Jungfraujoch. Here of a sudden one finds one's self several thousand feet above the line of perpetual snow in the very heart of some of the best snow and ice scenery of the Bernese Oberland, and at a point where even the novice can, in good weather, roam safely over several large surfaces of snow adjoining the station. To reach such a spot in such a manner was strange indeed to one accustomed to do so only through hard climbing. It is a splendid thing that those who cannot or do not care to climb, and yet have a taste for such scenery, are thus enabled to gratify it, and I cannot too strongly urge all who are not disagreeably affected by the air of high altitudes to take this small journey and witness at ease glorious phases of nature which do not exist below the snow line.