More Switzerland...

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Picking up where we left off, canyoning was a lot of fun although we had to cut the day short (it was supposed to be 8 hrs total) as it was raining and the water levels were getting too high (we only got about 5hrs total). It was still pouring when we arrived back at Balmers, completely exhausted, where we had to make arrangements in order to reach our night's lodging in a town called Gimmelwald. After taking a bus, train, and a crazy ass moutain lift we arrived at "the Mountain Hostel", 4500 ft above sea leavel, at around 6pm. Surprisingly, the place was packed...mostly young people but there were some older rick steves worshippers too. Due to the fact that our views were blocked by fog we just hung out at the hostel (in reality though we had no choice as there are about 20 people that live here) playing cards and drinking the beers that we bought before we headed up the mountain. Today we decided to take the lift up to a peak by the name of Birg where we hoped to be able to hike down...unfortunately due to the clouds, the operators would not let us go up. Instead, we took a furnicular train (a train that went straight up hill - pulled by cable) to a stop that was not as high and then hiked through the next three valleys (by this time the clouds has thinned) - where at one point we: 1) hiked a 1000 meters straight up hill 2) hiked through a number of cow pastures with actual cows blocking our path 3) hiked another 1000 meters downhill that was actually worse than climbing up. In all, we were gone for about 7 hours (who knows how far we went). This is area is widely regarded as having some of the best secenery in the world...Tonight we are totally exhausted and are just hanging out playing cards and Jenga (don't ask!). Tomorrow we still have a full day of alpine fun before we take a midnight train to florence...EJ wants to go skydiving (he is 90+% sure he will) and I will watch...probably with a tall one in my hand...

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