Mountain Views to Murren

The Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau in a line

This was a much shorter day, after two massive days my feet were killing me.  It's weird, I didn't get any blisters but the soles of my feet got so sore over the first 4 days, and then suddenly on the 5th day it was like they suddenly realised that this wasn't going to end, and then they were fine again.  I'm just glad they eventually fixed themselves up, otherwise it could have been a very long, painful holiday.

The town of Lauterbrunnen, Murren was on the plateau above

Whilst the day's walk was much shorter, it still started with a killer of a downhill.  We had to drop from Wengen down to Lauterbrunnen, a 500m drop in maybe 3km.  Punishing on the knees.  Though I guess at least we were going downhill.  At Lauterbrunnen we had two choices, we could have either walked along the valley before climbing up to Murren, or catch another cable car and then walk along the plateau before dropping down to Murren.  Since the second option was titled "The Mountain View trail" I didn't think we could go wrong.  Plus it would have saved us from an 800m climb at the end of the day.

This cable car was even more impressive than the one to First on the first day.  It was huge, you could fit maybe 60-80 people inside, plus dogs and bikes.  Incredible!  Though still had the freaky pole feel along the way.

If we were feeling really lazy we could have actually caught the train from the cable car all the way to Murren, that would have been a super easy day.  Even though my feet were really complaining we were on a walking holiday, and it feels better to get to your hotel after walking most of the way, rather than just catching trains.

The village of Wengen, we had approached from the right at the base of the ridge

More flowers

They weren't lying when they said it was the mountain view trail, almost the whole way along you could see the Jungfrau and Monch.  It was time to really soak up the views since we knew this would be our last day in this valley.  It was fun being able to see your route from yesterday, where you came over the ridge.  And even further back to our walk on the first day, that ridgeline was still visible for a bit in the morning.

This was the busiest of all the walks we did, we actually saw other people on the route for a start.  The village of Murren basically has no cars, mainly golf buggies if they have anything.  So everyone has to arrive by either walking or catching the train.  It was definitely my most favourite village of all the ones we stayed at.

It had a really hippy feel to it, and it felt like if you were a vegetarian this would probably have been the only place where you might have been able to get a proper meal.

Cows with the Monch and Jungfrau

Our next days walk was to Griesalp and there were going to be 2 routes.  Either via Sefinenfurke, a 2612m pass, or with a train, cable car, train, train then walk from Reichenbach.  At the hotel that night they were fairly positive that it could be done, but then we don't have the same snow experience that other people in Switzerland have.  I had checked out some of the photos of this pass before heading to Switzerland, and it looked pretty scary, even without any snow.  Basically vertical scree slopes, with chains hanging from walls.  We bought some poles, and then we made the mistake of going to speak to the national parks officer.  This guy was the furthest from positive you could hope to be without explicitly stating don't do it.  Apparently there were only 3 or 4 people going over the pass at that time.  I would have done it if there were lots of people going, then the path would have been stamped in, but with so few going, and it had only been "open" 3 days at that point, I didn't want to risk it.  That would have been a nightmare, walking all the way up there, only to be confronted with a sea of ice and snow, really slick and almost vertical, and having to keep going to get to the next hotel.  We were still on holiday after all.

The poles though were one of my best decisions, I can't believe how good they were.  I'm going to use them on every walk from now on.  Now when I see people climbing up hills without them, I want to stop them and say, what are you doing? Go out right now and buy some poles.  My favourite piece of gear by far.