Jo's new friend in Wengen
After arriving in Gridewald we hiked for an hour or so along one of the many rivers in the area. It was nice and relaxing after our previous days adventure. Eventually we arrived at the Gletscherschlucht, which means Glacier Gorge. It lies beneath the Grindewald Glacier, and the lake that it's run off forms. Years of glacier run off have carved an amazing gorge. For $7 admission you can walk for well over a km into the gorge. In places you are on platforms which are bolted to the sides of the gorge, in other places you walk through man made tunnels. Along the way you can see pink and green marble in the rock walls. There is a quarry nearby. There is also some great information about a huge tunnel which was made several years ago leading up inside the mountain to the glacial lake...it's a sort of pressure relief valve to prevent the lake from overflowing into the valley below, an affect of global warming.
Here are a few shots from within the gorge
After the gorge we hiked back to Grindewald and picked up some picnic supplies at the Co-op (local store). We got some grapes, local cheese, sausage, wine, gummy bears and paprika chips (like our BBQ). We decided to take the cable car back up to the ridge and have a picnic. Part way up we could see that the weather was turning so we had part of our picnic in the cable car. When we reached the top the weather had totally come in and it was pouring rain like I've never seen before. We only had about 300 meters to go from one cable car station to the other in order to get back down off the mountain and into our valley, but we got soaked!
At least it had stopped raining by the time we made it down to Wengen and then back to Lauterbrunnen. We made our way back to the hotel for a hot cup of tea, and then ended up staying in and having the rest of the picnic for supper. Another great day, even with the short downpour.
