Day 17: Hiking Bachalpsee

 

We woke up to another clear and beautiful day, and quickly started heading up the First side of Grindelwald. Lisa wasn't sure how far she wanted to go today, but the hiking stick helped her a lot, and soon the beauty of the surroundings inspired her to forget her aches and move up the mountain. Unlike the Kleine Scheidegg side, the First side is completely exposed even at the bottom, and it wasn't long before we started sweating in the morning sun.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Since this side of the valley got a lot more sun, there were flowers, even at the lower elevation where the other side would have trees preventing low grasses from growing. At Bort, Lisa proposed to take the more shaded flower trail up rather than the direct route to First along the Gondola line, which was more exposed. The flower trail definitely had a lot of flowers, but rarely in a good place for good pictures. We shot lots of flower pictures but nothing I would be happy to show others. Halfway between Bort and Waldspitz, we ran into a bunch of locals on their morning walk. When Lisa asked them if they were locals, they said, "Yes, we are village people." I expected them to break out into a rendition of "YMCA", but I guess they didn't realize what they were saying.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

At Waldspitz, which looked like an almost newly built hotel, we stopped for ice tea and to watch paragliders float up amongst the alps, juxtaposing their brightly colored parachutes against the backdrop of the Wetterhorn, the Eiger, and other surrounding mountains. Past Waldspitz, the trail becomes exposed again, and after a short flat section, suddenly veered off along a stream and took up steeply up the mountain.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

This was where the hike started to get really pretty. The stream wound along a valley while behind us the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau loomed behind us while the green hills around Bachalpsee beckoned ahead of us. At a short rise I ran into a Japanese looking person coming down the mountain. She smiled at me so I asked her, "Nihongjin desu ka?" "Eei, chugokujin desu!" Boy, I was wrong 2 for 2 twice in a row. We chatted for a bit and discovered that not only were we both Chinese, Linlin went to the same high school I went to in Singapore. We exchanged e-mail addresses and then went on, since she was heading down the mountain and we were heading up.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Bachalpsee turned out to be a beautiful tarn, but was over-run by tourists. Most tourists took the First Gondola up the mountain and then walked the short hike over to Bachalpsee, resulting in the place being over-run with people, many of them needing hiking poles to even walk the short gentle stretch between the ski station and here. Nevertheless, the walk between Bachalpsee and First was beautiful, and well worth the time.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

At First, we took a quick lunch, and then proceeded down the steep trail towards Waldspitz that came off the side of the First gondola. While the alternate, more exposed route back to Bort would avoid having to retrace our steps through the flower trail, I was far more intrigued by the steep descent back through the other side of the river valley which had led us up to Bachalpsee. This traverse is not for the faint of heart, as the trail falls steeply on one side, but Lisa had her hiking stick, and I didn't mind at all. The scenery was spectacular as a result, making the effort worth while.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

By this time, however, dark clouds were starting to form up over the mountains, and as we got off the single-track onto the dirt road towards Waldspitz, we started to feel rain drops. Fortunately, the flower trail was mostly under tree cover, so we made the descent towards Bort in a hurry. The rain picked up again, however, within half a kilometer of Bort, and we saw at the gondola station that every car coming up the mountain was empty, while every car leaving the station was full. We ran that least 200m and made it to the gondola station before the thunderstorm really started hammering down. Looking at my Garmin 500, I saw that it was only 3:30pm. "The regularly scheduled thunderstorm was early today!"

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

We were quite pleased with ourselves for having done the hike before the rain, and were happy to take the gondola down. When the rain died down, I did laundry again, and we had nice big dinners in town. I reflected that my avoidance of Grindelwald in the past was really unnecessary. While the town was touristy and packed with Japanese tourists, most of the hiking was done in really nice country where we did not see that many people. And because the town was relatively big, we found lodging at a reasonable price.

That night, a couple of mountain bikers checked in, and one of them, Nina, showed me all the maps she had for her mountain biking trip. It was impressive and inspiring, and led to me wanting to do a more rough-stuff oriented tour next year.

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Day 16: Hiking Kleine Scheidegg

 

The day once again greeted us with sun shine in the morning, with beautiful views of all the mountains around us. We started joking about the Swiss and their regularly scheduled 4:30pm thunderstorms. At 7:00am, we were the only folks at the hotel having breakfast. By 8:00am, we were out the door and heading down towards Grindelwald Grund (900m). I chose to do Kleine Scheidegg today because it was a touristy hike, and I expected even more tourists on Saturday.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

The trail starts off steeply from Grindelwald Grund, winding along the hillsides and occasionally intersecting with the farm road or mountain bike path. I was also clearly over my cold at this point as I felt good and could tackle the walk at a brisk pace, but that was clearly too much for both Phil and Lisa. That was OK, since once in a while I could turn around and stare at the beautiful scenery behind us. At one point, I saw a black hat in the distance. I also saw a big huge backpack, a guidebook in hand, and a giant water bottle sticking out of the backpack. This led me to conclude that the owner must be a Japanese tourist, as she looked kind of Asian. I did not expect to be proven wrong, since my assessment of her pace was that she was going the speed I was, and neither of my companions could sustain that. Imagine my surprise, then, when at a shaded section of the climb I saw her come our way and say in an English accent, "I think the mountain is closed!" "No way." "There's a fence up there and it goes all the way across the road." "It's not closed. Worse comes to worse we can climb over it." She shrugged and walked back with me to the fence. "The Swiss, being the Swiss, if they did close the mountains, would have announcements all the way at the bottom of the hill, not halfway up." And indeed, the fence had a hiker's bypass around it that clearly indicated that we were not intended to be turned back.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

The young lady introduced herself as Flora Liu, and we invited her to hike with us, slow as we were compared to her. She was a student of Economics from London, but was born and raised in Shanghai and on a solo trip through Switzerland before flying back to China for the summer.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

We soon arrived at Blandegg, but it was a little early for the mountain cafe, and we pressed on to Alpiglen, where Lisa and Flora spent some time playing with goats. Flora was tempted to do the hike over to the base of the Eiger from Alpiglen, but decided to stick with her original plan of hiking over the Kleine Scheidegg to Lauterbrunnen. We would separate there and do the classic Panaromic trail, since Lisa had hopes of spotting Edelweiss in the wild, which were typically only found over 2000m.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Hiking in the Swiss Alps is not a wilderness experience. You get to see lots of other people, sign posts, mountain bikers, and even a solar-powered, honor system, cheese vending refrigerator. The flip side of it is that you get water fountains, gondolas and trains to bail you out if you tire, and restaurants at the top of passes that serve ice cream. You can easily hike with just one water bottle, trusting to your ability to get to shelter and train if the weather turns bad. And the old hotels on top of Kleine Scheidegg just don't look ugly to me, unlike many buildings in America that are built in mountains as MacMansions or ski resorts.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

As we approached Kleine Scheidegg (2061m), the views got better and better. I finally reconciled the fact that Kleine Scheidegg was taller than Grosse Scheidegg (1961m), but realizing that Scheidegg must mean saddle, and the "Grosse" part referred to the width of the saddle, not the height. We saw the Eiger's characteristic triangular shape, and I slowly learned (after all these years) to identify the Moench and the Jungfrau.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

At the Kleine Scheidegg train station, I invited Flora to join us for lunch, but she demurred, preferring to look around and then leave for Lauterbrunnen. Phil, Lisa and I ate a quick lunch at the train station and headed along the smooth gentle trail towards Mannlichen.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

The classic panoramic trail from Mannlichen to Kleine Scheidegg exceeded my expectations. Not only did you get the classic view of the three great mountains in the area, you also got grand views of Grindelwald, the First summit (which we would attempt the next day), and Grosse Scheidegg. If you had a panorama feature of the camera, you would spend all day around here exercising it.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

To add to the unfairness of it all, the trail also had flowers galore. We spotted them in all sizes and all colors, and to be honest I'm not enough of a naturalist to identify more than 2 or 3 anywhere, and the variety here just overwhelmed me to the point where I did not even bother trying. All I did was trying to make pretty pictures and wish I had my 5D2, tripod, filters, and the works. I need to make a separate photography-oriented trip to Switzerland.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

By the time we got to Mannlichen, Lisa was tired enough that she refused to hike any more and we took the expensive Gondola down to Grindelwald Grund, where we revisited a grocery store where Lisa had left her arm warmers to find them waiting for us. On the way back to Hotel Alpenblick, we bought some detergent, since I wanted to do laundry. I also spotted stores selling hiking sticks for about 20CHF, which was a bargain if we did 3 more hikes, so Lisa bought one so that the morrow's hike wasn't as painful.

When we got to the hotel I looked at my Garmin 500 and saw that we had hiked more than 20km, and over 1400m of climbing, making this "rest day" a nice challenging walk. I assured Lisa and Phil that tomorrow's hike would be easier.

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Grindelwald

We did have a tour, but was stoped short by rain. We made it to innsbruck bit then were stuck. Never one to fight mother nature, we saw that interlaken was less rainy and so ended up there. We then did grosser scheidegg, grimsel,furka, San bernardino, klausen and sustens, where lisa and I set a new speed record: 129kph according to the Garmin 500.

Cynthia and Kekoa got tired of tandem speed and took off to take in splurgen, mallorja, Juliet, and albula as well. We'll regroup in rosenlaui on Sunday beforee Phil,Cynthia, Kekoa return to the us.

Day 15: Goschenen to Meiringen

 

Having failed to eat at the Lammi Restaurant twice on this trip, I was determined not to make Lammi the lunch spot today. We got up early, had a hearty breakfast, packed our bags, and rolled down the hill to Wassen (930m) where the climb to Sustens Pass (2224m) began. The descent to Wassen was fast, hitting speeds in excess of 45mph.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Sustens pass is the classic Swiss-engineered climb. It has a consistent 8-10% grade throughout its 21km or so, and many consider it boring because you can see the summit from a long way, which makes the gradual approach on the climb an exercise in frustration. On the single bike I had never felt this frustration, because I always moved fast enough to keep boredom at bay. On the tandem, however, it felt like a long grind and I started to understand how others frequently felt. It took us well over 3 hours to make the summit, but we made the summit by 12:30pm.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

After a quick picture at the summit lake we descended Sustens pass. Since we were in a hurry to make the Lammi restaurant before lunch hour was up, we minimized shooting pictures, videos or anything that would slow us down. In fact, after the first set of tunnels and hair pins I over took a white car!

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Sustens pass is spectacular. You get series of tunnels, wide turns, sharp hairpins, waterfalls spraying you as you enter the tunnels, and dramatic, glorious scenery all around you. It is also a very fast descent, and a long one. It took us no less than 45 minutes to make it from top to bottom, and that was with only one stop to wait for Phil who was stuck behind the white car.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Lisa's bike computer read 129kph, while mine read around 79kph. I was delighted, but really should have been skeptical about the 129kph number. That did seem a bit high, and could easily have been caused by the many tunnels we traversed on the descents. We made the Lammi restaurant, and the Bratwurst with noodles was as good as I remembered it. This was the Bratwurst that made all the other sausages I ever had in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland seem sad.

We were in Meiringen Valley 2 days ahead of when we were due at Rosenlaui. We could stay in Meiringen, but I proposed that we would have been better of taking the train to Grindelwald and hiking for 2 days and then riding over to Rosenlaui via Grosse Scheidegg. Both Phil and Lisa were receptive, so we headed down to the Meiringen train station and bought train tickets what seemed like an incredibly expensive set of train tickets.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

It poured as I was in the Grindelwald tourist information center getting housing. All the holiday apartments were taken, and the one place that was available did not answer the phone, so we ended up looking at hotels. Hotel Alpenblick offered us a private room for an exceedingly good price, provided that we stayed Saturday night in shared accommodations. The price was so good that it more than offset the price of the train tickets we had just taken from Meiringen, so we took the offer.

Phil volunteered to ride out in the rain to pick up the room, and Lisa and I waited for the rain to dissipate a bit before making the hotel. After we settled in, the rain storm petered out. We went to town to buy shampoo, shower gel, and dinner. After dinner we discovered to our surprise that the Mont-Bell store was open, and there Phil found a pair of hiking shoes that fit him. They were 120CHF, but I pointed out that if he hiked for 4 days in them, that was like paying 30CHF per day in rent for those shoes, and he would have these really good shoes to bring back with him to Munich. He bought the shoes.

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Day 14: Linthal to Fluelen

 

Despite all the rain the day before, it was beautiful and sunny by the time breakfast was ready. Nothing but blue sky greeted us as we left Hotel Adler to head up to the first cobblestone section of Klausen pass.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Klausen is a pass which climbs in 2 stages. The first steep section starts right past Linthal, and goes up to over 1300m into the Urnerboden valley. The section through the Urnerboden Valley is almost flat, and then the road rises steeply again until the pass summit (1952m) is reached.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

The day got warm surprisingly quickly, and we enjoyed the cool tunnel in the first steep section as a relief from the heat. Phil was clearly quite over his cold, as he pulled rapidly away from us in this section, and waited for us as we struggled to make it into the valley. Once we hit the valley, we had a gentle tailwind that pushed us rapidly towards the second climb, though we did stop in the shade of a restaurant awning for a bit to eat and rest.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

The final push was too steep to attempt all at once, but fortunately there was no need to do so that day. While the air was hazy, the views all around us were still as gorgeous as ever, and the sound of cowbells surrounded us and made us feel uplifted. We were passed by many unloaded cyclists, and many cyclists, loaded and unloaded came down the other way, including a pair of girls no older than 14 on loaded touring bikes. When we got to the summit it was finally cool enough that we had to put on our jackets again.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Lunch at the summit was measly and expensive. I would have waited until later, but I had tried to make a reservation for the Hotel Posthaus yesterday but Stefan the owner told me that this was their last rest day before the summer season, so we could not stay there, or have lunch there.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

The descent of Klausen is dramatic. With sheer drop offs and steep grades all the way down to the first retro-grade at Unterschahen, a good bike handler could hit almost arbitrarily high speeds if there were no traffic. Unfortunately, there's quite a bit of traffic on the road, and it's too narrow to risk a head-on collision, so I pulled the brakes more often than I would have liked. Nevertheless, I was not worried at all about tire blow-off, since there was plenty of room in between braking points for the rims to cool off.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

At the retro-grade, we shed our jackets, and started climbing. In the past, this retro-grade had caused me no end of trouble in the rain and cold, but today with warm temperatures and relatively fresh legs it was OK.

Once in Altdorf, we stopped at the same grocery store I stopped at in 2005, shivering in hypothemia, and bought groceries for a second lunch. We then rolled down to Fluelen where I knew a train would take us to Goschenen, not wishing to add another 500m of climbing in the afternoon heat when we could sleep high and cool and descend to the start of Sustens pass the next day.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

At Goschenen, it started to rain as we left the train station, so rather than scout around to look for the best deal, we stayed at the same hotel Mike and I stayed at the previous time, which was the Wellness-Hotel zum Weissen Rossli. The person running the hotel was the only Chinese person in town. She didn't remember me from last time, but she also didn't know I was Chinese as well.

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Day 13: Vaduz to Linthal

 

The morning found us back tracking along the Rhein, along the elevated bike path back towards Switzerland and Sargans, where we had originally intended to stay. Unlike the Swiss side, the Liechtenstein side is bordered on one side by the river and the other by fields and views of mountains, rather than the big noisy motorway. The flat riding up river didn't take long, and Liechtenstein isn't a big country anyway, so we quickly ended up past the Swiss border. Swiss bike paths are very well signed, so we quickly found the sign for Sargans.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

The ride towards Wallensee from Sargans was surprisingly pretty, with views of tall mountains all around us, little streams, and shady roads that were a relief in the warm summer sun. In Wallenstadt the bike path suddenly petered out, but we wanted lunch anyway, so headed into town where we bought a grocery store lunch. I asked the information center, which was conveniently located right at the post office where an internet cafe was, since Lisa wanted to do some business on the internet. They pointed me at a Cafe which was right on the water of the Wallensee, and when we got there it looked like an ideal picnic spot, so Phil and I laid the bikes down and proceeded to lunch on the benches while watching the beautiful scenery.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

It was an ideal spot for a nap as well, so once Lisa was done with internet and lunch we had a few quiet moments. During that time, I spotted that rarest of cyclists: the Independent Solo Woman Tourist. I walked up to her and asked if I could get a photo of her, and she told me that she had just started from Chur that morning, and had 8 weeks to ride her bike to Paris. As a school teacher, she had even more vacation than a typical European did. I asked her if she was camping, and she shook her head and said no, she would stay in hostels. Like all other true adventurers she had no idea where she was goning to stay each night. I wished her well.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

We then rode along the Wallensee, something I had wanted to for a while. The main road has a bike path, but the real bike path was right along the lake on the other side of the train tracks on its own dedicated grade. It took us a while to find a way to get to it, but get to it we did. We got great views of the Wallensee, and the facilities were really amazing, including its own dedicated tunnel! People always wonder why I go all the way to Europe to ride my bike, and the willingness of a country to build dedicated facilities like this just shows you how different riding a bike is in Europe, versus riding one in the US. It takes that kind of switch in mentality before the majority of people consider cycling a valid form of transportation.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

From Weesen I saw a sign for Molliers and Nafels, and so we took leave of the Wallensee and rode towards Linthal. The bike path was closed so we had to take the detour onto a few busy highways until we got to Netstal where we picked up the bike path to Glarus. At Glarus, we stopped at a supermarket for water melons, and I laid out the choices. We could stay in Glarus, continue to Linthal, or visit the Kolantarsee. Phil wanted to go to Linthal for an early start tomorrow, so we headed in that direction. The main road was really busy, though, and it didn't take long before we started searching for the bike path. We picked it up in Schen, tne then rode it into Linthal under the threat of impending rain.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Indeed, it started raining heavily in Linthal itself. We pulled into a bed and breakfast, the but beds looked so moth-eaten that I didn't even want to bother with a bed bug check. The train station had a hotel that was frequented by cyclists, but the room she wanted to give us had a bathroom that reeked, so we ended up on the other side of town at Hotel Adler.

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Day 12: Andeer to Vaduz

 

From Andeer down to Thusis, the road was once again smooth and fast, staying with the Hinterrhein through tunnels and a few more "schultz" style tourist traps while the freeway soared above us. It promised to be another warm day, but in Thusis, the bike path quickly veered off away from the main road and headed off into the woods on a dirt path towards Chur. The bike path granted us beautiful views of the river below as the Hinterrhein made its way into the Rhein. Around lunch time we headed into Ens, getting to the supermarket just before it closed for lunch. After lunch and a nap, we headed into Chur.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Lisa had missed the Heidiland tour the last time we were in the region, and she was determined not to miss it this time. She went to the information center and got directions to the Heidi Haus, which was in Maienfeld, about 20km away. While waiting for her and Phil to do some shopping, a man rode up on his bicycle and asked us if we were touring. I answered his questions and he told me how to get to the bike path towards Maienfeld. Imagine my surprise when he tipped me 10CHF and asked me to buy some coffee.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

When Lisa and Phil came back, however, he was so charmed that he invited us over to his house for some tea and to hopefully meet his wife. This was how we met Otto Rohrer. Otto's wife was not home, but he offered us tea anyway, and then tried to give us more stuff to take with us, including a club jersey. Otto told us that he had always wanted to go touring, but did not know how, and wanted to help out others who were living his dream. The thing is, he was strong enough to keep up with the local cycle club, so all he lacked was the actual push to go out and tour. People always seem surprised that I get experiences like this when touring, but it's something that happens at least once every trip.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

After we left Otto's house, which was conveniently located on the bike path to Maienfeld, we headed down the bike path. There was a nominal headwind today, but in the afternoon heat it just made for a pleasant breeze. While the bike path was meandering, the constant navigational challenges it posed made the miles go by. The headwind stiffed a little bit more as we rode directly into Maienfeld, and once in Maienfeld there were Heidi signs everywhere, including a Heidi shop right in the intersection at the center of town. Lisa went in and was told that there was an original Heidi haus up the hill. Since it was already 4:15 and the place closed at 5:00pm, we got onto the bike and started up the hill.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Well, never doubt the ability of the stoker to get what she wants. Lisa was so motivated on the climb that we dropped Phil on the steep grade. As we approached the Heidi haus, I spied a sign pointing to Vaduz, and realized that we could make a detour into Liechtenstein for the night. Finding the Heidi Haus was a bit of a problem, what with all Heidi-related postings on the road. There was the Heidi Hotel, and the Heidi Weg, and Heidi this and Heidi that. We eventually found it at 4:45pm, and Lisa bought tickets and went into the Heidi Haus while I stayed outside and guarded the bike from the mobs of Japanese tourists that would unload from buses at the Heidi Hotel and walk in.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Phil eventually caught up to us and bought some ice cream. He had bonked on the climb, and was totally wasted. At the tourist shop, I examined the map and informed Phil that we were less than 100m from the pass into Liechtenstein, and Phil thought it was an amusing idea as well.

After Lisa was done touring the Heidi haus, and taking photos of the Heidi chicken coop and the Heidi goat field, we headed over to the Heidi weg, and began riding towards Liechtenstein. The pass turned out to be only 700m tall, and since we were already at 650m, it was not a problem, other than the last 200m stretch being on a road that was in the process of being repaved, and hence in a state of pure gravel. The descent into Liechtenstein took us past a Swiss military installation (I doubt if the Swiss really are worried about invasion from a country with less population than Saratoga, California, but nevertheless, it was a pretty impressive installation), and then zipped down to the valley into Balzers.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

At Balzers, we found a hotel but it was full up. It took riding into Vaduz and searching around before we settled on a hotel that seemed even more expensive than the ones in Switzerland. Between the morning descent, the lovely dirt path, meeting Otto, and getting in the Heidi Haus, we were all pretty satisfied. Even better, it looked like we were over the worst of the cold.

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