Day 7 - Gimmelward [Switzerland]

I snuck into a hotel lobby in the village uphill from mine to use their internet after eating lunch on their veranda, overlooking possible the most impressive mountain scene I have ever witnessed. While I was eating my tasty potatoes au gratin, bacon, and semi-hard boiled egg and drinking a fine glass of wine, I sat and admired the three major peaks in this region - Eigen, Monke, and Jungfrau (The Monk protecting the Young Maiden from the Ogre. That's how you remember which one is which).

I started the day waking up too early, before the sun came up, to catch a train from the Bahnhof Hotel in Interlaken, where I slept, to Lauterbrunnen, a valley right in the middle of these alpine peaks. (Imagine, elevation of the valley is 2600' and Jungfrau is 13,000'!!) From there I hopped a bus to Stechelberg, at 3025'. Finally, I rode a cable car to my home for the night, Gimmelward, at 4593'. I'm staying at the Mountain Hostel, a youth hostel, bed #98. Most of the people staying there seem to be way older than me, I really hope I'm not that creepy old guy that people whisper about when they think you can't hear.

Gimmelward is a very small village with a population of about 100. This makes it perfect, because it hasn't been developed like Grindelward, or other resort areas, even Murren, just up the hill. I wandered through town, taking in the town square, the old fashioned wood houses, and the overall sublime beauty of the place. I stopped for a while to listen to a small herd of goats, each one wearing a bell. The different sizes and shapes of the bells gives them each a unique sound, and the herd of them bent at the neck munching on grass presented an impossibly surreal musical accompaniment to the scene. Large rocks hold tiles down on rooftops, to prevent them from flying off during wind storms. Cows chew cud, heavy bells ringingoff in the distance. You can even hear the cow bells while riding in the gondolas, hundreds of feet above ground. Because of a risk of avalanche, Gimmelward was never developed, will never be developed, and retains nearly all of its original Swiss small village charm.


After dropping off my bag, I loaded up my smaller backpack with the essentials, money, camera, and a sweater, and headed uphill to Schilthorn. This was another cable car, riding impossible high into the sky to find the peak at 9748'. On the way up, we passed over Berg, so named I think because of the several hundred foot vertical cliffs it rests upon. As I rode up, I marveled at the construction of these cable cars, and wondered how those little cables could support all this weight. Then I quickly stopped thinking about it, when I realized we were several thousand feet above ground.

It was cold at Schilthorn, but not as cold as I expected; I didn't even use my sweater. Unfortunately, a cloud had developed at the peak, and it obscured most of the view. Some of Jungfrau was visible, but the panorama was ruined. I talked to a parasailer about the weather and he said the cloud was likely to stick around, so after checking out the revolving restaurant, I took the car down. I stopped at Berg, and started hiking down a rocky and snowy trail to Murren.

I left the cloud perched atop Schilthorn, and had perfect views of the drama between the maiden and her ogre. All the other peaks have names too, but I have no idea what they are, there's probably a whole story to help you remember their names! Again, since it was early, hardly anyone was around, and for quite a while, I had the entire trail, and what seemed like the entire Alps, to myself. I did stop for a while and just absorb the view and soak up the sun. Eventually, I got up, and continued my hike downhill, through small alpine villages and lazy cows hanging out in their pastures.

Now that lunch is over, and email checked, I'm not sure what to do. Since I'm so far uphill, and it costs lots of Swiss Francs to ride the gondolas, I might just go take a nap.