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Wednesday August 1st, 2007
Weather-wise and hike-wise, a near perfect day. Some may prefer untouched wilderness, but for me I know of no more beautiful valley in the Alps than Lauterbrunnen. Its sheer black glacier cut walls, in places almost 1000m high, coupled with the majesty of the surrounding mountains and the profusion of waterfalls, put it in a class of its own.
We took the direttissimo trail down from the Kleine Scheidegg via the Truemmelbach valley, descending 1250m in about 3.5 hours at times along trails cut into the vertical rock face, arriving at the valley floor so shortly after the sun that the dew was still fresh in the grass (due, it must be said, more to the N/S orientation of the deep valley rather than an early start to our hike!).
The glaciers on the Jungfrau were gorgeous in the morning sun, and on a couple of occasions we saw large chunks of ice break off and shatter on the rocky slopes below. The views down into the valley were at times so birds-eye that they were vertigo-inducing. Muerren, on its green bench on the other side of the valley from us, seemed much too close to still be several hours of hiking away (but it was :-).
In marked contrast to the previous day, and much to Ioana's pleasure, we met only about a half a dozen other hikers during the descent. The steepness and length of the path is clearly a deterrent for casual hikers. Not so the hike up to (or for most people, down from) Mueren. As with the Eiger Trail, many day-hikers take the train up and walk down. The trail was in places fairly steep, but nothing like what we had just come down the other side. Nevertheless for some of the day hikers it was extreme: three Swiss girls we met told us that if they were in our shoes (climbing up), they would turn around. I responded that I had walked there from Munich, with the rest of the way to Monaco in front of me, and so felt like I could probably manage it. They quickly agreed :-).
Once again, we failed to visit the world-famous Truemmelbach falls: clearly sight-seeing and hiking do not mix! We'll have to come back sometime in a car if we want to see them.
August 1st is the Swiss national holiday and there were Swiss flags everywhere, of course with many Cantonal and District flags mixed in (how could it be otherwise in fiercely regionalist Switzerland?). And in the warm evening there were fireworks, although less of these than I would have expected having seen the show that is put on in the mountains of Austria on New Year's Eve.
Muerren was a beautiful as ever, our hotel very pleasant, and the views from our rooms across the valley to the Jungfrau as breathtaking as always. A wonderful day!
