Sat 14th – (filling in the gap between our 2 visits to Piz Gloria / Schilthorn from previous post )
It’s hard to say with any certainty how long this hike was , over to Burglauenen from Wengen – maybe somewhere round 10 miles ? Because, a short way into it, the GPS on my phone went potty ( a solid-state/ software version of Bits Dropping Off ?) and kept claiming we were way north of our real position. At the time, I thought this was due to us being on the north side of a very steep cliff wall, which might have blocked line of sight to satellites …. But if so, why did this persist once we were back in open territory?
( Answers welcome below, if you have any cunning ideas , please ! I eventually fixed it by finding an app to reset GPS data in the phone, but that doesn’t explain why it happened..)
Anyway, we got the usual cracking views , this time over both our valley and that of Grindelwald, as we crossed over at Männlichen, a ridge which separates the 2 valleys.
The abundance of stunning views had not prevented some poor planning of scenic rest stops, mind you –
We finished up by passing below that famous old North Face of the Eiger again. It made me think about re-imagining an old Ray Harryhausen classic , the one about the search for the golden fleece , and setting it here , with a heroic modern leading man replacing Jason …..
Oh, dear. Oh dear, oh dear.
I would be surprised if hikers of both your renowned standing didn’t always carry a silva compass and know how to use it properly from pre-GPS days, for when the GPS went AWOL? Becoming very much a serious issue in the commercial airline world, with area wide GPS jamming in certain regions now. P.S. Those views are fantastic!
You don’t know how to fix it, then ..😉. NB my old Silva compass is bust, but there is a magnetic compass on the phone too, independent of GPS. I just like to be able to track time and distance as we go.