Thursday 27th August: Very Warm with clear skies all day: 18°C to 25ºC.
Tannalp to Engelberg: 10K: 9.10am to 1.10pm: 4hrs, Plus 3hrs of cable cars to the Titlis and Engelberg
Accommodation:Jugendherbege Berggasthaus (Youth Hostel ) Engelbert
Sunrise from Berggasthaus Tannalp
Views to Wetterhorn from Tannalp
Leaving Berggasthaus Tannalp
Wetterhorn
Jenny strides out with steel legs
Milk cans hauled to dairy at top
Lake Englestensee
Morning Coffee at Jochpass 2200m
Looking down on Lake Trubsee
Lunch with Titlis in background
Looking down at Engelberg
Crowded cable car to the Titlis
25ºC at the top of the Titlis
Panrama 1
Panorama 2
Panorama 3
Panorama 4
Panorama 5
STUNNINGLY SPECTACULAR DAY - sounds like a repeat of yesterday and it was. Warm weather for most of the day, almost hot at 25ºC. After a 4hr walk, we spent the afternoon up and down in cable cars, reaching the Titlis at 3020m, with an amazing panorama over the alps on a gloriously warm day.
Another splendid Swiss Breakfast at the Berggasthaus Tannalp. The usual cereals, meats and cheeses with hot fresh breads and tea or real coffee. It's a glorious morning and our first step outside tells us it's already 18ºC - very warm considering we're at 2000 metres. The alps are glorious, the weather warm, and we've decided that it's such a magical day, that we'll take a cable car to the Titlis.
At 9.10am, we leave and hike the 100 metre winding descent to Engstlenalp, a beautiful village with an old Victorian hotel beside the Engstlenalp Lake in a small wooded area near meadows with fly covered cows. It's good dairying country and we pass a trolley laden with empty milk cans ready to be hauled on a cable to the top of the mountain where the cows are milked at the dairy. It's only a 2hr hike, and a 400 metre ascent out of Engstlenalp to Joch Pass at 2220 metres where we have coffee beside the chairlift station ferrying people from Engstlenalp on one side and Truebsee on the other.
A 400 metre steep descent to Trubsee Lake and it's time for lunch. Hiking revolves around breakfast, morning tea, lunch. afternoon tea, beer and nuts time then dinner. It's is not possible to lose weight even with a 7 hour difficult walk each day. We're looking for shade but there's none, so we opt to have lunch by the lake with the ducks at a picnic table. There's a fast running steam coming from the mountains into the lake, but with cows up stream, its only good for washing plates and feet - not drinking.
A sort stroll around the lake to the Trubsee - Titlis cable car station where we buy tickets to Klein Titlis at 3028m in the world's first revolving cable car, then return down 2000 metres to Engelberg. The cable car is jammed pack with mostly Asians as we swing upwards to the Titlis. We have our jumpers handy, but on exiting the car, it's a coolish but not cold 18ºC and in the sun, even warmer despite the 3000m altitude. There's a platform walk where we enjoy a Panorama of the Bernese Oberland Alps with views from Left to right of the Sustenhorn (3504m) Finsteraahorn ((4274m), Jungfrau (4158m), Monch (4099m), Eiger (3970m), Mittlehorn (3704m) Wildhorn (3248m) and Welterhorn (3701) among dozens of other peaks. To the other side is the Rhone Valley, with lesser peaks in the distance.
After admiring the panorama for an hour, we decide to have a beer whilst enjoying the view, but it has just closed, so a Jetboil cup of tea is next best. Just enough time to have my photo taken with images of Indian Bollywood movie stars - clearly catering to Indian clientele who dominate at the Titlis.
It takes an hour to descend to Engelberg (at 1002m) with several changes from rotating cable car to fixed cable car to gondola. It's a warm 25ºC in the valley. Using my mud map we look for the Familel and Jugendherbege Berggasthaus. It's nowhere to be seen until we ask a guy digging in his garden where this place is and he points to a house 20 metres from us. We didn't recognise it because it was the local youth hostel. No matter, they usually suit us perfectly. But this one doesn't open until 5pm and it's now 4.30pm, so we have time for a trip back up town to the Coop to buy a picnic dinner.
We arrive back, and the hostel is open. Our double rooms are basic but clean and have their own shower (the toilet is up the corridor). No time for any unpacking as we go downstairs to have a nuts and a cold beer from the Coop. Four beers later, we're upstairs having a shower before heading back to our picnic table for a feast of salad and salmon, our staple picnic fare, with a bottle of 19CHF Swiss Syrah, which isn't as nice as our 14CHF Syrah, we'd had a fee days before. Bed time after another fabulous day.
Panorama 6
Panorama 7
On top of the world
Being seen with Indian Bollywood stars