The forecast for today indicated rain, so we were pleasantly surprised when we woke up to sunshine! This also gave us a sense that our plans for a hike today may not be a wash after all.
So, after breakfast, with our hiking gear and rain jackets on our backs, we headed out to catch the cable car to take us up to Grütschalp. This cable car was pretty interesting in that it had a cargo hold that hung underneath to easily move construction materials up and down the side of the mountain. This time it was hauling lumber.
Once at the top, we checked our map and started the 2.6 mile track to Mürren. This hike was considerably easier than our hike a couple days ago as it was fairly flat and well maintained. Along the way, we were treated to a walk through cattle, (I really wanted to pet one, but didn’t…), slugs as fat as your thumb, and waterfalls.
Shortly before arriving, with distant rumbles of thunder in the air, Carson took a moment to pause and reflect on his actions… What action is he reflecting on, you might ask? Well, the action that he made that caused him to delete all the pictures from the good Camera… it was a pretty grumpy walk into town…
After accepting that the pics were gone, we ventured into town and started to get sprinkled on. So we paused to gear up for rain; rain jackets, pack covers, and prayers. Not two minutes later, the sky opened up into a pretty good shower. Unfortunately we were on the far side of town from our next stop the cable car to Gimmelwald, so we cranked our feet into a higher gear and hassled through! On a positive note, we have decent gear and stayed dry underneath it all 🙂
Due to the rain, we tweaked our plans a bit from Mürren and instead of hiking we took the cable car down to Gimmelwald, then another down to Stechelberg, and finally a bus to Trümmelbachfälle for lunch. As we sat down to have sandwiches, the rain let up and the sun started to peak out again. We then headed over to explore Trümmelbachfälle. This is a massive waterfall that traverses mainly along the interior of the mountain with several viewing platforms along the walk up. There is an option to take an elevator from the bottom to half way up. We opted to walk all the way up but took the elevator back down.
With the sun peaking out, we spent the last part of our afternoon hiking through the Lautrebrunnen Valley, taking pictures and finding geocaches along the way. Hey!!! He found them! While taking a picture of a snail, Carson found the pictures that he thought had been deleted.
We topped off the day with dinner at Hotel Oberland with a couple of tall local brews, schnitzel for me, rösti for Carson, and chocolate fondue for dessert.
