9,000 feet of down
On account of the bad weather delay but still wanting to squeeze the spirit out of Plan A, we opted to cram three days of hut hiking into two. This meant no second night of hut sleeping, but a whopper of a second day hiking.
After waking in the Bluemlisalp Hutte to the delight of actually having slept through the night despite being on a top bunk bed that slept 9 other people (yes, you read that right: one mattress, 10 people. Same below on the bottom bunk. Stay in your lane sleepers!), I made my way down to the all-gender bathroom to relieve myself, brushed my teeth and splashed some ice cold water on my face, icy cold being the only option. Back upstairs the dining room was serving a traditional Swiss breakfast of yogurt and muesli, bread, jam and stinky cheese, with plenty of coffee. We ate up, exchanged our hut-provided crocs for our still-wet shoes down in the “drying room,” filled our bottles with a choice of either water or herbal tea, strapped on the crampons and embarked upon our decent.
Our route for the day would take us down into a lush green valley, up a long rocky moraine to the toe of an active glacier, with more glaciers hanging precariously above and the trail marked with warning signs to move fast, then up the other side of the moraine and valley to a saddle with an epic view of the Eiger, and then down, down and further down to the very bottom of the next valley over, the Lauterbrunnen Valley, the hotspot for anyone that knows anything about BASE jumping. Ah, and did I forget to mention that our route would include ladder climbing, nervy cable clutching, and a rest stop at a mountain farm that serves the best vanilla milkshakes in the universe? And also a train ride home that we would sprint up stairs to catch (after 9,000 feet of downhill hiking!) to thankfully find a little girl holding the door for us and the bar car to our immediate left after stepping aboard?
Dang was the spirit of Plan A squeezed good! And my thighs agreed, thanking me plenty over the following few days. 9,000 feet! Ouch! 😬
posted by ARR
This entry (Permalink) was posted
on Sunday, July 20th, 2025 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Backpacking, Bouldering, Cute Kids, Hiking, Route Climbing, Switzerland, Switzerland.
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