Our penultimate day, one to savor. The 15-day hike was our anniversary gift to ourselves: one day of hiking for every two years of marriage, both a blur with memorable highpoints marking the distance.
S was enthusiastic about the mountains and glaciers that awaited: the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau and their massive fields of ice and snow.
First pass: Grosse Scheidegg.
First we had to pass the Wetterhorn, with the brilliant Rosenlaui glacier in its saddle.
Whence we came. Grosse Scheidegg is popular among bicyclists, who bike up on the road with switchbacks, while the hikers cut across on trails.
These rocks had lots of color and millions of years of geological history in them...
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| Common bistort. Thanks, iNaturalist. |
Just below Grosse Scheidegg, we overheard two bicyclists who had paused next to a pond. They were speaking English, and we struck up a conversation. One of them was disappointed to hear we were stopping in Lauterbrunnen. "Two more days! Keep going for two more days--that's when you'll see the really good views." When we told him we were trying to decide where to hike next year and that we might start in Lauterbrunnen, he recommended continuing through to Montreaux and Lausanne and hooking up with the Via Francigena, which could take us all the way to Rome. We added that to our to-ponder list.
Shortly thereafter, we reached the pass at Grosse Scheidegg and had our first good view of what we're pretty sure were the Eiger and Jungfrau, with a mostly hidden Mönch.
We headed down toward the valley and Grindelwald.
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| Note the waterfall flowing down the side of the middle- ground slope (I assume still part of the Wetterhörner massif) |
S biked through here in July 2018 and took a photograph of his backpack leaning against this water trough, so we decided to make it a habit: every time we walk or bike past this trough, we'll photograph our backpacks in front of it.
As we neared Grindelwald and the mountains came into closer view, I was fascinated by the lenticular clouds that formed at the summits. Air flows by and is pushed upward by the peak; this cools the air and, if the air has sufficient moisture content, causes water vapor to condense out.
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| Dozens of paragliders were in the air, already condensed... |
Cloud stripes! The interwebs suggest these are formed by eddy currents between condensation layers. (For the physics behind this, google Kelvin-Helmholtz instability.)
The paragliders were landing in a field above Grindelwald, and did spirals and loop-de-loops to lose altitude.
Walk walkity walk walk. For the first time, we encountered a steady stream of other tourists. Thinking back to the absence of other hikers at Alp Grat, we wondered if hiking season had finally begun, or if we had finally reached a more popular section of the Via Alpina. When we finally entered town, we found it overrun with tourists--to which, of course, we also contributed. We had a quick and tasty pizza for lunch, the envy of the zillions of black flies that we had come to expect anywhere that food and the outdoors met in Switzerland, then headed to the gondola lift for almost four miles and 4,200 feet elevation gain of additional immersion therapy--a real splurge to fold into "point-to-point" hiking, but I promise it was very disconcerting even if the non-acrophobe said it wasn't.
I opened my eyes long enough to take a quick photo of the Jungfrau.
We arrived at Männlichen Bergstation (7,300'), where instead of chewing cud, this slide-for-a-tongue cow chewed kids.
We paused to check out the view of the next valley, Lauterbrunnental, and saw the Jungfrau to the south. This was the best view we would have of it that day, as clouds had surrounded it by the time it was in our line of sight again.
Whence we came: looking back at Grindelwald.
We and dozens of other tourists hiked from Männlichen toward Kleine Scheidegg on a wide, tourist-friendly trail. Sure, if you wanted to plunge over the edge, you could, but you'd have to work at it. If the Via Alpina had taught us anything, it's that plunging is something you do in private, not in popular places where "children could be watching."
The views were stunning, as were the wildflowers too numerous to photograph. We saw more houseleeks, smaller than those growing on the Tannalp but just as difficult to photograph in focus.
After thinking we had finally found a place where tourists would be, we discovered we once again were the only guests at our lodging for the night, the Berghaus Grindelwaldblick.
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| Room with a view |
In 2014, when S and I needed a new bathroom towel rack, we made one ourselves out of faucets and pipe fittings--pretty darn cute. Next time, we'll take inspiration from this one in our room at Grindelwaldblick.
After dinner--during which we read about the strong safety record of Seilbahnen and how when things go awry, they sometimes go catastrophically awry--we headed outside in search of Alpenglühen, and found it.
Ta da! 11.6 miles, 1,950' ascent, 4,050' descent.
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| The long straight line is the gondola lift (as the crow flies-- the lift shifted southward a bit at a middle station) |
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| Lift miles not included, but the elevation difference is impressive |
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