Hiking tour in Switzerland

Sunday, September 3, to Grindelwald

I have condensation inside my watch crystal. This probably means it will corrode and die. I don’t much like this watch, but now isn’t a very convenient time for it to act up. Maybe it will hang in there until next week…

Cool and clear. Last night’s TV showed storms over all of central Europe. We hope the forecast is wrong, at least in our tiny patch of central Europe. Took the BOB train (Berner Oberlander Bahn) to Interlaken along with the other folks on the tour. Not sure how many there are, as yet. Tourists and locals, small cars, short train. Feels friendly.

Nice views of Thunersee. And from Interlaken, spectacular views from the north shore of Brienzersee. Our first real Alps – white wedges above the green of the foothill peaks. A waterfall gushing from a gorge that came halfway down a cliff.

At Meiringen we changed to the PTT bus for the ride to Rosenlaui. I have read about the three-tone horn on these busses, didn’t really understand what or why. Well, the what is a little three-note tune – they don’t sound all three tones in a single chord; the why is that a single tone could be lost in the vagaries of the mountain acoustics. And the real why is that the bus needs the entire width of the road; especially in the blind hairpins, he needs to make sure anyone coming the opposite direction finds a pull-out. A difficult road: glad the driver is a pro.

At Rosenlaui is a so-called Schlucht, recommended for the seeing. From the description, we suspected it was what the Germans would call a Klamm, and it is. Had we never seen a Klamm before, it would have been pretty impressive, but after the two near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, well… it was okay. We got some almond tortes from the little shop at the Schlucht, and set off.

Today’s hike crosses Große Scheidegg pass – the one on my bicycle poster. Unfortunately, a fairly cloudy day. Cool is nice, but it’s a shame not to see more of the high mountains. Ate our munchies at Schwarzwaldalp, where the trail left the road.

This is Wetterhorn from some distance.

We kept crossing the road back and forth as we climbed to the pass. Mixed sun and cloud, warm going uphill. Jacky even got down to tee shirt for a while, but as we approached the pass, a cold strong wind got us both back into jackets.

The pass was right at the snow line; a little fresh, wet, soft snow, but not much. Surprising how fast the weather improved once we started down the west side and got out of the direct wind.

This is the view my poster shows, just east of the pass itself. The mountain is Wetterhorn. Too bad the upper third is hidden by cloud.

We heard several rockslides over the course of the day, but this was a big one. At first we weren’t sure whether what we saw here was a slide or a waterfall, but big chunks of stuff flew out into space, and after everything was over, there was not even a trickle down the cliff, just a fresh black stain on the snow below. Not sure whether it was a glacial snowslide from above, or a rockslide – couldn’t see over the top. Impressive. Glad we weren't under it.

In her German class, Jacky learned the word Sauschön, pretty-as-a-pig, which can be applied as slang to any situation. The high meadows are home to a lot of cows, but we also saw a handful of pigs today. Sauschön, and no slang. There were signs on a few of the farms advertising Ziegenkäse, but we saw no Ziegen. Sounds like a good idea for lunch one of these days.

These mountains are limestone, true, but marble is also mentioned in the paperwork, and we saw a lot of slate. The trail descends along a knife-edge, or hogsback, of slate, very steep on both sides. To the right, a vigorous stream. We could see the Seilbahn to First off that-a-way – pretty country.

No doubt whether this is a glacier or not! It wasn't the only one we saw.

Grindelwald is a large town – geographically. As we came into town, we met the guided tour group, two guys plus the guide (it turned out there were four in the guided group; don’t know where the other two were). All of us staying at the same hotel, he invited us to walk with them. Paved roads, steep descent, and our feet took a pounding trying to keep up with them for a walk that turned out to be an hour, further than we had anticipated.

Cold, gusty wind, black clouds going over, a little rain. Glad we’re not still up in the high country. The Alfa is again a Minotel – turned out all the hotels except the one at Griesalp were Minotels. Bare bones, but fine. We only wish they had one bed in the room, a little larger, instead of two side-by-side with a gap we have to bridge to keep warm and friendly.

Our room had a balcony overlooking the Seilbahn that goes toward Wengen. The halb-pension menu was pup-dog stew. What!? Well, how would you translate Kaninchenragout? (It’s actually rabbit, but the idea of pup-dog stew is much more fun!) It was fine, but too salty.

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