I can't think of a more perfect place to wake up in on your birthday. After another yummy breakfast we sat out on our patio and sipped on a coffee....this is the view
Jo catching up on emails as the sun spreads over the walls of the valley
Before starting our hike we decided to see if we could get some karma points. We had found a camera on the side of a trail the day before, it had several hundred photos on it, but very few clues about where the owners were. There were a few recent pics of them camping....
We had searched the local campground the night before with no success....a bit of Googling identified another campground about half an hour away in the same valley. I had emailed the owners and sent them the pics to see if they were still there, but hadn't received a reply.
Still a bit tired from our hike the day before we had decided on having an easy day. So we finished our coffees, put on our sandals and headed for a walk down the valley.
As we walked into the campground the clues all started lining up. My worst fear was that we would find the spot and they would be gone. As we approached I first saw a blue tailgate, then a blue tent, and fortunately, they were there finishing breakfast. I had the camera we had found in my pocket and was holding my camera in one hand.
As we approached Jo made the motion of a camera and asked if they had lost one.....a quick peak at their license plate told me that they were German so they probably didn't understand what she was trying to say. Then his eyes lit up for a moment and he looked at the camera case in my hand. Realizing it wasn't theirs his face turned sad again. Then when I reached into my pocket and pulled out their camera a huge smile came across his face. His wife/girlfriend saw it at the same time and she started jumping up and down. They didn't speak much English and we don't speak much German, but we managed to explain how we had found it and had been trying to find them since the day before.
They were so happy as the camera had vacations pics on it from a trip to Ireland, as well as all their pics from their current trip. She couldn't stop jumping up and down and told us how sad they were when they realized they had lost it. She offered us coffee, or to take us out to dinner, but we declined and said we just felt good about returning it. I asked them if I could take a picture of them with the tent and the camera for our memories....then we went on our way feeling good all the way back to our hotel
On the way back we ran into a Swiss traffic jam
Then we geared up and prepared to head out for an easy day on the trails. Our first encounter was a rather large escargot
We headed out to explore a new to us trail through the forest, with some great vistas along the way. This is looking down and across to the town of Wengen, which sits on a shelf above our valley.
We started to climb, getting into the sub-alpine
Then we came to an intersection of trails. We looked at the signs, pulled out our map and decided to scrap our plans for an easy day in exchange for a hike we had talked about a few years ago. We decided to go up and over the top. We climbed for a long time.....
Stopping to snack in the shade when we could find it
Then the trail started to get steeper and we continued up
We came across some huts where the cows were in the high alps
This sign means mountain trail
We left the sub-alpine and entered full alpine zone. If you look just right of centre in this picture you can see a little notch, that is where we were headed. The picture doesn't give a sense of how steep it was!
Working our way up the scree slope
Eventually we reached that notch, it's called Bietenlücke, and it is just below the summit of the Bietenhorn. It's a knife edge ridge and the view from there was amazing! And yes, we were above the snow line.
A look back down to the huts we had passed some time before, and the valley that we hiked up is off to the right
Then we had to make our way down the steep screw slope on the other side. It was very sketchy, but Jo was a real trooper. On our way down we were lucky enough to spot some Steinbocks (Chamonix) climbing very high on the rocks.
After hiking down for a while we came across a very high sheep pasture
We stopped for a look back at the ridge we had crossed
After descending some more we reached the top of the local ski runs and continued down.....it was very steep, but we were treated to some great views on the way down. That is the North Face of the Eiger on the left, and the Monch on the right.
Some of the locals we ran into along the way
Eventually we arrived in Murren....it's another village which sits on a shelf above our valley on the opposite side from Wengen. We made it to the train/cable car station with about 8 minutes to spare before the last ride of the day. If we had of missed it then it would have meant a few hours more hiking to get down to the valley, and we were feeling spent.
As soon as we got to the valley floor and exited the cable car station we crossed the road to the first place we spotted with food. We each had a tasty salad, a beer and we shared a huge pizza that was amazing. It was almost 10:00 by the time we got back to the hotel. We were greeted by Angie, the fantastic manager, who joked that they had the St. Bernard rescue dogs on standby.
She asked us to hold on for a moment as they had something for me. She returned with this lovely Swiss cake, a very nice card and a bottle of champagne. Then, when we dragged ourselves up to our room, there was another bottle of wine waiting for us. What a perfect ending to a very long day....that was going to be an easy one.
I really don't know how or if I will be able to top this one.
Posted with Blogsy