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lauterbrunnen long weekend

Who is hardcore? This very one and same Mollie Margaret? All signs seem to be pointing to yes.

Steve and I took Bruce the Bus on a big adventure this weekend, for which we had Thursday and Friday off due to some Genevois party. We left Thursday morning (as Mollie was fighting off the remnants of an extremely ouchy belly for no known reason on Wednesday night) and drove almost the whole day to Meiringen, Switzerland, which is quite near to Interlaken. Meiringen itself is nothing to write home about, but its situation is something else, and we camped in nearby Aareschult, which was lovely. We found out about renting a bike for the Mollie and come Friday morning, rented an Emmental-design (that would be, painted like Swiss cheese) mountain bike from the Meiringen train station and commenced an ascent up to Magisalp.

Biking uphill is hard work. I felt I was going to die several times along the way, and when it got to the point (after a hearty lunch) of either going on the side trip up to Magisalp or zooming downhill back into Meiringen, the decision was not clear. But, Steve was gung-ho, so I gathered my courage for the uphill ascent, which was very much uphill and rather rocky-ish looking.

Then fate intervened and stung me on the back of the neck. Rather, a bee interevened, and stung me on the back of the neck. Which hurt like I could not believe, and led us to decide to move our way back down (steeeeeeply down, betwixt and between these little Swiss houses with geraniums spilling out of their window boxes) all the way back into town. All told I think it was about 18km of biking, which was enough for this one to be a sleepy cat.

We made our way to Engstlenalp, Kara and Alison's most highly recommended and favorite place, which required Brice to dodge cows all the way up the valley, Steve and I to oooh and ahhh at the impressive waterfalls and canyon walls, and, upon finally reaching our destination, the lonely Engstlenalp Hotel, a general complete collapse into cheese covered Rosti. We spent the night in the hotel and the next morning took off on a big adventure on bikes, involving a rather treacherous ascent on a narrow rocky path, which required some pushing of the aforementioned bikes, and then a scoot around a big lake, and then leaving the bikes and hiking up up up another alp, then taking the zillion hour chairlift down, then hopping back on the bikes and zooming back over the ridge and into Engstlenalp.

We left rather unwillingly after our adventure, stopped to buy some fresh Alpine K?se, and continued our way to the Lauterbrunnen Valley, which all guide books say is THE MOST IMPRESSIVE PLACE IN SWITZERLAND, just on the other side of the Jungfraujoch.

Lauterbrunnen, this incredible valley surrounded by these 3000m snowy peaks and glaciers, with a 300m waterfall crashing off of one side, is indeed just superb; the valley is extremely narrow, the walls are sheer as sheer can be, there's greenness, there's greyness, there's white white snow. We stayed at the far end in Stechelberg, a tiny little town, and on Sunday embarked on what was thinking to be a five hour hike, ended up being a 20km walk with 1400m ascent straight up and then along a beautiful ridge. Oh it was magnificence. We walked through an evergreen forest, tromped through cow pastures, along a rocky ridge, up a glacier, and then down down down (ow knees) back into Stechelberg. While I remain a sleepy and sore Mollie Margaret, the gloriousness of it all was too much to possibly complain about.

And so, a stiff and sore me sits at my desk, pining for the weekend.