Day 1 - 08/30/2010 - Zurich!
Arrived in Zurich late in the morning, where it's sort of cold, wet and grey. Wandered around the city for a while, eventually finding our way to the apartment we rented off of airbnb.com (a pretty cool website, by the way). There's a Hooters in Zurich, and we managed to walk past it twice. I find this vaguely upsetting. I know that we (as Americans) only export the finest aspects of our culture (like McDonalds and Coca Cola), but really? Hooters?
Anyway, the apartment was great, and we decided to take a short nap, since I was completely unable to sleep on the plane. After the nap we went for dinner at the restaurant which is just downstairs from the apartment - Volkshause. We couldn't really read the menu, but we know that Brent had some kind of fish, and I had something called called fleishkase. This loosely translates to flesh cheese, which sounded innocuous enough at the time. It turns out that it's really something more like a 3/4 inch slab of square bologna with sauce. t sounds awful, but it was really okay, just surprising when it came out. I really should have known better than to order flesh cheese in a Germanically influenced place.
Day 2 - Oops!
Switzerland is 8 hours off of Mountain time. This means that sleep is a little weird. Brent and I accidentally sleep until 2 in the afternoon. Oops.
We went out to procure denatured alcohol for our campstove. Do you know how to say "Denatured Alcohol" in German or Swiss German? We don't. This is maybe something we should have researched before this. But we got something, and tested it in the park. Seems to work, but we'll see.
Went back to the train station and set out for Adelboden. It costs 2 CHF (Swiss Francs - about equivalent to the US dollar) to go to the bathroom. Sheesh.
Arrived in Adelboden around 9:00pm. No restaurants in sight, and grocery stores close early here. Dinner ends up being 2 gas station sandwiches, yogurt and fruit. Only a little bit gross!
Day 3 - Lost!
The room in really nice, but we don't manage to sleep very much, it's like trying to sleep in the middle of the afternoon. But a very civilized Swiss breakfast comes with the room, so that makes it all worthwhile. After that, we go in search of maps, since we were unable to find any in the US. There are a couple of hiking maps at the grocery store, but they're 25 CHF apiece! Holy cow! We buy 50 CHF worth of maps and grumble all the time. Time to pack up and try to find the trail. We'll be following the Via Alpina for about 100 miles through the Swiss Alps.
But of course, the start of a journey never goes as smoothly as you want it to. We spend about 1.5 hours wandering around Adelboden, just trying to find where the trail picks up! Then, even when we finally find the trail, it's only another couple of hours before we're lost again. This time we find ourselves about a mile off trail when we finally figure it out (thank God for GPS!). We end up bushwhacking to get back, since we weren't sure exactly where we lost the trail. Finally found our way back, but it's getting dark, so we decide to camp for the night. Brent tries to make us dinner, but we find that whatever we purchased as stove fuel...isn't. Brent doesn't succeed in burning down the Alps, but it's close enough that we decide not to try again. Dinner is granola and trailmix. Yum!
Day 4 - Rosti!
I'm still having lots of trouble sleeping, though Brent seems to be adjusting. The campsite was nice and protected, so we were warm enough. Today we descend into Kandersteg. There's livestock everywhere, cows, sheep, silly goats. Autumn crocuses are blooming in the valleys, and they're lovely.
Before we get into Kandersteg proper, we find a couple of rural guesthouse/restaurants. One is decorated with a giant wire whisk, and across the street is a giant wooden spoon. We stop at the one with the wire whisk for lunch, and have our first Rosti. Rosti isn't really anything exotic, but it is thoroughly delicious. It's basically grated, crisp-fried potatoes, but they're full of fat, and served with awesome things like wild mushroom cream sauce, or a homemade sausage and onions. Much better than trailmix and granola. Our restaurant is really cool too. It looks really old, with low ceilings, huge timbers and old wood and ironwork.
We walk through Kandersteg, following the silty-blue glacial river through the small town. On the other side, we start climbing again. There's a chair lift we could take, and it looks like we're the only ones who aren't. We see throngs of people walking down the mountain, but we're the only ones going up.
Oeschinensee (Oeschinen Lake - "see" means lake") is a large glacial lake in a bowl further up the mountain. There's a Hotel and a Hostel there. We get a room at the hotel, and rent a little rowboat to go out onto the lake. We're both laughably bad at rowing. From the middle of the lake, we count the waterfalls (since we're going in circles anyway) - and there are 13 of them.
We eat dinner at the hotel, and I have a brief, but justified, attack of the laundry bug.
A word about beds: the Swiss fix their beds funny. They don't use a flat sheet, just a fitted sheet and a fluffy comforter. The comforter they fold in thirds the short way and lay in the middle of the bed. So whenever you get in bed and open up your blanket, you always find your blanket the short way. It's like culturally mandated short-sheeting. I don't understand it.
Day 5 - A Hut!
I still can't sleep, and it sucks. We leave Oeschinensee after a puny-ish breakfast, headed for Hothurli Pass, and arrive after a long climb just in time for lunch. At the top of Hothurli Pass (at about 9,100 feet) is Bluemlisalphutte. It sleeps about 140 people in dormitory type rooms, and serves 3 course meals for dinner. Brent and I split a Rosti and a piece of apricot tart for lunch. I could get used to getting hot coffee and lunch at the top of passes! It's also pretty scenic - there are glaciers everywhere, and it's a sunny, beautiful day...
After lunch is a long, steeeeep descent into Bundalp. We found a farm selling Alpkase (local cheese) and stopped and bought some. Our farmer didn't speak any English, but luckily we could just point and say, "that one!" There were cows, bunnies, chickens, pigs and a terribly cute pony.
More descent into Gamchibach Valley which is a lovely valley with another glacial river flowing through it. We passed through Grisalp and into Golderli, where we stayed at the Naturfreund Inn, we had a dorm-style room for 4 all to ourselves. There's even an alpaca farm next door!
Day 6 - SLEEP!
I finally sleep a whole night through! Hallelujah!
So, Swiss Breakfast. At this point, I've decided I like them. I mean, really like them. The best thing about them is that they always include a couple of kinds of bread. Perhaps it's a croissant, or basket of assorted rolls; many times it has been a large loaf of dense, grainy, beautiful bread. You simply cut yourself a couple of slices and eat it with cheese, cold cuts, or butter and jam. Breakfast may include cold cereal, or muesli, yogurt and juice. There is rarely anything hot, except the coffee or tea. But I'm madly in love with the bread. This is clearly something that will need research when I get back. I must learn to bake like this. We buy half a loaf of bread from the proprietress of Naturfreund Inn to go with our cheese.
We were thinking of trying to get to Gspaltenhornhutte for the night, but find that it's booked up, since it's a lovely, clear Saturday, and the Swiss are out in droves. But we continue on our merry way, heading up to Seifenfrugge Pass. The ascent is really steep - basically consisting of stairs built into the mountain for the last 500 or so feet, but there are handrails for the most part, so it never gets scary. We arrive just in time to have our lunch of bread, cheese, and chocolate at the top. The descent into Lauterbrunnen Valley isn't as steep, and it rewards us in 2 ways: we finally have views of the Big 3 Swiss Mountains (Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger) even though they're hinding behind clouds a little bit, and there's Rotstockehutte on the way down, where we get not 1, but 2 pieces of kuchen (tart)! Yay! There's apple and plum, and since we are unable to decide which one looks best, we get a piece of both, and I get coffee too! This is the best trip ever!
We arrive in Murren at about 4:30 in the afternoon. Murren is a ski town - very touristy, and it is car-free, which is nice for hikers. We stop to watch paragliders taking off in the hills above town, because the mountains are so steep here that you can just jump off, and be completely airborne. A lot of the town is booked up for the night though, since it's supposed to be a really nice weekend. We thought that we may have to head out of town and camp, but instead get the very last room at a place called the Sportschalet, which is more like a hostel. It's the kind of place that rents rooms to entire high school sports teams, and there was only a room left because one team was smaller than expected. Yay again! Murren is also the only town we've found so far that actually has a laundromat, so we make use of that too. Mushroom fondue for dinner!
Day 7 - Marching bands!
It's a clear morning, so we finally get some good views of Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger, and they're pretty impressive. We get into Lauterbrunnen (the town this time, close to the bottom of the valley) around mid-morning. It's Sunday morning, so there's not much going on. There are HUGE waterfalls on both sides of the valley. They fall about 8-900 feet down, and some of them fall so far there's nothing but spray at the bottom. Beautiful! But when we get to the local train station, we discover that there's a marching band competition going on! We can see at least 4 different types of uniforms, and they're giving little performances or practicing in a cargo area near the station. There's a lot of brass and drums, and they must just be local bands, because the performers are all ages. It's an interesting, random aspect to the morning.
We get a little lost again trying to leave Lauterbrunnen, and we find it's much more difficult to get around when we have to dodge marching bands all up the main drag in town. Eventually we fight our way through the throngs of brass players up the other side of the valley. That's the problem here. For every downhill there is an uphill, and it's STEEP. Luckily we don't have to go too far. Wenger is another ski town along the way, and we stop for beer and soda. It's a tough life.
Today's destination is Kleine Scheidegg, and we reach it in the afternoon. We stop in at the first hotel we see - The Bellevue, only to find that rooms there are 450 CHF! Holy cow! We stay at a room in the train station instead.
