Day 10 -- A Walk in the Clouds

When we decided to visit Switzerland, the first thing we did was plan a day hiking in the Berner Oberland, which both excited and scared me, for obvious reasons.

Rick Steves, and most everybody else for that matter, recommended hiking in the Lauterbrunner Valley, about half an hour south of Interlaken and about 15-20 miles north of the Italian border. Glacier country. Big mountain country. Home of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau, the "Top of Europe," as the Swiss call it. Besides, Zermatt and Mont Blanc were just a tad too far away from Zurich to make a decent day trip out of it.

OK, so I'd climbed the stairs a few extra times and joined Genevieve on a few hikes in the Turkey Creek wildlife preserve in Austin's Emma Long Park. I didn't die then, so I figured I wouldn't die up in the Alps.

Up early. Laced tight the hiking boots. Packed the daypack with hat, windbreaker and emergency UT plastic rain ponchos, and off we went.

Trained down through Bern around Lake Thun to Interlaken, where we caught a regional train to Lautebrunnen (very cute little train... shoulda had a bell around the engine). From there, we hopped about an even cuter cogwheel train that slowly shlepped us up the mountain to Wengen, which was quite humid since big gray clouds were rolling in over the mountains above. From there, we hopped a cablecar which shlepped us up into the big gray clouds to the village of Mannlichen, starting point of our Alpine hiking adventure.

Allegedly.

Visibility in Mannlichen was about 50 feet. The fog was so thick, you could cut it. We started down what we thought was the right trail but turned back worried that it wasn't. Finally, a helpful transportation worker told us the way to go. We asked him how long he thought it would be before the fog lifted. "Ten minutes," he said, with certainty. "But ten minutes from now I'll be down the mountain, so it doesn't matter what I tell you, ja?" He laughed and we started walking.

The view was, well, let me put it this way. From the photos you can see we're on the north slope of Mt. Everest. Or is that Mt. McKinley? Or Mt. Bonnell. I challenge you to look at the first photos and prove otherwise! The fog was so thick and damp and cold that we were just doing our best not to fall off the mountain into the mist below for the first 45 minutes or so.

The trail was pretty mellow and we saw a lot of ice and snowpack, some beautiful flowers and occasionally a view into the valley below, but not much of one. The fog did begin to lift, though, in time for a cold, hard rain to start. Thank God we had our trusty UT Longhorn plastic ponchos. We looked like dry cleaning in Austin! But it kept us marginally dry until we reached a shed behind a bunch of benches. Obviously this was the place we were supposed to see what we'd come to see... the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau ... but all we could see was the fog and hear the big drops hitting the plastic bags over our heads.

Oh well... at least we were getting our exercise!

When we were convinced that the rain wasn't going to stop, we decided to just tough it out and hike as quickly as we could down to Kleine Scheidegg for a warm meal and proper shelter.

THEN IT HAPPENED!

The rain stopped, and almost on cue, Switzerland FLASHED US! I saw it first, an outline of a shape up above us. Genevieve couldn't see it. I started shooting photos. Didn't know what mountain it was but it was certainly a mountain.

Thirty seconds later, the clouds parted, the sun came out and there they were, the "Young Girl" (Jungfrau), protected by the "Monk" (Monch) from the "Ogre" (Eiger.) Breathtaking, huge, snowcovered, glacier covered mountains right in our face. It gave us a sense of awe and confusion similar to the feelings we had when we first saw the Grand Canyon... only WETTER!

The clouds that had once parted were coming back. Ten minutes after we saw them, the mountains were gone.

Some older women stolled by singing in German, soaking wet. A couple and their dog marched past up. The rain started again. And we continued toward Kleine Scheindegg, where we stopped at a small family restaurant for lunch. The owner knew by the look on our faces that we'd felt gypped so she gave us a picture book of the mountains to enjoy while they made our lunch and oohed and awwwed at the photos we were able to snap during that 10 minute break in the clouds.

As we headed down toward Wegernalp and the train back to Lauterbrunnen, we heard cowbells off in the clouds below us. Just couldn't see where they were coming from. As we got further down into the high meadows, we not only heard the bells, but smelled where they were coming from. Soon, we were face to face with a herd of some of the most beautiful Simmental cows we'd ever seen. And Genevieve, being the product of a dairy farm herself, knows cows when she sees them. One even reminded us of our dog. She followed us to the electric fence but wouldn't fetch the paper. I mooed in her general direction and all her sisters also came running...we were fast becoming heroes with the domesticated farm animal set!

Cold, wet and tired, we got back on the train down the mountain, admired some waterfalls and spent the evening in Interlaken. It's supposed to be beautiful, and there were certainly some glimpses of that, but in a raintorm, Interlaken was like anywhere else in a rainstorm ... WET and NASTY.

Before heading back to Zurich, we had a light supper at a lovely little tea room. The owners kept it open so we could eat and dry out. He served us some hausgemacht (home made) chocolate - OY - and told us how proud he was of his new, high-tech bathroom. I didn't have any idea what he was talking about until Genevieve came out of there and told me I HAD to see it. Looked like a regular toilet to me but after it flushed, a little panel extended with a brush and disinfectant, scrubbing the seat as it rotated under it. BIZARRE!

Leave it to the Swiss to develop a self-cleaning toilet!

Now if they could only do something about the weather!

LAST STOP: Lausanne and Lake Geneva