For this year's Berner Oberland tour we were joined by Marcus and Diana Collie of Dublin, Paul Nordquist from San Francisco, and Kurt Hoppe from Colorado, as well as Rich Enthoven and Mick Peatfield, who had originally intended to do the Haute Route via the Plateau du Couloir but had been unable to arrive in time because of the volcano eruption.

Leaving the Jungfraujoch train station, we are from left to right: Diana, Mick, Marcus, Paul, Kathy, Kurt and Rich.

We met up on our first night in Interlaken, at the friendly and attractive Hotel Post Hardermannli.

The next morning dawned unexpectedly nice (the forecast was awful throughout the Alps), so we had lovely views from the train as we headed up the Lauterbrunnen valley.

New snow at Kleine Scheidegg! Winter is back!

A view of the Eiger as we pass the historic Hotel Bellevue.

The snow was great on our descent of the Jungfrau firn, just a little too much of it!

Arriving in the Hollandia hut after a squally walk.

The weather was even worse the next morning, forcing us to give up hopes of a peak ascent and GPS navigate straight to the Konkordia hut.

A regular blizzard on the stairs the next day as we started out for our trip over to the Finsteraarhorn hut; another GPS day! Thank you, Department of Defense!

At last we get a break; the morning of our lay-over day in the Finsteraarhorn hut was fine, so we zipped up the Gross Wannenhorn while the visibility allowed.

So nice to see what's around us! The Finsteraarhorn in the background, with the Agassizhorn beside.

Rich approaches the summit.

Rich and Mich tagging the narrow top of the Gross Wannenhorn.

Back at the ranch, the weather again moved in.

Our day travelling to the Oberaarjoch hut was the soupiest yet! Mark is lost in the fog. Good thing we have a rope on him!

The hutkeeper, Kurt, told us he shoveled for hours to prepare the entry tunnel and path for our arrival. Thank you!

And he can cook, too!

Kurt takes a break to chat before preparing our dinner.

Our last evening on the road together...

Our last day dawned rather more auspiciously with at least some visibility. We leave the hut...

Down the ladder and back to our skis.

We climbed up over the Galmilucke in thick new snow.

On the crest, we're able to put the skis back on for a short but steep descent down the back side.

Beautiful snow awaits, with still-decent visibility, at least at first.

Near the bottom of our long, southward run, we begin to hit pretty sloppy conditions just before running out of snow altogether.

At last it's off with the skis for about 700 meters of trail walking down to Munster.

We descend into springtime in the quiet village.

Another effort rewarded....

 .... then a scenic train ride back toward Interlaken.

Some of the sights alone the way. We draw in deep breaths of spring-scented air after our week in the sensory deprivation of stormy weather in the mineral zone.

Back in the "flesh pots" of Interlaken, it's time to take our leave of winter for this year.