June 15th: St Beatus Swiss Caves

We woke up at 6:00am which meant that our bike rides and hikes the day before had actually worked to adjust our body clocks, meagre though our sun exposure was. Over the years, cell phone coverage (and smartphone antennas)  have gotten better and better and now if the atmospheric conditions are just right you can stay connected even at Rosenlaui, even if photo and video syncing or calls is not possible. Arturo was keeping us abreast of his flight status, which was landing late but not sufficient to derail his plan to meet us on Sunday. 

After breakfast, we looked outside and it rained hard enough that my original plan to do the Grosse-Scheidegg/Meiringen loop would yield no views and a lot of cold. Off to the St Beatus Swiss Caves we went, taking the bus down to Meiringen to catch the train to Interlaken Ost where I looked for a post office only to realize that it being a Saturday and it being Sunday tomorrow meant that my plan to mail our sleeping bags to ourselves would not be feasible. On the bus from Rosenlaui, a hotel employee got onto the bus with us. We asked her where she was going and she said that she was off duty now and heading home to Bern, where she had another job. We hopped on the bus 21 and for the first time I got the view from the north side of Thun with its multiple tunnels and dramatic views of the castle across the lake made me glad I wasn’t going to ride it. 

Stepping out of the bus and looking up at the caves, Boen said: “Are you kidding me?” Indeed, the view of the waterfall was glorious, multiple streams flowing down, and bridges and stairs criss crossing to grant the tourist multiple perspective of the attraction. The descriptions of the place as like the movie rendition of Rivendell, the valley of the Elves were not exaggerating, though most descriptions of how tough the walk up the stairs to the entrance were hyperbole. 

The inside of the caves were not as good as the outside, but was still quite an experience. The caves had obviously been re-engineered and re-mastered to make it easy for tourists to visit, though I found myself wondering why someone with small kids prone to crying would think it’s a good idea to bring them into a small enclosed space where the crying would echo off the walls and violate the ears of everyone around them.  Fortunately, as with all such attractions, all you have to do is to walk deeper into the caves past the point of normal tourist discomfort and then the caves become comfortable and uncrowded, most tourists not having the stamina to walk past the first few caverns. 

We explored the caves as far as the built up areas went, and then came down to museum, which was very well organized. It gave you a history of the myths surrounding the caves, and then dove into the tools and history of cave exploration, and then the geological theory behind cave formation and the ecology of caves in the area. I enjoyed the exhibit and so did Boen. 

After that, we went for the bus home. Later, Andreas would tell us that we should have taken the boat back instead of the bus. Ironically, we met him only because we’d taken the bus and train back to Meiringen, getting onto the post bus. On the post bus, Boen decided that he didn’t want to visit the Rosenlauischlutz, the pay-for-entry gorge since he’d just been to the caves, so we decided to get off at the Hotel Zwirgi and hike to the hotel. 

Hiking the trail is much easier than cycling the road with a load. The rain had ended, though it was still wet enough that if you were under trees you’d still get raindrops on your head once in a while. Not having done this part of the walk before, I was intrigued to see stone steps, paths through the forest out of sight of the roads, and of course nice views of the glorious waterfalls in places where a loaded cyclist will be in no mood to stop for photos but a hiker would have all the time in the world for. 

In Kalterbrunnen we stopped to pay a visit to Andreas. Despite our protestations that we were not wanting for food, he looked at Boen and offered us ice cream on the house. The hike from Kalterbrunnen to Rosenlaui was familiar from my previous hike with Phil when we visited Rosenlaui glacier the hard way back in 2008. The weather was good enough for us to see the glacier and Boen said he enjoyed the hiking path much more than the road for walking. 

At dinner that night, Boen asked for plans the next day. I told him we could ride down to the Lammi intersection and ride Grimsel/Furka or do the full Grosse Scheidegg loop that we didn’t do today and stop at Hotel Handegg. To my surprise he opted for the full Grosse Scheidegg loop. I text Arturo and told him to meet us at Interlaken Ost instead the morning or he could chase us over Grosse Scheidegg. He was happy with the change in plans as it would make for a much easier start for the tour. The complication was that in Switzerland, the train policy has changed so that IC (intercity) trains now required bike reservations, and the train to Interlaken Ost from Zurich was an IC. I told him that meeting us at 11:00am was fine. Grosse Scheidegg was a hard climb and we weren’t going to be moving fast.