August 2, 2012

Murren-Griesalp-Kandersteg-Gasternal: Pamplona at 8000 Feet

Yesterday was Switzerland’s Swiss Day, commemorating the establishment of the Swiss Federation, and many of the rituals are familiar from our own celebration of the Fourth of July: fireworks, barbecue and lots of flags.  Having arrived at our last destination, it felt a little like a party for our having made it through the most challenging days of the tour.

Monday we left Murren; I was sad to see it behind us although it was great to discover it.  After an hour’s hike up, we came to a restaurant and playground that sits at the top of a century-old funicular railway.  The funicular was built to go to the top of a bobsled run, which ran until 1931 but was closed when a rider died coming down.  Since then it has been a restaurant and the hub of a network of trails that sit on a high plateau overlooking the town.  Oompah band members in traditional garb were at one table, enjoying a break with plates heaping with bratwurst, raclit (sort of a fondue on a plate eaten with potatoes) and, of course, a mug of beer.  Kids ran around with ice cream cones and sacks of fries (which the Swiss do pretty well).

We, however, had a long day ahead and so continued up towards the high pass that would take us from the Lauterbrunn Valley, which we had been in for several days, to the Keint Valley to the east.  After the heat of prior days, the foggy, cooler weather was welcome relief and made the steep grade more bearable.  This is an early day view looking back at Murren, which seems to just hover on the valley edge.

This particular side of the valley is covered with wildflowers; it is hard to do them justice (especially on a cloudy day) but this shot shows a typical slope carpeted with yellow flowers that seem to dance across the green hillside.

Before long, we came around a bend to find a herd of cows sitting in the trail, a common enough occurrence but here the angle of mountain slope was steep so moving above or below the cows was going to be pretty dicey.  The cows did not know what to do either so we clicked our hiking sticks together and moved slowly to try to get them to scoot along.  Some cows above us, though, did not want to be separated from their cow pals ahead of us and suddenly began to actually run – virtually gallop – down the slope just feet ahead of us.  This was a bizarre, funny and frightening sight since we had no where to go to get out of their way.  The few of our group behind us were cracking up at the sight of us trying to get away from the “thundering herd” of  horned milk cows.   Running the bulls on a street in Pamplona is no match for the danger, excitement and high buffoonery of eluding scared milk cows on steep Swiss slopes.  A new tourist attraction in the making.

After a few hours of pretty much going straight up, we were above the tree line and reached the pass.  Clouds made it difficult see all that much but here you can glimpse the trio of the Eiger, Monck and Jungfrau across the valley we were about to leave.  

The pass, at about 8,500 feet, was cool and windy, surrounded by craggy outcroppings. This inhospitable environment, though, is home to the intrepid steinbok, a wild goat with impressive curved horns (many of which decorate homes in this part of Switzerland like deer antlers might in parts of the U.S.)  We saw a group of steinbok sitting comfortably on ledges that only a nimble and sure-footed mountain dweller could reach.  If you look closely, you can see them (a bit blurry) in this picture (arrayed in what seems like the eye of a man in profile) and, in the next, the impressive horns of a steinbok sitting atop a high ledge.

The way down into the Keinter Valley was also steep, requiring us to scramble down rock-strewn gorges with glacier-fed streams.  

Many waterfalls spewed out on both sides, including this impressive falls that seemed to jet straight out of the mountain in an angry boil.

As we got lower, the beautiful green hillsides appeared and, instead of killer milk cows, we found some mellow goats that seemed to come out of a children’s book of fairy tales.

After a long day of hiking up over the pass and down into the valley, we gratefully reached our next stopping place, a tiny inn in the equally modest village of Griesalp.  After a fitful night listening to the noises made when people moved on the creaky boards of the inn, I woke very early and ducked outside to see daybreak over the valley, yielding some great views.  

After a typical mountain breakfast of coffee, bread with jam and butter, muesli and the ever-present alpenkase (cheese), we set out for our longest day, 5,000 feet up and then 5,000 feet down.

After a fairly steep beginning over the green slopes of the western side of the valley,  the terrain shifted to broken shale scree. This long section seemed to go straight up forever, with tricky footing and a slope that found me crabwalking up the mountain.  It seemed hard to even put one foot very far in front of the other, like doing one-legged step-ups for a couple of hours.  The altitude became an issue as well, and I was sucking down water to try to stay hydrated in the thinner air.  After angling around a lingering field of remaining snow and ice, a long series of stairs loomed imposingly ahead.  I thought the stairs would be a welcome sight but with jittery legs and gasping lungs, they seemed more like an obstacle course.  Many of the steps were rickety or muddy, with rope or chain rails seemingly out of reach.  I felt like some came up to my waist, challenging my shaky quads to make it up.

Eventually, though, I shuffled to the top and, on the narrow divide between valleys, took in the awesome views on both sides.  Behind us were the mountains we’d been circumnavigating for a week – Eiger, Monck, Jungfrau and others.  Ahead was were the ranges that form the eastern edge of the Valais, the French-speaking area of Switzerland with Mont Blanc (hidden from view) at its heart.  A hut (in fact a large stone structure) sat just above the pass and, after our picnic lunch (not permitted to be eaten in the huts), we went up to have some warming soup, coffee and to get out of the biting wind.  A few views:

Aware of the long way down, we got going, gingerly making our way down the steep scree fields and trying to avoid a tumble.  This day was not for those with an issue with heights, as the trail was often no more than a foot wide, sometimes along a ridge with long steep slopes on either side.  Making use of my hiking poles, I was able to ease the burden on my knees; several of us had to have knees taped to support them on the long way down.  The trail took us past gigantic stone outcroppings and a massive glacier; as is true elsewhere, the alpine glaciers here are far smaller than decades past as global warming has taken a toll.  At one point I heard a crack that sounded like thunder but, I was told, was just a small (and common) avalanche that was (fortunately!) too far away to be of any concern.

After a break at a farmhouse, one of our group and I went ahead on the last leg that would take us to the gondola that (thankfully) would take us the last 1500 feet into Kandersteg.  Most of this trail ran on a steep slope high above the Oechensee, a magical lake of gem-like acquamarine, that sits below a thousand foot granite wall.  The views of the lake from this rarely-used high trail were breathtaking – and a little dangerous because failure to look down and focus on the trail could lead to quite a fall.  These shots cannot capture the startling color and setting of this special place.

The gondola ride down introduced a new valley and led into Kandersteg, a fairly large town compared with those we’d stayed at but still small and quiet.  It is known as a place where British visitors stay and perhaps that explains why it is the international home of Boy Scouts, started by a former British general, Baden-Powell.  Boy  Scouts from all over Europe were tooling about with their uniforms, troop neckbands and enthusiasm.

Our hotel was the nicest we’d stayed at and the food some of the best.  It was with a bit of ennui that we left the next day for a relatively easy (4 hour) walk up the Gasternal Valley, adjacent to Kandersteg, for the last two nights of our trip.  Gasternal starts as a narrow box canyon and slowly widens but never more than a quarter-mile wide, surrounded by steep hills and mountains; at the end of the valley is a long slope leading up to a large glacier that can be seen in this picture at the top of the valley.  

The entire valley is designated as a UNESCO preserve.  Definitely “Sound of Music” territory without Julie Andrews; no, I did not sing "the fields are alive with the the sound of music" since I did not want a new stampede of cows driving me out of the valley.

Our last two nights will be at the Hotel Steinbok, a lovely old inn run by an English woman and her Swiss husband, along with a slew of daughters and their college friends from merry old England.  As we were there on Swiss Day, we got to enjoy their holiday barbecue, which include a groaning table fuil of salad makings that would be familiar to all of us along with grilled veal and chicken, four types of sausage (including curry!), bratwurst and corn.  The guests all tore into this feast with gusto, washed down with the local brew or a glass of wine; Dolé, a red wine made locally from grapes from the nearby Valais (the French-speaking part of Switzerland) was especially tasty.  Darkness brought some small fireworks and a few hoots from local teenagers.  All in all, a nice celebration.  Three cheers for Switzerland!

August 3, 2012

Gasternal-Innsbruck

Yesterday, the last real day of this hiking tour, we headed off toward the Loschsen Pass, some 4500 feet above Gasternal, overlooking the Valais to the West.  We were not initially inclined for another rigorous hike but headed up with our lunches to enjoy another stunningly beautiful and clear day (showers the previous night did not linger).

After passing a restaurant about 800 feet above the valley floor, we came upon a surging set of falls which provide electricity to our hotel; the thunder from the rushing water was deafening.

Marching steeply upward, we eventually found ourselves in a large meadow populated by a herd of (naturally) cows, who pretty much evicted us when two farmers put out salt on nearby rocks.  The view (above) of the glacier across the valley, (which if traversed would take you back to Lauterbrunn valley), was pretty special. 

We pressed on up for a while to the edge of the glacier on our side of the valley, stopping for lunch on a windswept ledge of built-up glacial talus, mostly small to medium size rocks ground off of the underlying bedrock by thousands of years of glacial activity – mostly retreating in recent years due to global warming.  As the pass supposedly could offer views of Mont Blanc to the east across the Valais, I decided that my sore calves could stand one more big push and the others agreed – much to the surprise of our guides, who thought we’d just head back down after a short hike.

To continue, we had to cross a long section of the glacier, the first part covered with snow and then talus sitting on top of glacial ice.  Looking down, you could see streams of cold water rushing downslope.  This glacial ultimately provided water for the headwaters of the Rhine, which would then flow northerly across Germany, ultimately flowing into the North Sea.  On the other side of the pass, glaciers feed the Rhone, passing south to France and then the Mediterranean.  In that sense, the pass was really like a continental divide.  The landscape here is raw, almost lunar, and one felt very small in the face of such large and inexorable geologic features.

Surprisingly, after traversing the glacier talus field, we had to stow our poles and scramble up steep sections of rock, hand over hand for some distance, the first such climbing we had done.  Exhilarating but a bit frightening with some sheer drops and tired limbs.  Finally we caught view of the hut that caps the pass (as is characteristic of Swiss passes), where a cup of hot chocolate revived me.  The view towards the Valais was like looking at the roof of Europe, although these pictures do not really capture it.  The pass also had the cross that you find at such points in Switzerland, reflecting its deep Catholic and Protestant heritage.  While Jake, one of our great guides, denied that Mt. Blanc was visible, Haroon (one of my hiking companions) and I decided that our position was that we saw it.  

The way down was about as long a downhill as we have had and it seemed endless, especially to sore knees.  Beer and Advil greeted us, though, at the bottom and the decision to make the full hike up to the pass seemed to have been the right call.

Our last dinner was fun, with everyone swapping their personal highs and lows of the trip.  My low was when I thought I’d mislaid my passport (packed in another bag); there were too many highs to single out just one, although achievement of the pass at Hoturli, with its views into two valleys, was a high both geographically and emotionally.  Everyone was delighted that dinner, for the first time, included rostï, a Swiss dish made in an iron skillet that looks like a really big potato pancake except with some cheese and lots of butter.  Lethally delicious.

Tomorrow is travel day; three trains to Innsbruck, where I will overnight before continuing on to Dobbiaco, Italy, where I will pick up a cab to Cortina.  Buon Giorno!

August 4, 2012

Innsbruck – Cortina d’Ampezzo

Everyone said their goodbyes in the morning and packed into a bus for the white-knuckle bus trip down a single track, winding mountain road to the valley to Kastersteg, where we would pick up our trains.  The others were headed to Zurich and then the States, while I was headed for more hiking.  I had a little guilt, but not too much; things tend to even out over time and I feel like I’m still working on credit (at least I hope I am!)

The train rides were pretty uneventful; the connections were tight by U.S. standards (12 minutes both times) but ample in Switzerland.  The last train, Zurich to Innsbruck, was the longest, first along some blue lakes and then snaking through narrow valleys.  Perhaps the biggest change coming into Austria was the modestly increased diversity in building style.  Throughout Switzerland, outside of bigger cities and towns, every building shared a similar configuration with a wide upside-down V-shaped roof, brown weathered wooden plank walls with shutters, window boxes and often some carved words or pictures near the peak.

Austria, though, featured some brightly colored homes, some modern architecture and bell-shaped church steeples, reflecting I suppose influence from the days of the Hapsburg Empire.  Stepping out of the train in Innsbruck, I was struck by how warm and humid it was, an unwelcome change from the cooler mountain air I’d been experiencing for the most part in Switzerland.  I tried to buy a ticket for the next day to Dobbiaco, Italy (closest train station to Cortina) but was told I would have to buy a ticket for the second leg.  This would have been fine except that the connection at the transfer point was only 6 minutes.

I made my way to the hotel, a nice 3-star affiliated with Best Western (a chain that I found to be surprisingly good on my sweep through the West earlier this year).  The hotel was not too far from the train station (at least for those, unlike myself, who did not overpack), and faced a very nice park.  Otherwise, however, the area between my hotel and the train station was surprisingly seedy, featuring strip clubs, card casinos, sportsbars and streetwalkers.  Who knew?!  You will be disappointed to know that I did not avail myself of these alternatives, eating dinner at the hotel and settling in for some Olympic coverage, albeit from German TV stations, there seeming not to be any Austrian TV channels.

Saturday I boarded the first train only to find it was absolutely packed, with people jamming the narrow aisles next to the seat compartments, sleeping in the vestibules and tripping over luggage everywhere.  I later found out that traveling on the first Saturday in August in Europe could be one of the worst days for long-range train travel because everyone is on holiday.   Shouldering my excessive baggage down the aisle, I noticed a compartment with one empty middle seat and, being the New Yorker I have become, threw my bags on it, left my big suitcase in the aisle like everyone else, and plopped down, praying no one had reserved it.  Luck was with me and I got to sit all the way to my connection in Fortezzo.  There, I joined the line at the single ticket machine as the next train sat there.  To my amazement, the train conductor held the train for me, a far nicer, spacious train with huge windows facing the heavily wooded Dolomite foothills.  Trenitalia has a new fan.


Beginning this new phase of my trip, I sense that I will miss the companionship of the group tour and realize again that developing friendships and a closer relationship have to be a priority for me.  Travel affords some opportunity to do so and helps me avoid ruts but continuity is lacking.  I've pretty much decided to return to New York after Cortina to give that a bit of focus for a while.  I'll also avoid the August crowds in Europe and can help support my younger son, who will be intensely busy on his senior project film in the weeks before his last year in school.

More on Cortina shortly!