We didn't have quite as much hiking planned for today, so we left the house about half an hour later than yesterday.
We took the same bus that we took yestermorning, and caught the 10:05 up to Grindelwald.
(I forgot to mention, yesterday, that it's essentially the same train that goes to both destinations, but you have to sit in the first half or second half, depending where you want to end up. The train splits part of the way up, and each half-train then continues on to the appropriate final destination. Laura has an amusing story about being here about 20 years ago, and ending up in Grindelwald accidentally.)
The ride up to Grindelwald takes about twice as long as yesterday's ride to Lauterbrunnen. I don't know if it's that much longer of a distance, or if it's just a steeper incline. Or both. There were definitely a few points where I thought and/or said "wow, this is pretty steep for a train."
Stepping onto the platform, it seemed like Grindelwald was much busier than Lauterbrunnen had been. The surrounding views seemed better too, but that might just have been because the weather was clearer today.
Part of the reason this town was busier could have been that the Eiger Ultra Trail race was taking place this weekend. We didn't pay much attention to this, however, other than to note that some sort of event was underway.
Signage indicated that it was about a 10 minute walk to the next leg of today's adventure, so we followed the steady stream of tourists up the only street, through the middle of town.
At the end of the commercial area of town, we turned up the hill to get in line for the Firstbahn gondola. (Well, we got in line after determining that the ticket machine doesn't work, anyway.)
The gondola took us up about 3600 feet in elevation, over the span of 3 miles, in about 25 minutes.
On the gently, nearly-silent ride up, the views just kept improving.
The route changes direction several times, and also stops at a few intermediate destinations.
One one of these intermediate stops has a "mountain cart" attraction; another has "First glider" and "First flyer".
We didn't quite understand the "mountain cart" concept until a robotic arm slapped one of them onto the side of our gondola car, at one of the way stations.
As usual, there were cows up here too. With bells that could be heard for miles, it seemed.
We got to see a few passes of the "First flyer", which looks like a zipline where the riders are suspended in a Superman position. There is some screaming involved.
At the last way station before reaching the top, a matching robotic arm gently removed the mountain cart, and placed it on a conveyor system to bring it down to the stockpile.
The time, I was ready with the camera.
Here's the car after us, about to be de-carted.
It was cool enough when we stepped out at the top that I briefly thought I should have brought some clothing with long sleeves, until I stepped out into the sun.
Welcome to First, elevation 7000ish feet, which looks like a town on the trail maps... but is really just a gondola station with bathrooms and a restaurant.
The two activities we planned to do at First were the cliff walk, and a hike out to Bachalpsee. We opted for the latter, first.
The views from the trail were simply unreal. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I might think it was fake. It felt like walking through a postcard.
And of course there were paragliders up here, too. No idea where they launched from, though.
There was still a fair bit of snow laying around in heaps, but thankfully it hand't rained in awhile (I'm guessing), as the trail wasn't muddy or soggy.
I'm at a complete loss on this one. Google just translates it to "rubber hut". It was locked anyway; we checked.
At one point, the bike trail split off from the hiking trail. And then the hiking trail fractured into about 7 different paths, but they all converged by middle of this photo.
It was about 2 miles out to Bachalpsee, with some steeper-than-we-expected hills. (We gained almost 400' elevation along the way.)
The "lake" is really two different ponds, in my (and others') opinion.
It was almost 1 o'clock when we got up there, so we pulled up some bench and had a bread/cheese/fruit/chocolate lunch break.
After satiating our hunger, we commenced with the amazing-photo-taking process. There were a few dozen other people up there with us, but we worked hard to keep them out of our photos where possible.
Also, I removed my shoes and socks to wade into the water, for science. I'd estimate that it was 40 to 45 F. Somewhere, there are photos.
There is a trail that goes partially around the upper part of the lake, but it then climbs into the hills and does a loop around the peak. The trail map estimates it as a 2h+ loop, which we were not interested in doing.
Actually, if I'm honest, Susan appeared interested. She went part of the way up the hillside, just to take a peak. If you zoom in on this one, you might find her somewhere on the trail.
The rest of us were happy to remain at lake-level, taking some more amazing photos.
I asked some adept-looking stranger to take a group shot for us. I'd say he did a very decent job of it.
We spent over an hour at Bachalpsee before starting the hike back down to First.
Whatever muscles one uses to descend hills in a controlled manner... were not, and are still not, happy about this endeavor (probably because of yesterday).
On the return trip, we ran into Sabrina's PhD advisor, who was also in Switzerland for the iHEA conference in Basel.
It took us just over an hour to get back down to First, so we could begin the cliff walk.
Many people, it turns out, are not fans of heights.
Luckily for those people, the railings were very solid and the floor was only see-through if you looked straight down.
The view from the cliff walk wasn't substantially different from the trail views, but it was certainly more visceral.
At the end, there's a point that's cantilevered over the side of the cliff, and they even made the last few feet of floor out of clear glass for good measure.
My biggest concern was that my phone would fall several thousand feet into the abyss, really.
At the end of the cliff walk, the designers were thoughtful enough to put a restaurant with a deck, so we stopped for a refreshment.
The view from the terrace was so enjoyable that it was well after 4 PM when we returned to the gondola station for the ride back down to Grindelwald.
I couldn't resist another shot of the cart robot.
Back in town, we almost got run over by a tractor. This might be a bustling tourist town, but it's still surrounded by hayfields and cows, after all.
I'm not sure if the plan was to have another blind taste test, but we had to stop to reload on Swiss chocolate at the Coop. (There was no second taste test, however.)
Back at the Ultra whatever race corral, not much had changed. Some people seemed excited and extra shouty, though.
It was almost time for dinner decision-making, and we briefly considered eating in Grindelwald. In the end we made other plans, then returned to the train station for the gravity-assisted trip back down to Interlaken Ost.
The train station is almost directly across the river from the Harderbahn funicular (that we had stumbled upon, on our first day's walk).
Conveniently enough, there's a restaurant up at the top, just a short walk from Harderkulm.
The forested lump by the edge of town, behind that white hotel building, is the Rugen hill, around which we hiked a few nights ago. We were also able to spot the Airbnb house from up there.
It was a bit crowded, but surprisingly reasonable. Also, it was "live Swiss music night", according to the ticket agent at the bottom.
If you're ever in Interlaken, remember that Harder Kulm is a perfect vantage point for sunset-watching.
At this point, I think I had tried every Swiss item on the menu, so I just got a burger. Sabrina, Susan, and Laura were feeling fancier.
It was our last night together in Switzerland, so I insisted we try some local after-dinner cordials.
For the truly intrepid downhill hiker, there's even a trail down the side of the mountain from up there. Word on the street was: "it's very steep."
We watched the sun set over the mountains, slowly casting a shadow over Interlaken,
In keeping with the cow theme, there was a fiberglass replica on the viewing platform (for photo ops only).
I just took Sabrina's photo with a fiberglass cow yesterday, as luck would have it.
Having eaten our fill and endured all the accordion/horn duets we were in the mood for, we rode the funicular back to the valley floor and called it a night.
Sabrina and I are continuing on to Italy, by train. Tomorrow afternoon, in theory, we'll be in Milan.
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