Tour of the Mostly-Swiss Alps, Part IV

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Table of Contents

Background

Linthal to Goschenen

Goschenen to Meiringen

Hiking in Meiringen

Up to Rosenlaui

Hike up Grosse Scheidegg

Traveling back home

Background

Kekoa and I, with Piaw, Lisa, and Phil toured mostly the Swiss Alps in summer 2010. This is the fourth and last part of the trip report, you can find the other parts here, and the conclusion here.

This part both includes the days that Kekoa and I took off in search of more climbing in the Alps, and when we finally meet back of with the rest of the gang, after chasing their tails for days! We spent the last two days staying at Rosenlaui, which was very very enjoyable.

July 1st - Linthal to Goschenen (~35miles/4500ft)

(Day 15: still a little lazy)

On today's menu was Klausen pass. From Linthal, Klausen pass is about 4200ft of climb in 13 miles. After a big breakfast, we started up the hill and immediately started riding over some butt-massaging cobble stones. Shortly after that we saw a kid driving some cows on the road, it totally reminded me of India. Except of course all the cows had cowbells. I wasn't sure if I should zoom by them, walk my bike, or what. In the end I opted for zooming by them...

After the climb we descended into Altdorf for lunch, I had this flat bread pizza w/ bacon, onion & tomatoes. Kekoa as usual ordered some form of schnitzel. What I still don't get is how Kekoa never got sick of his variations of schnitzel, as it seemed like he ate it for lunch and dinner everyday!

Since we were feeling lazy, instead of biking up to the base of the next pass (Sustens), we took the train uphill to Goschenen. We found a hotel where the owner reminded us of Mr Bean. Once again I had spaghetti carbonara for dinner (I guess one could wonder how I never got sick of spaghetti carbonara). Tomorrow is be our last big climb of the Alps (*sniff*).

July 2nd - Goschenen to Meiringen (~36miles/4700ft)

(Day 16: Wish we had more climbing in front of us)

The day started out easy - we rolled down hill from Goschenen to Wassen in about 10 minutes. Wassen is the village at the base of Sustens pass (~4300ft in 10.8 miles). The climb itself was really nicely graded and not too steep (mostly middle ring for me, which means really not very steep). The interesting part of today was during the climb we got passed by a huge group that seemed to all know each other. It turns out they were on a supported tour, they had at least one van, and 4 motorcycles supporting them on the ride. Periodically the motorcycles would ride by the cyclists, and tell them things like "2km left to go!". At one point I had their support van behind me blasting music to pump up their riders. I was almost tempted to stop and ask if the van would carry my luggage up the hill! My claim to fame today was that I actually managed to pass a few of the guys that were in this supported tour on the climb. That was a total ego booster for me. At the top, I felt slightly jealous of the folks on the supported tour. They had a tent at the top, and they were just chilling and eating refreshments at the top, it seemed like an easier life (of course, mine being much cheaper).

View from climbing Sustens pass

The descent was fun, very fast, and looooong. Sustens ranks as my second favorite descent of the trip (St. Gottard being #1). After the descent into Innertkirchen, we had to climb back up the short pass that takes us to Lammi restaurant. Of course we ran into the supported tour again as we were climbing up the short pass. The faster cyclists from the same supported tour started catching up to us (probably since I took so long on the descent). As they were passing us a few of them yelled "go go go!", so Kekoa decides to pass these guys (and I lamely try and stay on their wheels). It was pretty funny watching Kekoa and his big red panniers zoom by all these guys and their light bikes who were just staring at him like... "wtf". Of course we both knew where the end of the climb was (there was only one last turn), and we were stopping right at the top for lunch, so we could just zoom up the dang thing! Teehee.

Supported tour at the top of Sustens pass

Lunch at Lammi was awesome. The home made sausages were very well made, and we also had a strawberry sundae that really hit the spot. I much enjoyed chatting with the lady that worked there, she was so upbeat and happy. Two weeks ago when we last biked by this restaurant, the weather was overcast, and freezing. Funny how the weather changes so quickly, as today it was so warm I wanted to peel off all my layers.

After that we rolled downhill and found a hotel in Meiringen for the weekend. This is when I decided that staying in Goschenen was a rip off. The hotel we found in Meiringen (which is a bigger, more touristy city), was much nicer for the same price, for the weekend! After visiting the tourist information office, we decided to go on a hike tomorrow, and stay off the bikes for one day. During the late afternoon it poured in Meiringen, and Kekoa and I spent the afternoon drinking beer in on a covered outside patio.

July 3rd - Hiking in Meringen

Trift Bridge

(Day 17: Not all hiking trails are easy)

This was supposed to be our rest day. We decided to go on a hike that would take us to this cool looking suspension bridge - Trift Bridge. Instead of doing it the easy way (taking the cable car up to a higher station then hiking), we decided to also hike up the route alongside the cable car. Then from there on do the remainder of the hike that would take us to the bridge.

This did not turn out to be a rest day. The trail maps we had only gave trails and approximated time - we had no idea what we were signing ourselves up for. To make matters worse, the hike up to the top of the cable car was a trail that was not very popular (we saw a total of two other hikers in the first two hours), and it passed through quite a few farms. Let's just say we had to step around quite a bit of animal poop. Kekoa and I also weren't wearing really the right footwear or had the right gear for this kind of hike. As he was wearing is vibram five fingers, and I was in shoes that were just glorified sandals and hiking in my cycling shorts! Needless to say, the hike was... interesting.

After about three hours of hiking, we finally made it to the bridge. Suspension bridges are scary, they shake and move when there are other people walking on it. I definitely felt a lack of control walking along the bridge (... I'm also a wuss). Our rest day was unsuccessful as we didn't read the map carefully, we ended up hiking around 9 miles with around 2300ft of elevation gain.

The afternoon once again included pouring rain at around 4pm, which meant Kekoa and I drank lots of beer again under the same covered patio.

Panorama from Trift bridge

July 4th - Up to Rosenlaui (~7miles/2400ft)

Tons of rock cairns around Gletscherschlucht

Lots of water @ Gletscherschlucht

(Day 18: Lammi again!)

This morning we woke up to pouring rain. So we had a slow morning waiting for the rain to stop and the roads to dry. After checking out of our hotel and a quick hot chocolate, we rode all of 2 miles to go to Lammi restaurant for lunch again. Our excuse was that Lammi restaurant was on the way to our next stop (Rosenlaui Hotel), so it seemed like the perfect excuse to eat another meal there!

After that, we climbed part way of Grosse Scheidegg to Rosenlaui hotel. We then dropped off our luggage, and walked over to visit Gletscherschlucht. Gletscherschlucht is this gorge where you get to hike uphill along side pouring water. The water was quite an impressive sight. I thought Gletscherschlucht was worth it's entrance fee. I've been told that Trummelbach in Lauterbrunnen is more impressive, so now I must visit that too!

We then spent the afternoon exploring the hotel, as there was a lot of rooms, and also shelves filled with old books. The included four course dinner was wonderful, their wine list also included wines with great qpr (quality/price ratio). It was a pleasure going to bed tonight, the beds were extremely comfortable, and it was very peaceful.

July 5th - Hike up Grosse Scheidegg

Mr. Snail we saw on hike

(Day 19: relaxing day of hiking)

Last real day of enjoying Switzerland. The plan today was to hike the romantic way hiking trail, eventually ending at the top of Grosse Scheidegg. Most of us felt a little lazy today, so we just took parts of the romantic way, and slowly walked uphill. The views today were very pretty, and we also passed lots of cows on the way up. An observation today was that the same climb is very different hiking and cycling. Hiking one seems to be able to spot more details of plants, animals, and insects, whereas cycling the general concept of the climb stays with you more than the details of it. After this hike, I decided that the hike K & I did two days ago was not the norm, as today's trail barely had any poop on the trails. Plus I can't really imagine all the Japanese tourists in Grindelwald (a much more popular hiking area) happily hiking over lots of poop.

View from hike up Grosse Scheidegg

At the top, since we had a long wait, we had a lunch of hot chocolate, salami, and zwieback. After hopping on the bus, we spent the rest of the day lounging around and exploring the old books around the hotel, I even found books from the 1910s! The four course dinner was once again awesome, we had a tomato soup, melon and fennel salad, lamb with polenta and strawberry tiramisu.

More views from hike up Grosse Scheidegg

July 5th/6th - Traveling back home

Giant Pork Knuckle!

(Day 19 - 20: thank goodness for uneventful travels)

The travels back were pretty uneventful. We rolled down hill to the train station, and had a few train transfers to get back to Munich. During one of our transfers we stopped at Zurich to buy more maps - this is when I realized why people say Switzerland is really expensive. We saw our first McDonalds of the whole trip, and I saw that a McD's meal was ~10CHF ($9USD)!!

At Munich, all of us did a bit of shopping for friends back home, and then we went to Haxnbauer to stuff ourselves with roasted pork knuckles. K & Phil each ordered a pork knuckle over 1lb, and we celebrated our happy trip.

Next morning we woke up bright and early to get the Lufthansa bus to the airport. K & I got lucky, somehow the lady who checked us in decided to not charge us the $50 bike fee. Yay. We then ended our trip by eating yummy weisswurst at the airport and spending the last of our euros by buying a very cute stuffed wolf.

The End. :)

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