We woke up, had breakfast, and drove back over the Furka pass, and at Gletsch, turned right and drove up the Grimsel pass. It was gorgeous that early in the morning, and we would have stopped for pictures but of course we had bought 9:40am uplift tickets so we were on a time crunch. I probably shouldn’t have worried as we made it to the parking lot by 9:00am. While the parking lot was quite full it wasn’t overflowing and we didn’t have to resort to driving around to find parking.
Walking to the Gelmerbahn station, we made it so early that the operator gave us 9:20am tickets, giving us time to look at the suspension bridge before boarding the Funicular. At 107% grade, you abstractly know that this is going to be a steep ride, but nothing prepared me for how steep it felt. As the grade steepened, I thought I was going to fall out of the Funicular, making the retention bars around our lap not just perfunctory safety devices but necessary for psychological safety as well. I kept holding on to my backpack which was placed next to my feet just because I felt like it could fall out of the funicular as well.
When we were at the top I was quite relieved that we hadn’t booked the ride down. Gelmersee was at 1850m and therefore higher than Hospental was. It was a testament to the strength of the heat dome that Europe was experiencing that it still felt very warm. Part of it was that the air was completely still! We proceeded to do the hike around the lake. The hike reminded me a lot of the Hetch Hetchy backpacking trip we did back in 2020. Like the trip back then, it was very hot, despite walking near and around a body of water. There were flowers occasionally which were beautiful, but the constant exposure would only be interrupted by places where we actually went right next to the water.
Bowen and Boen were unencumbered by the desire to want to take pictures. Mark and I let them go ahead while we took our leisurely pace. Of course, this meant that they were well ahead of us when we got to all trail intersections. We simply assumed the kids would be OK and that we would eventually catch up to them. What we did not count on was that we got lost! When we look at the Garmin track after the hike, we would see that at one point where the hiking trail was supposed to take us along the rim of the lake, we instead walked onto the now dry lake bed instead! The drought in the alps had finally affected us directly. Either that, or we could post our Garmin track and claimed that we’d learned to walk on water.
We eventually figured this out and bee-lined for the nearest trail. Once there, the trail would lead us (finally!) into shade, and we got a chance to take pictures of streams running into the lake. We only caught the kids at the intersection where we could either walk back to the Gelmerbahn (which we had no intention of taking), or hike back down to Hotel Handegg.
The hike down was interesting enough to be worth the extra walk. While it was steep, it granted us views of the Grimsel road as well as several lakes along the way. The trail then intersected with the road, whereupon we had to cross the road and then follow the signs towards Hotel Handegg. While this section didn’t have the grand views the earlier section had, the trail actually crossed a waterfall which looked really nice. Then as we approached the hotel the trail gave us views onto the open road where we could see the parked car.
Since it was already 1pm, we stopped by the hotel restaurant and checked their lunch menu. Since it was acceptable, we stopped and ordered lunch. While waiting for the food to be delivered I noticed they had an EV charging station! I asked if we could use it and they replied in the affirmative. I grabbed the keys and ran over to the car, drove it over, and plugged it into the charging station. It was slow, but so was service at the hotel, and we weren’t looking for a charge to 100%. We just wanted enough to get over Sustens pass on the way home.
After lunch, we completed the loop back to the suspension bridge before turning around and getting into the car. From there, instead of retracing our drive earlier, we kept going down to Innerkirchen, where we made a quick stop at the supermarket for more food, and then drove up the Sustenspass to give a preview of Sunday’s route. I’d never actually seen the climb from this direction before, and it looked dramatic, though full of tunnels. At the summit we got off and took a walk up to the hospice which I’ve never visited, and took a few pictures of the stream running through the area.
Coming back down the Sustenspass we drove the car back up to Goschenen and through the car tunnel. We then went back to Hospental where Bowen had kept himself entertained all day. Xiaoqin was still far from home and told us to eat dinner without her. Boen was still on an Asian noodle kick and the car needed a charge, so we drove back to the Reuss mall and charged the car while we ate. Mark had noticed that as long as we stayed under an hour (and the charger was fast enough to give us a good charge during that time), the parking garage was actually free!
The Asian noodle place was a fast food for family place, and we had gotten there early enough to be seated right away, get served fast, and then leave all inside an hour. Xiaoqin came back about an hour after we returned (once again) to Hospental, and she ate the instant noodles I had bought in Innerkirchen along with some other food we’d bought the previous night.
We planned the next days’ rides. My idea was to ride the Oberalp pass the next day all the way down to Donat-Elms, and then take the train back to Andermatt. Then on Saturday we could ride St Gotthard and then take the train back as well. That would give us a half day of riding so we weren’t wasted on Sunday for the hard ride up the Sustens. I looked again for hotels in Meiringen, noting that nobody had AC there. Since the heat wave was still intense, I looked for a higher option. When I’d booked that hotel in Meiringen the thought was that we’d leave the car parked there and take the bus to Rosenlaui. However, the cost to park a car in Meiringen was no lower than the cost to park in Rosenlaui! I noticed that the Hotel Terrace at Nessental was available, had great reviews (especially for the Rosti at the hotel), and was considerably higher at 1000 meters. So I booked that and cancelled the Meiringen hotel instead.
Xiaoqin decided that she could take the bus with Bowen up to the St. Gotthard pass, and then hike back to Hospental the next day, which would be a pretty substantial hike, even if it was mostly downhill.
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