Ebenflux (Axalp Shooting Range, Switzerland) 2007
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After a quick visit to Emmen, my cousin Arnold and I went to Brienz (at the foot of the Axalp mountain) on tuesday. After a recon. drive that afternoon we changed our timetable for the next day and decided to set the alarm clock at 03.00 hrs.
Wednesday morning 03:15 we 'finally' dragged ourselves out of bed and had a heavy but quick breakfast. We drove our car to Axalp village (at 1.500 meters altitude). From there the adventure would start as we had read in reports at several Internet sites. Since we were one of the first ones up there we decided to follow some French guys who gave the impression that they knew where they were going. After a couple of minutes we couldn't find any flags that marked the path and decided to walk back to the car and start overnew. We let the French go they own way, but we didn't had a good feeling about it. We found the right path again and walked towards the start of the valley. As we saw the lights of the French getting smaller and smaller, we continued our chosen track and walk for about half an hour untill the flags suddenly dissapeared. Damn! You really don't want to get lost at 05.00 in the morning when it is freezing cold and pitch black in the mountains. After a few minutes of walking around we saw a little bit of light from our down right side. We decided to walk in a straight line downwards to meet the ´the light´. Some time later we met Sigfried and his 5 German friends. Sigfried had walked up the mountain seven times before, so we follwed him with confidence.
The ´path´ was not as difficult as expected until the last part. Around 06.10 we were at 2.010 meters. Although the last part was very steep, we didn´t have much trouble to get at the top. Finally we reached 2.250 meters above sea lever at around 06.40 which means it took us only 2 hours to get there.
We changed out clothes in the little house on top of the mountain and had a nice cup of tea. We were glad to make out backpacks a little lighter this way. Around 07.15 the first sunlight created a silouet of the mountains and dew. Just beautiful!
Just after sunrise the first helicopters flew in from Meiringen (down in the valley) and a bit later the first F/A-18 Hornets flew in from the West and dropped some flares. Just a good start of the day. When hell broke lose! The Hornets kept flying in between the ridges and didn't stop shooting at the targets. This was our first live shooting experience and believe me: IT'S AWESOME!!! Unfortunately large clouds of fog were pushed up against the mountain which lowered the visibility and light, but nevertheless it was a great opening of the day.
In contrast to last year the F-18's only did one shooting practice so we had to wait until 14.00 to see the flying demonstration. We had a good talk with a few of the other spotters and enjoyed the sun and some bratwurst. The demo started with the Cougar dropping over a hundres flares. Nice action, but just after 30 minutes the F-5E's had to cancel their performance as clouds suddenly came over the East ridge of the Ebenfluh shooting range. Within 3 minutes the show was cancelled and everybody went down to Axalp. Very very sad, but it was just not safe to fly anymore. Hopefully it's better next year...