We headed down to Bern for a day. The city was very cute, but definitely a city. All the buildings were done in Swiss fashion, with the cool roofs, lots of flowers and just generally great architecture.
We walked around the city allot, got our future train tickets figured out and headed over to the Einstein Musem. The Museum was great, it took you through a tour of Einstein`s life-schooling, kids, marriages, and of course many of his famous theories and how they work.
In Bern, we couch Surfed with a guy named Rafael (I think) and his roommate. He was very cool and made fantastic spaghetti with Tofu. After dinner, we headed to a little local bar down the street and met a few of his friends and another couch surfer.
Early the next morning, we headed to Interloken. I`ve been there before and it`s a pretty cute town, but unfortunately, we picked the three worst days to head to the alps. The weather was pretty grey and the mountains were mostly covered in clouds. Luckily though, we still got some pretty great peaks at the mountains and saw Eiger, Jungfrau, and quite a few other awesome peaks over the two days or so we spent there.
Yesterday, we drove to Stechelberg, about 10-15 minutes from Interloken and hiked to Murren, a small mountain town on the way up to one of the high peaks (Schilterhorn I think) you can tram to to get a full view of the range. It was a pretty good hike which Erin made look super easy. I felt a little better about it feeling fairly tough (after not hiking for over a month) when we figured out later that it was about a 2,700ft gain in altitude, which is about 300 more than big-si, if I remember correctly. We did it in about 1:45, so pretty good for me. :) Erin`s a machine, it didn`t even phase her and she ran the first 30 minutes or so, while I drug my butt up.
As much as we would have liked it to be a whole lot clearer, we can`t complain about the views we did get. We were able to see multiple aw-inspiring peaks, including Jungfrau. The haye was bad enough that we had a hard time getting a ton of clear pics, but we did what we could.
Murren was very cute, situated half way up the mountain, it`s a midway between Stechelberg and Schilterhorn. So, since the weather sucked the next day and we didn`t to do this, I`ll explain what our plan was in case the weather allowed. We were going to take the tram and gondola up to Schilterhorn to hopefully get a glimps at as much of the various ranges weather would allow. Then we were going to head back to Murren and to a Vereferata (sp?) trail.
V- is basically where you where a climbing harness with two personal anchors. You attach to a fixed cable that runs the length of the trail. At most points, both anchors are attached to the cable. When you com to a bolt, or tree, or any other obstical, you unclip one anchor, move it to the other side of the obstical, re-clip, then repeat with the second anchor line. It`s pretty safe, assuming you trust your gear, as you are on anchor at all times.
The crazy fun part, is the trail itself... Since we didn`t get to actually do it, I can only explain what we were told. The trail starts in Murren and essentially works it`s way to Grimmelwald. Parts of it, you`re scaling along a cliff with a few thousand feet of below you till you hit the bottom of that second step. (that`s the one you try not to take). Part of it includes a cable bridge from one mountain to the next, where you hook into the two cables around your head and walk on the third at your feet. There`s also another wooden bridge, just as high.
Anyway, it would have been awesome, but with no views besides lots of fog, we decided not to do it. I`ll have to make a trip back jsut for that though.
Next we're off to Leichtenstien, Salzberg, and then Munich.
No comments:
Post a Comment