Solo Hiking Hardergrat

This intensive full-day hike was the "initiation hike" that kind of the kick-off to several more months of adrenaline.

Honestly, I was pretty nervous for this one. There are a million blog posts and hike logs about the Hardergrat and it is semi-notorious for how dangerous it is; while popular, it is not an "official" trail due to the high risk of serious injury and death. While it's not a very technical or confusing trail, it's dangerous because of the extremely steep dropoff on almost either side. The consequences for errors aren't just serious injury - it's death. I have little experience with dangerous hikes and certainly none by myself.

Standing on the ridge above Lake Brienz

(A tiny German lesson for the name. "Grat" is a mountain ridge and "kulm" is the top of a mountain... but just a small mountain. The taller and pointier mountains are called horns, like Matterhorn, Schilthorn, Augsmathorn, etc. So this hike is the 24km ridge/"grat" connecting Harder Kulm to Rothorn Kum, but on the way you cross over Augstmatthorn and a couple other peaks.)

1. The Planning

Up until the morning of, I'm still going back and forth on which direction to start from, what time to start, what all to bring along, whether to start at the top or hike the ascents/descents from the base, etc. 

Option 1: Start extremely early (like 4am) in the morning to start the hike from Interlaken and hike "the typical" direction from Harder Kulm to Rothorn Kulm, then take the train down to Brienz and back to Interlaken.

Option 2: Same as #1 but take the first funicular at 9am from Interlaken to Rothorn Kulm. Risk of missing the last train from Rothorn Kulm to Brienz or, even worse, still be hiking after it starts to get dark.

Option 3: Take the train from Interlaken to Brienz to catch the first steam train at 8.30am from Brienz to Brienzer Rothorn and the "reverse" direction from Rothorn Kulm to Harder Kulm. This cover the most dangerous/unofficial part of the trail at the beginning of the day before my legs are tired and, if I do end up getting stranded on the mountain at night or miss the last funicular down, I'd at least be walked in the direction of my hostel in Interlaken on an actual marked trail.

I go with Option 3. Why the hell is this supposedly the unusual option??

There are also one or two "exit points" along the trail if, worst case scenario, I'm not able to finish the whole thing. These are extremely steep downhill routes though, so let's hope it's not too difficult to just finish the thing.

At one point, the weather forecast looks like thunderstorms and I'm frustrated because of all the anticipation already built up. I determine to just bring an umbrella with me and barricade myself beside a rock if need be. My logic: "If I die, I die. I am NOT coming all the way here just to not even do the hike!"

(Luckily, there will be no rain so I won't have to test this excellent idea of standing atop an open mountain ridge in a thunderstorm desperately clutching what's basically a lightning rod.)

2. The Hike

In the morning, I take the regular train to Brienz in order to catch the 8:30 steam train up to Brienzer Rothorn. Reaching the top of Rothorn Kulm, I start to wander in the general direction of the trail. As it's not an "official" trail, there are no marked signs for it, resulting in many side trails as people have wandered around until they find it. Eventually, however, one solid trail begins to appear, and I realize there are several other small groups of hikers heading in the same direction. They'd (understandably) caught the same first train up to Brienzer Rothorn. This is reassuring; while it's not recommended to hike the Hardergrat alone, people hike the Hardergrat every day so it's unlikely you'll actually be alone.

View of the steam train at Rothorn Kulm.

The actual hike itself is probably the most spectacular hike I've ever done. Not only is it steep, scary, and loooong, but it's also stunning. The cloud cover to the north seems to stop as soon as it hits the ridge, resulting in an almost ethereal divide between the north and south sides of the ridge. There is a clear view of Lake Brienz and the mountains further to the south, such as Schynigge Platte, Eigher, Monc, and Jungfrau. Photos tell a better story of this hike than text though:

The stunning ridge of the Hardergrat blocking the clouds from passing

A hiking companion I found scoots his way down a very steep section.

There are also crosses marking the sites where people fell... (usually in the winter)

Standing on the Harder ridge

It's... steep.

Pretty sure the only reason there were no crosses in this section is because there's nowhere to put them.

I absolutely love the way the clouds just stopped on one side of the ridge.

The final peak to climb on this forever-ridge is Augstmatthorn. Having already trudged up and down multiple peaks along the ridge throughout the day, this final summit isn't pleasant. We grip the trail on all fours as the shale rock slides beneath us and we're too exhausted to catch ourselves. 

At some point during this exhausting sliding mess, someone notices the blue paint nearby. Blue paint! That means we've made it to an official trail! The last portion of the Hardergrat connecting Augstmatthorn to Harder Kulm is safe enough that the Swiss trail authorities (whoever they are) deemed it an official trail. This means it's regularly maintained, painted, and insurance will cover you if you injure yourself.

Reaching the peak of Augstmatthorn, there are suddenly more people around us. Harder Kulm is a major tourist attraction just outside of Interlaken and many people do the short official hike between Harder Kulm and Augstmatthorn. We stop for a while to take photos, before continuing down toward the treeline and finally Harder Kulm before 7pm. After 9 hours on the trail, we are ready to catch the funicular down to Interlaken, and onward to our hostels.

Stats from the final hike.

3. The Aftermath

If there's a God, I'm pretty sure her response to this was basically "OKAY okay wait, here, at least spend more time with a professional adrenaline junkie first." Because the evening after solo hiking (and successfully not dying on) the Hardergrat, I met up with Z for a drink to talk about the paragliding trip I'd asked to book with him for the following day. Z was a canyoning guide Skylar and I met back in March who'd recently gotten his tandem paragliding license as well. I'd messaged him to follow up on the paragliding since that was something I'd also wanted to try.

This was supposed to be the weekend of adrenaline, but then turned into several months of adrenaline. That paragliding flight turned into five, the train turned into Z's ever-moving van, one canyoning tour turned into 10, and a reckless dance with adrenaline addiction slightly brought under control... Slightly.