SWITZERLAND-COMPELLED TO SAUNTER

We stepped off the train in the middle of what seemed like Disneyland’s Main Street...ZERMATT!

DOWNTOWN ZERMATT-MAIN STREET

OUR FIRST GLIMPSE

In Sept. 2019, on our honeymoon; I told my wife, Loraine, "this is where Disney and his crew must have been inspired for the ideas for Disneyland. As we strolled along the magical streets  where cars are banned, the alluring Iconic Matterhorn, began to speak to us. “ I am the most dangerous mountain in the world and have taken more humans than any other, and yet, I stand here alone before you as one of nature’s grandest creations.”

THE MATTERHORN IN ALL ITS GLORY

I could barely get Loraine down the street,  she was in a state of laughing and giddy like a young girl, she literally
couldn’t help herself, the enchanting Swiss garden balconies on the businesses and houses had captured her fancy. By the the end of the day, she was taking pictures of fire hydrants, saying “how unique and beautiful they were”...really! It made me smile.

CLIMBING ROUTE IN YELLOW

After wondering, and getting lost in the excitement of the beauty surrounding us, we finally found the Annelis Apartments. Staying on the 3rd floor, we awoke to the pyramidal east face of the Matterhorn. Formed when 3 ancient glaciers collided, and left their impression on the granite. Over 500 people have died climbing the Matterhorn since the initial descent in 1865 (of which 3 died, half the climbers), this is more than Mt Everest. The East ridge is the easiest to ascend, where you start from the Hornlihutte Hut about a 1/3 of the way up. One night, we witnessed a helicopter rescue off the side of the ominous mountain. I kept wondering if my trekking buddy Paul Garsin, who summited in 1985 knew about all these stats. 

HOBBIT VIEW OFF
GONDOLA

We had no choice in the morning as we were compelled to wonder towards the luring triangular facade, we stopped at the bakery to pick up some croissants and a vegetarian baggets for lunch. We had purchased a 15 day Swiss rail pass and we could even get major discounts on the gondolas. So we found a gondola heading toward the mountain and jumped on it.

SCHWARZEE HUT

Our first step off the gondola seem to be out of hobbit movies made in New Zealand. The street was lined with old fashioned homes, and barns with yellow signs saying Go This Way. We sauntered (as John Muir used to say) up to the Schwarzee Hut and enjoyed some scrumptious Swiss goulash soup lunch and a spectacular view at the base of the Matterhorn.

LORAINE WAS IN AWE 

ROCKY BASE

Zermatt is a hiker, walker, climber, para glider paradise. There are trails everywhere....and  you can take a gondola up and find even more. When you are hiking; you don’t even feel like you are. There are so many fascinating surroundings, old farm houses and lavish gardens everywhere that draw you towards them.

BASE OF MATTERHORN
BOBSLED LIKE

One day we meandered up to the base of the majestic mountain via the lower Matterhorn trail. Passing through pastures and historic huts that were carefully balanced on huge flat flagstone rocks to level them out. Up the mountain we went following the echoing cow bells chiming, as if we were in the “Sound of Music”. At the base of the Matterhorn you can see the waterfalls blasting out & you can't help but think this is where Disney got his idea for the Bobsled ride.

RED TRAIN ON LEFT & THE
"KULMHOTEL GONERGRAT"

GORNERGRAT GLACIER
IN 2006

HONESTLY, SOMETIMES
I JUST DON'T GET WHY
WE DON'T CARE

Gornergrat train.. The Swiss of course are train fanatics. They have devised a system with a rail ratchet methodology that pulls the trains to the top of unimaginable terrain.  From Zermatt, the Gornergrat mountain train  chugged up to the valley, opposite of the Matterhorn. We could see the frustrating results of climate change. The one time great Monte Rosa valley glacial field that used to extended to base of the valley is now a mere shadow of its grandeur. There is a the "Kulmhotel Gornergrat" (the highest hotel in the Swiss Alps) perched on the upper side of the valley with a spectacular view of these RECEDING glaciers and the Matterhorn off in the distance. I could find no information in the visitor center about the plight of the glaciers staring us right in our face. It’s almost like they wanted to extend the Disney "Zermatt" effect.

THE WALK DOWN-GREAT
YELLOW SIGNS TO 
FOLLOW

The train has many stops on the way down, so we just took off from the top and started to walk until we got tired and jumped on the train for the rest of the way down.

The next day we took the funicular (cable railroad) and then a gondola up to the Rothorn station at 3,103 meters. I think next time I would get off at the second station (Blauhard)  and hike back down to Zermatt to avoid the crowds at the top. This way, one can still see the sky filling views of the Matterhorn as it darts out around the corners through the trees across the valley. 

ZERMATT- HIKING AND BIKING TRAILS:
 MATTERHORN IS ON THE TOP RIGHT

SO WHY IS SWITZERLAND SO INCREDIBLE: A small country that has managed to remain politically neutral even through WW11. There are 8.5 million people and a population growth rate (1.1%), about 1/2  the U.S. .They have a stable political system, and when one votes, they vote for a like-minded party -not a president. And, it requires 7 people of the elected party to agree on a policy... not just one person.  There is a keen environmental awareness of their mountains and the glacial beauty that is unsurpassed in the world. An unmatched efficient train system that you could set your watch to it. The water everywhere is tantalizing delicious like out of a mountain spring...no matter where you are...it is hard to even find bottled water and if you do it’s expensive! And it is a very safe country.

WE WERE THERE

LAUTERBRUNNEN

MÜRREN: We jumped on the little red train for a ride across the valley to another special area. This time up we took a tram out of village of Lauterbrunnen, straight up the granite face of the 4,000’ foot glacier carved canyon, with waterfalls cascading  through the valleys.

BALCONY OFF THE ALPINA

Murren is a launch point for a myriad of hiking and trekking based trips. You could spend weeks hiking through the passes to huts. Without trams 100s of  years ago, it would have taken days to drive a wagon up the dirt road that ran along the backside of the valley. Now,  with the tram, it only takes 15 minutes. We stayed in a hotel right on the edge of the cliff, called the "Alpina". One step off the balcony and down you go 4,000 feet.

MURREN IS ON THE RIGHT- GRINDELWALD
ON THE LEFT--DOUBLE CLICK TO ENLARGE

A small storm had passed and we awoke to a picture perfect morning. So we jumped on another tram that rushed us to the top of the famous Schilthorn mountain and entered “Bond World.” Our Swiss Pass gave us a free RT saving of 100s of dollars. The first stop is at the Birg station, where we did the Skywalk. It looks scary, but it was fun (in reality one is surrounded by cables and glass).

SHOULD HAVE
BENN IN THE CIRCUS

JUST GLASS

THE VIEW FROM
THE TOP OF SHILTHORN

 JAMES-WATCHOUT!

DON'T WORRY JAMES
 I HAVE HER IN MY
SIGHTS

OH! JAMES, IS THAT STANDARD
ISSUE?

FOR THOSE GUYS THAT 

NEED HELP AT THE URINAL

The next stop was the famous Schilthorn Peak,  where they had filmed the James Bond movie, “In her Majesty’s Service” with George Lazenby starring as Bond; in his one time roll. There is a rotating restaurant, called the Piz Gloria on top with a 360 view of the valley and the other mountain peaks. They have made it quite fun with James Bond paraphernalia everywhere, especially in the men's bathroom :).

ROCKSHUTTE--HUT

JUNGFRAU ON RIGHT
EIGER IN MIDDLE

The Big Hike: From Mürren we set out for a full 9 hour day hike. First we rode the funicular up to the Children’s garden and watched the kids play on swing sets and underground passages.
We then took off towards the Rockshutte hut a couple valleys over.

GIMMELWALD

TRAIL BACK TO MURREN

We tried a short cut that took us over a ridge in pasture settings, with nothing but cow trails to follow. We finally end up at the hut after about 5 hours. And there, we had some more Goulash soup which is pretty much the staple in most huts. The next day we were going to do a hut to hut hike starting in this area, but while we were eating lunch we noticed the owner of the hut calling the cows into the barn, (I never knew you could call cows), and low behold the first snow storm of the season hit in the next morning.
We made it back to Gimmelwald (another UNESCO site) and found a place still open to have some beer, missed our dinner reservations at our hotel in Murren; but we didn't care.

ROOM WITH A VIEW

WENGEN: Back on the mountain train again we were off to the mountain village of Wengen for a day of relaxing at the Lauterbrunnen Hotel Spa....and behold! What a spa..with Roman waterfall massagers, a giant swimming pool, various relaxing jets well placed, and a clothing optional steam, plus hot, cold pools. Then you can go upstairs to sip some tea and enjoy the view from a lounger. This was the splurge night, so we got the fancy room with the view of the valley and a rain storm.  There was a cool tram up to Mannlichen Ridge but it was surrounded by dense clouds; so we took some short hikes around the village area.

LOOKING BACK AT WENGEN

CUTE LITTLE YELLOW
MOUNTAIN TRAIN

MOO--TRAIL AROUND TOWN

CENTER OF
GRINDELWALD

PFINGSTEGG VALLEY

GRINDELWALD: It had been 49 YEARS since I had visited the famous climbing town of Grindelwald, with my mentor, and 6th grade teacher,  Keith Coble and is brother Kent. Loraine and I had a fabulous view of the 2 main valleys that had captured my imagination and probably set the stage for all the mountaineering I would do over the years to come. After a short period of searching my memory banks; I finally decided it had to be the Pfingstegg valley that we had visited so long ago, and was one of my top 3 hikes of all time. Back in 1970, the 3 of us had started off on the trail early in the morning out for a leisurely hike, but the thunderous sound of the crashing avalanches in the valley was closing in. After 3 or 4 hours along the valley edge, we ended up at the Baregg Trail Hut and had some lunch. We could see the narrowing trail chiseled on the side of mountain so we surged ahead, a 2,000 foot drop left no room for any missteps! But up ahead the trail seem to stop... we looked up and there were ladders stapled to the cliff. At this point, Keith had enough and turned around. Kent and I felt confident that we could climb the ladders. After several hundred meters, no more ladders..just pegs sticking out from the boulders...hmmm, I was 17,  Kent was 19, brash semi-stupid Americans who thought they could do anything. Well, onward we went, climbing hand over hand along the boulders and pulling ourselves up at some points. We somehow made it the top. As we emerged from the pegs on a stunning glacier, we saw an entire Swiss climbing team with climbing gear coming down. They all looked at us, shook their heads, and muttered something in German.. probably, “you dumb Americans”. Understand,  the  one thing we didn’t really think about was that YOU HAVE TO GO BACK DOWN! Wow, grabbing onto a peg while swinging your legs around the jagged rocks was quite the thrill, especially with the rumble of an avalanche that is falling who knows where.

BAREGG HUT AND TRAIL

We finally made it back down to Keith, and didn’t say anything to him...he would have killed us, ha, ha. Dehydrated by now, we drank some refreshing stream water, didn't even carry water with us back then.  On the last leg of the hike;  we rolled down the pasture like hill, yelling like little kids, "what a day!" Only one small problem; the water we drank was polluted with sheep feces and we all spent the next day heaving our guts out at the hotel. Oh well, it was worth it.

VIEW OUT THE WINDOW OF
 PFINGSTEGG VALLEY

So here we were back at Pfingstegg valley after all these years and I was dying to see if the trail was anything like
I remembered. I asked Bernie Kaufman, the owner of the hotel that we were staying in, about the trail.  He was a climber in his own right (he had done the famous Eiger mountain in his heyday), and he said I had it all wrong...it wasn’t the Pfingstegg  valley. He explained that  it was the next one up that had ladders at some point. He said that hike had been closed due to Climate Change and the glacier had melted. HE THEN SAID, " DO YOU AMERICANS EVEN KNOW WHAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS”? thanks Mr. Trump--this is how the rest of the world now views us.  He was of course talking to the wrong person. I told him I wrote about it in my blogs and tried to collect information on every trip I went on and share it with others. He would have nothing to do with that and pretty much told me to go on my way.

LORAINE COMING
UP THE TRAIL 

So we went on our way, and went with my gut, this time Loraine and I took a different route up the Pfingstegg valley to the Baregg hut. We heard no avalanches along the way, and it was still beautiful with the shrinking lower Grindewald glacier at the end of the valley coming into view.

BAREGG HUT VIEW,
TRAIL CONTINUES
UP TOP ON THE LEFT

I talked to the owner of the hut and he verified that 2 hours up ahead there was indeed ladders up the side of the mountain, but the pegs had been improved with cables to make it easier.

CABLES NOWADAYS, BAREGG
HUT IN BACKGROUND

So off I went after lunch to see if I could still feel that thrill again. Loraine decided to hang at the hut (smart)! After about 30 minutes and a few cable pulls along the edge of the trail everything came to an abrupt halt....a major avalanche had taken out the side of the mountain and trail. I attempted to cross, but of course there was a gushing stream that probably would have swept me off if I had any missteps.This time, I listened to my inner and wiser (Loraine) voice, and  after all, this was my honeymoon, so back I went to my loved one.

MINING GLACIAL ICE
BLOCKS WAS BIG TIME
IN THE LATE 1800S

AUGUST 1855 VS AUGUST 2013
UNTERE (LITTLE)
PFINGSTEGG GLACIER 

Did some research at the local museum in Grindelwald, and found some old pictures of the Pfingstegg glacier. Back in the day they used to mine the ice and transported it all over Europe and even to Paris for the ice boxes. One can see the extent of the glacier down the valley from the 1850s. Hard to believe!

LOOK OUT!

In this short snapshot of of human history, in the Pfingstegg valley, we can see the evidence being endured by the glaciers in Switzerland. We humans (as a collective consciouness), are unaware of the impact we have on our  planet. We have to ask ourselves at some point-- is this the legacy what we want to leave our children?

RACER GIRL!

Before we left Grindelwald, we had to have a little fun. So, we took the gondola up to "First" peak, and rented some mountain carts. We zoomed down the side of mountain racing each other. Loraine was laughing so hard and giggling like a hyena, and at one point had to pull over to wipe the tears from her eyes so she could see where she was going. We ended our Grindelwald adventure with one last walk in paradise and an exquisite Swiss Vodka, Martini.

LOVE THE NAME

GRINDELWALD LAST WALK
MT. WATTERHORN

SCHYNIGE PLATTE:

QUITE THE VIEW
TRAIN TRACKS BELOW

I didn't think the Gornergrat train could be beat (excluding the Jungfrau train to the top of Europe--didn't do it,  it was a ridiculous price to go up), but the ride to the top of the Schynige Platte mountain is unforgettable--another little Red train that literally crawls up the side of the mountain for 1.5 hours. You end up (what many of the Swiss consider),  the most far reaching views of the Alps, including Grindelwald, Jungfrau etc.. At the top Loraine was a good sport, we lugged up our backpacks on the tiny train, and dropped them off at the train station and did a 1.5 hr hiking loop around the ridge. When we came back to he train, it was about to pull out, yipes no train for 2 more hours, so we yelled at the conductor to hold on for a minute and picked up our backpacks,  ran to the train only to find no seats. So we just climbed over people and sat on top of the backpacks - knees against our chins- not much of a view though.

BERN CLOCK TOWER

BERN: Bern is the capital of Switzerland. It has a fascinating old town section with a famous clock built back in the 1400s  (remember the Swiss are the watch makers).  The clock marks the center of the town and is the window to the underground shops and eateries.

GENEVA: Is a historic town in its own right, the  towering Saint Peter's church is built on top of some old Roman ruins. An eclectic city, actually looks like a fairly integrated place with all walks of life. In the middle of lake Geneva, is a  cool 200 foot fountain that spouts off. Along side of the lake is the city park which hosts many local events.

ALL THE GREAT
EQUATIONS CARVED
INTO IT

But one of the best things is the short train trip out to CERN. This is where the particle accelerator is in full operation. The Infinity art structure (in front) is an accumulation of theorems and equations from famous scientists. The visitor center has an interesting short film inside. Trying to understand the complexity of life reduced to equations is pretty overwhelming to say the least.

RHONE GLACIER: IMAGINE WALKING INSIDE A GLACIER--NOTHING LIKE IT!
So, Loraine and I decided to go on one last a little side adventure in Switzerland. We got up at the crack of dawn to go see the most studied glacier in Switzerland. What I didn't realize; was that it would be 3 train rides and a wild bus ride (what seemed alike a hundred winding switchbacks up the mountainside) to get there. Once we were there though; I will never forget the 100m (yard) walk through the middle of the glacier with the illuminating blue light  reflecting off the walls and glistening all around us.  It was really cold and we could see our breath steaming in the frigid air. We felt like we were in the middle of a prism (this gave us a whole new perspective), as if the glacier was actually ALIVE!

WHAT IS LEFT OF THE
RHONE GLACIER-ENTRANCE
IS UNDER THE SHEET IN THE
MIDDLE RIGHT

With the granite striations from the glacial receding the deep carved valley, and the remaining fragment of the glacier right in front of us; we felt like we had a fascinating close encounter of what a major climate shift must have been like over the past 150 years.  This time the Swiss had placed a series or information signs along the path leading to the glacier, that gave us a background history of the area.

PRESENT DAY BELVEDERE
HOTEL 2019

BELVEDERE HOTEL IN 1895 WITH
THE RHONE GLACIER.
WE HAVE TO REMEMBER
THAT TODAY WE ARE THE
OVERSEERS OF THE PLANET!
(SEE HUMAN SHADOW ABOVE)

There is the old Belvedere hotel built on the edge of the glacier that used to be a major tourist draw, but is now  boarded up. One can see from the past photographs at the entrance station of what it must have looked like in 1895.  The scraped mountain valley was starring right at us! I don't care what your politics are...there is no denying the evidence of these pictures showing a cyclic change that has been speeded up by human impact.

PFINGSTEGG
GLACIER 2019

CLIMATE CHANGE: I did some more investigating; curious to know what the Swiss are  proposing to do in the future to combat climate change. My findings revealed their  plan is to have zero based carbon emissions by 2050, and in a creative way, by putting the measure before a  public vote. They only would need a 100,000 people to sign a petition to put this on the ballot for a vote to make this part of their constitution. In this way, preventing a platform change if a new party is elected! This is an excellent idea.  We are talking about 1.2% of the general population to bring it about....hmmm; could we do something like that? The Swiss are also exploring the ideas of putting snow machines above the glaciers to capture the moisture released and spraying it back onto the glacier. I think this is clever, but I like the first idea better.

PFINGSTEGG GLACIER
@ 1865 GRINDELWALD

So the bus ride back to Bern as part of the 11 hour adventure is worth mentioning. First we had no idea if this was the right bus-- it was going the other way down from the top of the mountain. And, we ended up in the front seat next to the bus driver for harrowing ride with the driver blasting his horn on all the hairpin turns. You honestly felt like you were going over the edge at any minute especially when the truck coming up the other way was on our side of the hairpin turn, and the young lady driver had her headphones on!! They both slammed on the brakes and we missed each other by about a foot! She shrugged and continued on her way. I looked at Loraine, she had a forced smile and she said "I used like scary rides". What a way to end Switzerland, on the edge or our seats feeling as alive as you can be.! Oh I forgot to mention with our eyes shut!
SUGGESTIONS:
1. The visitors center at all Alp based cities have excellent maps for their regions and the trail system. I would suggest getting the Swiss rail App, for the schedules etc.
2. Annelis Apatrments.. top floor get room facing Matterhorn...booking.com
3. Astoria Hotel: room #302, excellent old fashioned room with a spectacular view of the Matterhorn.
4. You can fly straight into Switzerland from the U.S. these days--Zurich, and Geneva for sure.
5. kiwi.com: great search engine for flights, watch out for the baggage weight allowance-but not always enforced.
6. September is the best month to travel--more sunny, less rain and clouds.
7. Carry a backpack if you can, makes it easier on trains, no more than 22 lbs.