This morning Shirley looked at the weather and said it wasn’t supposed to start raining until 2:00. So off we went.  We took the train back to Grindelwald. We could see the clouds in the valley from the train. What wonderful sights.

At one point we saw a group of people getting ready to go kayaking. Aside from the fact that it was cold outside, it is hard to imaging anybody kayaking in these rivers. There are just so many rocks.

The water was rushing right through this building.

I love watching the river below us.

We had to transfer trains in Zweillutschinein. A couple on the train told me that the name of the town means two Lütschines. That is the name of the two rivers (one called White Lütschine and one called Black Lütschine.   I think the German way of naming towns and the way words are parts of words put together is very interesting.

I looked up the river’s name on the web and found this story:

A story passed on by word of mouth showing friendly banter between villagers that lived on the two rivers is that the people on the Weisse Lütschine said the others “were so dirty it turned the river black” and the villagers on the Schwarze Lütschine claimed the others “never even washed so the other tributary remained perfectly white.”

We took the gondola up from Grindelwald to First (2168 m). It was all clouded when we arrived. We did the First Cliff Walk anyway.

Here are the photos I took.

Shirley and I took photos of each other at the end of the walk.

 

This is what we should have seen if the weather had been clear.

We then decided to take the walk up 100 meters to Bachalpsee (2265 m). It was still very cloudy and it had actually snowed up here a bit – probably yesterday or last night.

I passed a very tiny hut on the way to the lake. Here is the sign and a photo of the inside of the hut.

I can’t imagine who would be staying at this hut.  There was only the dirt floor and it was very tiny.

A couple I met along the way took a photo of me when I was almost to Bachalpsee.

When we arrived at the lake there were even some reflections in the lake in spite of the clouds.

Then it started to hail and sleet a bit. It didn’t seem too bad. We were about to walk back down to First when Shirley and I looked at the sign indicating that there was different way to get down. We did not have a map so we were questioning whether to follow it. The sign had a bike showing that bikes go on that trail. I said, “If bikes can do it, so can we.” So we headed down the trail.

What were we thinking? I said something about what would be better than an adventure. Shirley responded, “How about a hot fire and a toddy?” Neither one of us could imagine how a biker could negotiate this trail. We were gingerly choosing the path over the rough rocks.

 

Then it started to rain. We passed some people coming up the trail and they told us about a restaurant that we should reach in about 20 minutes.

It started to rain harder. It seemed too difficult to put on our rain pants while walking on this path so we just continued – thinking that it wouldn’t be that far.

Bikers came by just as we had crossed the bridge. We talked with them. I, of course, asked them how they could be crazy enough to ride down this trail. One of them said, “It is like downhill skiing. You just go for it. If you hesitate, you fall.” I still cannot imagine riding a bike down the rocks we had just walked over.

Right after we passed this waterfall …

…we came upon a group of abandoned buildings We saw a sign for the restaurant, but couldn’t find it. After searching for a while we were both thinking, “Where in the hell is the restaurant?”

Then we realized that we hadn’t even put on our pack covers. By now we were soaked.

Finding the restaurant at Waldspitz (1918 m) was sure a treat. We took off our jackets and wet packs. I dried my gloves on the stove.

Shirley tasted the chestnut soup and suggested that we both order it.

It was sure delicious. What a treat.

The path down from the restaurant to Bort was pretty steep, but I loved walking through the woods right after it had rained.

The rain droplets on the stems were so beautiful.

Even though this flower has almost lost all of its petals, I loved seeing many of these.

The water was in the stream was rushing by us.

When we arrived at the gondola at Bort (1570 m), we realized that we would still have 1500 feet to descend to Grindelwald. We had already walked up 100 meters to Bachalssee and down another 2280+ feet to this point. Besides, we didn’t think we could get back to Wengen in time for our dinner reservation at the pizza place.

Here is another photo of the river as we were on the train.

I still absolutely love seeing the rivers that we pass. The are all so raging and beautiful.

When we were on the train, Shirley watched the Fare Collector cross from one train to the next as we were moving. She says she does it every day.

When we got back to our hotel, we unpacked everything and left it all to dry when we went to dinner back at da Sina Pizza place.  It is a very cute place and they have a wonderful variety of pizzas.  They also have a full menu of other meals.  Last night we had gorgonzola pizza and tonight we had chicken and spinach.

This has been another adventurous day in the life of Shirley and Nancy in Switzerland and (as tired as we are) we loved it.