Rorschach to Lauterbrunnen - Day 15 - Kleine Scheidegg to Gündlischwand

Saturday July 12, Kleine Scheidegg to Lauterbrunnen to Gündlischwand

We went to bed on Friday knowing that while our sunset view had been somewhat obscured by clouds, the sky at sunrise was forecast to be completely cloudless.

Whence we came:  

Looking west at a setting just-past-full moon:

Wee clouds sprouting above the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau. Given that the lenticular clouds over the Jungfrau always looked slightly behind the peak, we assumed the summit was actually out of view. The sunlit triangular peak top to the right is the Silberhorn.

Nebelmeerish over Grindelwald in the Lütschinenthal, more haze than cloud: 

Morning greetings from our shadows:

Zooming in on what we're pretty sure is the train station on the Jungfrau Joch (11,362 feet):

The Jungfrau Joch is a popular and heavily-advertised tourist destination  

Having been the only Friday night guests at Gletscherblick, we (and the black flies) were the only ones eating breakfast Saturday morning. I asked our host if we had somehow miscalculated the start of tourist season, and she said nah, the number of guests just fluctuates sometimes. Given the number of day hikers we had seen on Friday, we assume most of their business is through the Gasthaus restaurant.  

It was our last day of hiking, with ~4,900' to descend. The pass, Kleine Scheidegg, was a little below the Gasthaus. There's a hotel, and a bustling train station, with some cog trains heading between Grindelwald and Lauterbunnen, and others heading up to the Jungfrau Joch. We crossed the train tracks and started our descent. Once we were past the hubbub and buildings, Carly posed for a photo.

Our route more or less followed the cog-train route down to Lauterbrunnen.

Lenticular clouds were doing crazy things atop the Mönch. 

A slate roof made of naturally irregularly shaped tiles:

Felix Mendelssohn hiked here. The Mendelssohnweg takes hikers all the way down to Wengen, above Lauterbrunnen, but we followed the Lauberhornrennen route instead. Signage along the latter trail wrote of skiiers zipping down the mountain at speeds approaching 100km/hr. That sounds insane to me, but only one skiier, Gernot Reinstadler, has ever died on the route, during a qualifying run.

You can spend 1 hour and 20 minutes heading down to Wengen, or if you prefer to head away from Wengen, 1 hour and 50 minutes. 

At some point on the hike, it occurred to me that the only way The Little Engine That Could could have made it over the steep mountain was if it had been a cog train, something the book failed to depict.

1930 1st edition. No cogs. I feel misled.

After several miles, I thought I was getting a blister on one of my toes, despite my having stopped multiple times to tighten my shoelaces so my toes wouldn't slide forward as we hiked down. I finally sat down and took off my hiking boot, thinking I'd put on some moleskin. When I peeled off my sock, there was no blister, just a nice bloody cut caused by an adjacent toenail. This taught me (1) to be glad this happened on the last day instead of the first, and (2) to remember to trim nails, since 15 days is a long time. I put a band-aid over it and changed into sneakers, and my toes were happy for the rest of the hike.

iNaturalist couldn't identify these flowers.

Almost down: Wengen is situated about 1,500' above Lauterbrunnen.

Many of the chalets in Wengen have names. This one is named Ameise ("Ants"). 

At last, there it is, Lauterbrunnen. The famous waterfall to the right is the Staubbachfall, but if you look closely at the photo, you might see a few more; there are some 72 waterfalls in the Lauterbrunnental.

We had time to either explore Lauterbrunnen or to head further down the valley. Given the density of tourists, we decided to swing by a grocery store for snacks, then followed the Weisse Lütschine river for another three miles to Gündlischwand, the next stop on the train line. We knew we had arrived when a sign told us so. We hopped on a train--the first of five that day--to start our 7-hour trip home.

Here we are!

Ta da! 9.6 miles, 85' ascent, 4,956' descent.

Rorschach to Lauterbrunnen - Day 14 - Schwarzwaldalp to Kleine Scheidegg

Friday July 11, Schwarzwaldalp to Kleine Scheidegg

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...

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

The long straight line is the gondola lift (as the crow flies--
the lift shifted southward a bit at a middle station)

Lift miles not included, but the elevation difference is impressive