Switzerland June 9 - June 22

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

Switzerland June 2 - June 9

We drove from Italy to Switzerland over the Splugenpass which was a very long, dramatic climb and the view probably would have been outstanding but it was raining and clouded over, so you couldn't see much. We were hoping the sun would break out as soon as we hit Switzerland but that didn't happen for awhile. We picked up a map and started on our way to Appenzell, our first stop.

One of the first things you notice while driving is the stacks of fire wood everywhere. Where the Germans did it well and then in Austria it became and art form, here in Switzerland they took it to yet another level.

The town of Appenzell itself was a little too manicured and a lot too expensive for us so we stayed in Wasserauen in a Gasthaus outside of Appenzell right next to the Ebenalp lift. The restaurant wasn't open so we had dinner down the road at another Gasthaus that was traditional Swiss and the first place in Switzerland where we had Rosti with cheese and eggs, a classic!

The next day it was supposed to rain but we took a chance and went up the cable car to hike the mountains around the Ebenalp.

When we got off the lift, we hiked further up the mountain where after awhile we started to hit large sections of snow that we had to traverse to get back to the path. That was where Tom decided to do his Jamaican bobsled run without the sled. One minute, while Pat was trying to take his picture he was in the viewfinder of the camera and the next minute gone! Pat watched while Tom slid down the hill trying unsuccessfully to stop himself until, thankfully, he finally ran out of snow and came to an abrupt stop when he hit the grass and mud. What's that they say, "God protects drunks and fools", so after he climbed out and we washed some of the mud off his butt, we hiked to the next hut and had a beer.

Afterwards, we got really stupid. We're here to tell the story so; it's all good Mom(s). When we left the hut we were supposed to find the path that led part way down the mountain to the place we were staying that night. Instead, because we never found the "left hand turn" we just kept going straight along the ridge line. The path eventually turned into hand held cables fastened to a sheer rock face wall with the path only about 15" wide.










We started thinking we might be in the wrong place....

It continued along across avalanche zones with snowfields blocking the trail that we had to traverse.









At this point in time, the light should have gone off that we just shouldn't be here, especially after the bobsled run earlier. If we had any brains, we would have known we were in a bad place.

It was starting to get late, the weather was turning so we made the smart decision to turn around, except now we had to backtrack over those same areas. Only then did we really realize the severity of the poor choice we had made. To explain, if old "Bobsled Tom" decided to take another run, there would have been nothing there to stop him but a couple of rocks on the valley floor 6000 feet below!

Suffice it to say, we found out later the trail was closed.

Once arriving safely back at the cable car, our starting point, we continued our descent following the trail for about 1/2 a mile to the Berggasthous Aescher, the mountain hut where we planned on staying that night.


We picked the place based on a tiny picture we had seen of it in a book. The picture showed the hut just clinging to a mountain ledge with the sheer rock face of the mountain behind it and with unbelievable views of the valley below and the mountains above. To get to the Aescher, you first walk through a small opening in the mountain into a large cave which was lived in for hundreds of years by hermit Monks and as you exit the cave you pass an altar cave, a chapel, built by the monks into the side of the mountain.










Continuing along the ledge you come to a turn, and as you round that bend, 100 meters away is the Aescher,



just sitting on the edge of the cliff like the picture showed.

The back wall of the hut is actually the mountain wall itself.

We sat on the outside deck with a group of guys from Switzerland, Austria and Germany who gave us great ideas on other places to hike and stay in the area.

Once they left, we sat outside on the deck overlooking the valley before we went inside to set up our room which was a three bunk dorm that we had all to ourselves. We went down to dinner knowing we were the only ones staying at the Aescher that night. However, we met two other guys from Switzerland who had hiked up for the day and were having dinner before they left. These guys were a boatload of information about hiking the area and about Switzerland in general and after dinner we ended the night together with shots of Appenzeller, a locally made "tonic" made from 43 different herbs which is a cross between Sambuca, B&B and Robitussin. Good stuff! It's known throughout Switzerland and a picture of the Aescher is actually on the label.
Appenzeller is also known for its Appenzell cheese, some of the smelliest stuff we have come across in Switzerland except for the cows. The next morning was raining so we packed up, hiked back to the cable car to take it down to the valley floor and we started our drive to Lake Lucerne. Because we had already been to Lake Lucerne in the past we didn't want to stay in the main town of Lucerne itself. We drove around the lake trying to find a town with a rock in the lake that looked like an elephant.


This was the only landmark from a trip 20 years ago of a town that we remembered we wanted to go back to. We found it on the other side of the lake in a town called Weggis where we hooked up an apartment for the night at Grandma's house. The town was very nice, right on the lake and far away from the hubbub of Lucerne but the weather was still not cooperating. In the morning we had to decide if we were going to stay at Grandma's to wait out the weather in hopes the sun would appear. Instead we decided to leave Grandma and Grandpa, who were standing on the steps waving goodbye as all good grandparents do, and we headed towards the Alps. On the way out we stopped at the head of the lake at a town called Brunnen, did wash at the hostel and sat at a lakeside cafe for awhile. Lucerne is a beautiful lake, ice blue and ice cold, and we need to come back to the elephant when the weather is better.

We started our drive to Rosenlaui, a valley that one of the guys at the Aescher told us about, which we were able to add to the trip because we were ahead of schedule. We got most of the way there only to find out the Sustenpass, the pass we needed to cross was still closed because of snow and we had to take a detour around two other passes, the Furkapass and the Grimselpass. The weather was nasty and we were completely fogged in for most of the ride but once we were above the tree line,

Tom was able to get ice for the cooler, it's all good!
The snow beside the road in places was still over 20' high. We stayed that night on top of the Grimselpass in another small, old and strange Gasthaus where, once again, we were the only ones there. We stayed there in hopes that by morning the weather would clear and give us some nice views on the way down; it cleared a little but the visibility was still pretty poor. Once down, we drove through the town of Meiringen (the only fast internet in Switzerland), to the Rosenlaui which was a long drive up the mountain through a beautiful forested area. You entered the valley on a single road which runs parallel to the river for the entire ride.


The Rosenlaui Hotel itself is an incredible place. This was what we believed to be our splurge for Switzerland. It was originally built in 1909, not a typical Swiss chalet design, and there were additional sections added later on. Not having reservations we were lucky to get the last room in the corner of the hotel on the top floor. The big draw here, in addition to the location and the hikes in this beautiful valley, is the gourmet food; alpine buffet breakfasts and exceptional four course candlelit dinners all served with special touches provided by the couple that runs the place. Difficult when you are serving around 100 people. We checked in for two days, which in itself was a luxury, and ended up staying for three. We were able to do a number of hikes, including a hike through a gorge with many beautiful waterfalls, a hike to the Rosenlaui glacier and a hike to Reichenbach fall, which is were Sherlock Holmes was knocked off along with his nemesis Professor Moriarty, in the last book.



The valley itself is absolutely beautiful and the views from our window were spectacular. The river below us and the snow covered mountains kept you in awe. We are really thankful we met the guys at the Aescher, because this place was a find!