Monday 24th August: Cool morning, blue skies with the odd shower: 10°C to 8ºC up to 18°C.
Lauterbrunnen to Grindelwald: 12k: 9.30am to 4.30pm: 7hrs, plus 30 minutes of train to Wengen
Cog train Lauterbrunnen - Wengen
Highlight of the day was getting to the top of Kleine Scheidegg (2061m) with a 15 minute cog train out of Lauterbrunnen to Wengen, walking 10k up 800 metres, then catching the cog train down to Grindelwald, all the time with misty views of the Eiger Monch and Jungfrau. We've decided today will be a relaxed walking day with 2 trains.
It's cloudy with blue skies when we awake at the Valley Hostel in Lauterbrunnen, probably the most suitable accommodation we've had. At 7.30am, Ian nicks off to the local Coop for eggs and butter and at 8am we're all sitting downstairs in the hostel guests kitchen eating left over bread, cheese, and boiled eggs with tea and coffee. A quick clean up and we're out the door to the train station to catch the cog train up to Wengen, saving about an hour and a half walk and 500m ascent.
Looking across from Wengen
Track follows cog train to top
Coffee time at the first seat we spy
You go first Jenny!
Murren where we were yesterday
World Cup winter course for down hill racing at 100km/hr - no thanks
The Eiger peeps through
Klein Scheidegg
Misinformed Asians get the train up and walk down.
Lunch huddled out side the railway workshops at Kleine Scheidegg
Valley of Grindelwald through mist
Graham's light switch stopper
Wengen is another expensive ski resort, buzzing with Asian tourists, all catching the train the top of Kleine Scheidegg. It's 10am when we find the walking track that follows the cog train up. It's a well graded, though steep in places, vehicle track, winding at first through the forests. The first seat we see is coffee time. As the track continues out of the pine forests, we see our first glimpse of the Eiger peeping through the clouds. There's large groups of Asians from several tour groups walking down towards us. Clearly they've caught the train up to walk back down. No one has told them how much harder on the body it is to walk down - they'll soon find out. It's 1pm when we reach the top of Klein Scheidegg (2061m). It's cold, with misty rain so Jenny looks for, and finds, a place to huddle outside the railway workshop perched on a couple of railway sleepers.
The Grindelwald cog train leaves at 2.03pm and we're on it. Ian and I had already walked up this route in 2013 with Luca, our exchange student, and again we saw many Asians walking back down clutching there thighs and knees. Grindelwald is a busy tourist town, and our Hotel Alpenblick is about 1k further up the valley. It's nice to have a lazy afternoon just resting, sorting, washing and blogging.
At 5pm, it's time to wander downtown and buy dinner. We've decided to have a picnic in our room, on the balcony, somewhere. It's about 1.4k to the Coop or the Migros supermarket and after checking out both, we opt for the Migros - we've seen the bread cooking. We have to drag Graham away from the Mont Bell sports store, then buy a basketful of goodies at Migros, and trudge back to the hotel in the drizzling rain. Graham finds the perfect place for dinner - down in the basement where there's a picnic table set up. The only problem is the light is on a timer and flicks off every two minutes, but Graham's ingenious use of a trekking pole to force the switch open solve the problem.
Dinner is cheese, hot bread, lettuce, tomatoes, dried ham plus Graham's Backcountry dried roast chicken with a few beers and a local wine. A quick check of the hike tomorrow then off to bed.