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
Accommodation: Hotel Alpenblick Grindelwald
Cog train Lauterbrunnen - Wengen
Highlight of the day was the 15 minute cog train out of Lauterbrunnen to Wengen, walking 10k up 800 metres to the top of Kleine Scheidegg (2061m), 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 taking 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. So far this trip. 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, boiled eggs and tea or coffee. A quick clean up and we're out the door to the train station to catch the cog train up to Wengen, saving us about an hour and a half walk and 500m ascent up the other side of the valley.
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 to the top of Kleine Scheidegg. It's 10am when we find the walking track that follows the cog train up the mountain side. 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 Klein Scheidegg to walk back down to Wengen. No one has told them how much harder on the body it is to walk down - they'll soon find out walking in their flat designer shoes.
It's 1pm when we reach the top of Klein Scheidegg (2061m). This is was the film setting for Clint Eastwood in the Eiger Sanction. 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 out of the wind. Lunch is whatever left overs we have – bread and cheese with a hot cup of tea.
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 their thighs and knees in pain. Grindelwald is a bustling tourist town, and our Hotel Alpenblick is about 1k further up the valley. 20 minutes later we’re in our room having a lazy afternoon just resting, sorting, washing and blogging.
At 5pm, it's time to wander downtown to 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. It will be hot bread for dinner tonight. We have to drag Graham away from the Mont Bell sports store, then buy a basketful of goodies at Migros.
It’s cold drizzling rain when we trudge back to the hotel. 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 – probably designed that way for someone to quickly retrieve something out of the basement storeroom. But Graham has a ingenious invention to solve the problem. He uses a trekking pole to force the switch open so the light stays on.
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 to Meiringen. It looks like a shorter 13k easier day. Then off to bed.