The sun came out this morning and the clouds were early breaking up. The summits were still too socked in, so we decided to hike lower today and hope for really clear weather tomorrow.
After a quick breakfast of coffee and pastry we headed down the little path, or "wanderweg" in front of our apartment.
We hiked about a mile, and 1000 feet down from our town, Mürren, to Gimmelwald, an even smaller town. Our towns are connected by the lift and trails. We hiked past the waterfall gushing over the edge of the cliff right below us, down through fields of queen-ann's lace and wildflowers, below the gondola towers, past fields of hay and goats with clanking bells, past the snow stabilizers and avalanche barriers.
The snow is heavy, the glaciers dirty above the yellow and grey slab cliffs on the Jungfrau, the dominant peak here, with the Breithorn and Tschingelhorn up valley. The Mönch is still clouded in, and the Eiger is behind a ridge.
"Schönes Morgan" we pass a guy sharpening his scythe with a stone, the steel blade ringing; a husband uses a small hand mower to cut his field as his wife turns the last cutting with a wooden pitchfork. We pass hayricks, barns with fresh cheese, milk, eggs and vegetable for sale, more cute houses and cords and cords of neatly stacked firewood, with sheets of corrugated tin over them. The constant sounds: the clanking (not tinkling) bells on the goats, the loud rush of the rivers, the birds. I catch a great view of the Eiger as it roars around the side of a lower peak which had been hiding it. The cliffs plunge dramatically, and in every direction the white peaks lord over it all. The trails end in little Gimmelwald, so we have to take a cable car over the cliffs down to Stechelberg. We walked the three miles along the river between Stechelberg and Lauterbrunnen, amazed at the ribbons of water pouring over the lip of the cliff above; fine lines of white water blown sideways to form a mist, a disappearing wisp of a waterfall. It is hot here in the flowery meadow in this narrow valley, and I want to just lie back in the grass watching the BASE jumpers in their wingsuits fling themselves over the edge, the paragliders drifting easily, circling down, down. We get to Trümmelbachfälle, a huge waterfall corkscrewing right through the rock inside the mountain, draining the glaciers on the three peaks above. We literally take a funicular right up inside the mountain and hike paths cut through the rock to see the falls.
By the time we make it to Lauterbrunnen the clouds are once again obscuring the high peaks, so we change our plans again. You just have to flexible in this weather. We find a little bar running a special, all you can eat BBQ for $23CHF, so Gail fills up on the $4 mini salad while I chow down on at least $50 worth of ribs and hefeweizen. You know, the views here are just over-the-top spectacular; even sitting in a café, the green mountainsides going up to grey cliffs, topped by white peaks and blue skies, all framed by multicolored umbrellas and the ubiquitous red and white Swiss flag... this is what has been missing all this trip: the amazing, jaw dropping views.
England was cute. I tire of cute. This, this I can spend a lifetime here.
Oh, I wish I could re-do this trip based on what I know now, cut out all but two days of England and add it all on to Paris, Iceland and here.
Well, if you don't go, you don't know. You can quote me on that.
We wander around, eventually end up back in Stechelberg where we catch the lift back up to Mürren. It was a good decision, as it was clouding in more and getting colder. We sat out in chairs in front of our apartment watching the clouds drift with the last paraglider, the lift silently bringing the gondola up, then back down. The guy cutting grass by hand, up high above him someone pitches the cut rows to dry, the goats clang in the distance. Jungfrau is somewhere hidden above; I draw my coat a little tighter, and we go in to eat cheese, bread and red wine for dinner.
Tomorrow: breakfast on Schilthorn, at 3000 meters (10,000 feet) before crossing the valley to hike along the base of the Eiger. At least, that's the plan.