Swiss Alps

For our four-day weekend in early July, we took a trip to the Swiss Alps, specifically the Berner Oberland. As the picture above shows, we only had Lyndi with us--Keanna and Ayla spent the weekend with friends. If it seems that this post goes a little long and has tons of pictures, its because everywhere we went had beautiful mountain views.

This part of the Alps includes the deep, glacier carved Lauterbrunnen Valley. We stayed in a cheap hotel with loud, drunk guests and a really nice owner (who gave us a discount due to the loud guests). The valley is surrounded by cliffs and many waterfalls. Cars are found in the valley, but to get to the villages and mountains one has to take cable car, trains, trams, or foot. We took the train and then the above tram to get to our highest point. Note the piles of hay stacked in lower left of photo.

This picture shows a view from 7317 ft. One can see the cable car on the right, the closest village at 4180 ft, and the village on thefloor of the valley at 2600 ft.

Beautiful Alpine views were common. The cliffs and the bottom of the valley are on the right.

Beautiful views!

Emily was really excited to be there; Lyndi....not so much.

Lyndi was a trooper and did the entire trip in the Baby Bjorn.

Directly behind us is the Jungfrau (Young Maiden) at 13,642 ft.

On the left is the Eiger (Ogre) at 13026 ft, in the middle is the Monk at 13,449 ft, and the Jungfrau (young maiden) at 13,642 ft on the right. So that is the young maiden being protected by the monk from the ogre.

Lyndi did excellent on the trip.

Lyndi, contemplating which peak she wants us to carry her to next.

This train goes from the valley floor at 2600 ft up to the saddle between the Monk and Young Maiden at 11,300 ft. That's a big elevation change. Half of the trip is spent going through the Ogre moutain. The Swiss aren't afraid of making tunnels or of heights. They completed this train over 100 yrs ago. The ride isn't cheap, so we decided to do another, more challenging hike.

On the right is the "North Face" of the Eiger. Since1935, at least 64 people have died climbing the North Face of the Eiger. It was first successfully climbed in 1938.

Lyndi did great. Rick Steves' travel books have been incredibly helpful as we have visited Europe. I have noticed that our camera, and the mirrors here in Europe, tend to exaggerate my chin and cheeks. Although not incredibly flattering for me, Lyndi pulls off the chubby cheek, double chin look very well.

The trail with people on it, that runs from left to right, is a somewhat steep trail that we eventually hiked (see photos below).

Several times throughout the day, big chunks of the glacier behind my head would crash down the cliffs. It was quite impressive.

Another glacier.

Lyndi and I are on the trail, which was right at the base of the Eiger, Monk and JungFrau. We strongly considered climbing the North Face, but decided we had better not since we didn't have enough sun screen.

This picture shows the trail going down toward the valley floor. For all of you runners, there is an annual JungFrau marathon which begins at the valley floor and climbs 5,960 ft. The trail gets quite steep at times, and I had a rough time just going down it. My loosely tied running shoes

didn't make great hiking boots, and after hiking down 3100 ft with Lyndi on my belly I was convinced that my size 11 feet had been compressed to about a size 9.

We were really enjoying the wildflowers and amazing alpine views, and then we noticed the dark clouds move in.....

Even with the rain and bad-parenting moments, we had a wonderful trip.