And then there's the big guys....The Eiger (13,380'), The Monch (13,475') and the Jungfrau (13,642'). All seen from the Lauterbrunnen Valley. We got there early and stayed late. From the minute you drive into the Valley, you're hooked. It's overwhelming just how beautiful it all is. The valley is made up of two towns, Lautenbrunnen at the beginning of the valley and Stechelberg at the end, which are both your classic milk and cheese Swiss towns complete with cows, cows, cows and goats. You stand in the valley and look up at countless waterfalls, mountain villages and alp houses and huts in awe. You are surrounded on both sides of the valley by immense peaks, the Schilthorn range on one side and the Eiger, the Monch and the Jungfrau on the other.
The first night we checked into a hotel in the valley so we could get our bearings and plan out what we were going to do the next day. When we found out the weather was good to go, we decided to pack our backpacks and head up into the mountains to spend a few days. Our plan was to take a cable car to the Schilthorn, which is one of the largest mountains at 10,000' and from there hike down passing through the village of Murren on our way to Gimmelwald where we planned to spend the night. For those of you who remember, or care, the Schilthorn is famous because one of the James Bond movies was filmed at the "Piz Gloria" restaurant and observation deck at the peak of the mountain. The restaurant revolves 360 degrees and on a clear day there are great views of the surrounding alps.
We were surprised to find the trail down was closed because of snow, and having learned our lesson in Appenzell, we almost paid attention. Instead, we met a group from Chicago and we all decided the trail was really open and out we went.
They were right, the trails were full of snow and after descending about one half mile, we noticed one of our Chicago friends came up with the bright idea of taking a shortcut by butt sliding down a section of the hike (we figured "Bobsled" would actually be good at this). Because their group had groomed the run before us, the track was really fast and we flew down and posted great times! This became a recurring theme and we were able to find three more runs that provided wet frozen butts before we left the snow behind. The rest of the hike was a steep descent through alpine meadows until about six hours later, in the late afternoon, we arrived at the village of Murren.
The sun was out full blast so we sat and had a beer before continuing our hike to the next village, Gimmelwald, where we were staying at the Hotel Mittaghorn.
The word "hotel" is an exaggeration for this place. It has double rooms with a pay shower in the room, the toilet down the hall and balconies that you may tempt fate standing on. But what a view! It's all better than good. It is owned and run by a grumpy 80 year old guy named Walter who is a retired chef from Swiss Air and quite a character. He puts together a great meal and he serves it up with a couple of glasses of his house wine.
In the morning over breakfast, we got info on a good hike for the next day and we started off to a hut further up the mountain called the Rotstockhutte.
The day started off beautiful and we walked through a section of forest and behind a huge waterfall called the Sprutz on our way to the really tough part of the hike, climbing up and over the Bryndli (nicknamed the Little Matterhorn). The climb up this section really sucked; it was just up, up and up and around every corner you just saw more up, up, and up!
Tom started having chest pains. He couldn't figure out if he was having a heart attack or had just pulled a muscle trying to get the wine cork out of a bottle with his new Swiss Army knife the previous night! We voted muscle pull and kept going. The good news is that it didn't start raining until after we reached the top but the final hour and a half was in the rain. We were starting to think at that point maybe we should have called to make sure the hut was open. Tom kept saying he didn't care, we weren't leaving anyway.
We got to the hut very wet, tired and cold and, surprise, surprise, we were the only ones there.
The hut was a cute, but bare bones, alpine hut; wood stove for heat, outhouses for bathrooms and dorm style rooms that were a little chilly. It was perfect. It had just been taken over by a young Swiss couple, Cornelia and Claudio, who were wonderful. The dinner was homemade soup and salad served with basic, traditional Swiss Alpenmacaroni. All four of us ate together telling stories while Claudio kept bringing out everything from Swiss cordials to a concoction he learned to make from his father that was boiled from needles from a Swiss evergreen mixed with sugar.
In the morning the rain had stopped, the skies opened up and we had spots of blue sky and sunshine.
We hiked down another side of the mountain, across a valley and a river, and ended up at this absolutely beautiful spot in the Sefinental valley with a small wood bridge over the river where you sat staring at this long, lacey waterfall cascading from above and the snow capped mountains.
We had a choice at that point; sit there for a couple of hours and really enjoy this wonderful spot, hike back down to one of the mountain villages and get a room for the night or cross the ravine and hike up this extremely steep mountain trail to another Gustoff we had picked out to stay. We of course, being idiots, chose the later....
The good weather stayed with us again for most of the day except for the last hour and a half when it started to get windy, cold and rainy so it felt good when we finally reached The Obersteinberg after hiking for 8 hours. This combined with the hike to the Rotstuckhutte the day before really kicked our asses, but it felt good.
The big thing about this Gustoff was the huge waterfall you viewed right from the deck, it truly was huge, which we really couldn't really appreciate because of the rain.
The good news is that, once again, in the morning the rain had stopped; instead it was snowing. Vicky, the owner, invited us to come to the barn and watch her husband make cheese. As tempting as it was....., we declined. Preparing to face the elements, we geared up with rain jackets and pack covers, this time adding hats and gloves, and headed down. After only about an hour, the sun was out, the rain gear came off and the views were exceptional.
Because it was supposed to rain the next few days, we hiked all the way back to the valley to Stechelberg and hooked up an apartment, the Rosli, for two days. We figured if the weather was not going to cooperate, we could do wash and the internet and just rest. The apartment was good and because the next day the weather was good, we bagged doing the responsible thing and took a day hike to the Kilchbalm glacier. To get there we knew we had to pass by the Sefinental valley so we brought a picnic lunch with us planning to spend some time there after the glacier.
The area approaching the glacier was actually more special than the glacier itself.
It was very cathedral like, extremely quiet and serene.
We had lunch, read a little and planned on hiking back to the Sefinental. When we got there it was drizzling, so we just sat there under a tree finishing our wine and recalling moments. On our way back down to the valley we stopped in Gimmelwald at the Youth Hostel, had pizza for dinner and headed back to our apartment.
The next day the weather delivered the rain on and off all day as promised so we did the responsible thing and did wash and the blog and generally had a completely down day. Unfortunately, the next few days were the same so we kept the apartment, did day trips, read, cooked dinner a few nights and worked on recovering.
Tuesday morning came and it was time to leave the Rosli, we were headed back up into the mountains on the Jungfrau side of the valley for a few days. We left the car at the train station and took the cog train up to a village called Wengen where we caught the gondola to Mannlichin. When we got there they told us the Panorama trail, the trail we had planned to hike partway down was closed due to avalanches so we had to pick a different path on the fly.
We decided to hike to a hamlet called Alpiglen, take a cog train back to a village in a different valley called Grindelwald and then hike up to a gondola station called First where there was a Berghouse we could stay for the night. It sounded good, worked out not so good and ended up terrific. We got to Grinelwald fine and started our hike. This one was also really tough but just not a great hike so it wasn't worth how hard it was. First stop, Bort. When we got there we were tired and decided to just spend the night there and not hike the rest of the way to First.
Little did we know, while sitting on the deck having a beer, that 1) the Berghouse there had yet to open to guests, that 2) the people at Bort thought that the Berghouse at First was not yet open to guests and 3) the gondola back to Grindelwald stopped running five minutes ago. This meant we had to hike back down! It was one of the only moments on this trip we would actually like to forget! But then comes the "ended up terrific" part.
After barely making it to Grindelwald and walking the town looking for a place to stay, we found this place to stay called the Naturfreundehaus which was basically a hostel for adults. Basic rooms in a beautiful Swiss setting set in the mountain with great guests and great hosts. We fell into this place like putting on a pair of slippers and immeditately decided to stay two nights. The next day, Verona, recommended a hike, that we will never forget. We took the bus from Grindelwald to the Grosse Scheidegg at the top of a mountain peak and hiked down from there along a ridge with the panarama of the Wetterhorn, the Eiger, the Monch and the Jungfrau mountains changing at every turn along the trail. It was so clear we could even see down the mountain range to the Rosenlaui valley and the mountains we had hiked before coming here. We continued to the Bachalpsee which are two small lakes, past meadows and waterfalls and back down to the Naturfreundehaus for the night. It was unbelievable!
Now we had a decision to make. We were supposed to leave the mountains and go to a different area in Switzerland. Should we go or should we stay.......Decided to stay!
We had one last full day in Switzerland, the weather was supposed to be good, it turned out perfect, and we decided to try and make it a memorable one. For us, we did. We got up early in the morning, had breakfast at the Naturfreundehaus, said goodbye to our new friend Verona and started our day:
7:45 Breakfast
8:30 Packed our backpacks and walked down to Grindelwald
9:00 Booked simultaneous tandem paragliding flights off of First at 7113'
10:00 Met the pilots at the gondola lift to First and proceeded up the mountain
10:35 Walked to the takeoff point, put on harnesses and received instructions
10:50 Pat ran off the mountain
10:51 Tom ran off the mountain
10:52 We were both FLYING! over the Alps on a perfectly clear day, mind boggling!
11:15 Tom landed
11:16 Pat landed
What an absolutely great experience. Our flights lasted 25 minutes during which we soared around each other and the mountains all the way to the valley floor. Tom just kept clicking away with his camera and got both great shots and videos. This one definitely makes the highlight reels of the trip!
Afterwards, we took the Mannalichen gondola, the longest one in Europe, hiked the Panorama trail which was cleared from the earlier avalanches and then took the train back to our valley, the Lauterbrunnen. For our last night in Switzerland, Tom had a fantasy and Pat decided to make it come true. We hiked up the Schilthorn from Murren to the Berghouse Sonnenberg, had dinner cooked by crazy Steve from Calif and continued up the mountain for another hour so we could camp for the night on the Muttlerenheren.
We pitched our tent on the sheer face ridge overlooking the entire valley directly facing the three big guys, the Eiger, the Monch and the Jungfrau.
We opened a bottle of wine, lit a candle, the sun was setting highlighting the peaks and together we toasted our time spent in the Alps.
What a great way to end our time in Switzerland!!!!
Best of Switzerland;
The Alps, the Alps, the Alps
sleeping on the Muttlerenheren
running off a mountain and flying in the Alps
walking the ridge in the Ebenalp
the Aescher and the Rosenlaui Hotel
the Lautenbrunnen Valley
Rosti's
the hiking
the Eiger, the Monch and the Jungfrau
