Advertisement
Published: July 15th 2017
Edit Blog Post
It's was good day for a hike so we decided on our most favourite trail in this area which is from Schwarzwaldalp down to Meirengen.
We got the subsidised bus up to Grosse Scheidegg which is a steep and winding ride with the claxon horn warning on bends and hidden parts of the road to oncoming traffic and bikes. The view from the Scheidegg is wonderful looking back down to Grindelwald in the distance. It sits right under the Wetterhorn mountain with sheer convoluted rock faces straight up like the Eiger. This countryside really is magnificent with soaring peaks and rock faces all around.
Since we had the kids with us we got the bus down to Schwarzwaldalp where it flattens out and then is a few kilometres down to our destination. Our walk started across a stream amongst a small herd of friendly cows with bells to make us feel right in Swiss mode. When I think of the performance at home about cows drinking and peeing in rivers this was classic as they were right in the stream doing exactly that and this was a stream straight out of the glacier. In NZ there is a real
issue with cleaning up rivers and streams and farmers now have to fence off these areas and do riparian planting.
Eventually we arrived at the Rosenlaui Hotel which was established as a visiting place when the glacier was out to the valley as with the Grindelwald glaciers. The Rosenlaui Glacier is now well back up the valley and is literally a hanging glacier high up on the mountain.
Below Rosenlaui is a long straight section of the trail beside the river with farms on either side. Here, we stopped for lunch in one of the shelters we've used before. It's an idyllic spot with high mountains to one side, waterfalls and streams coming off them, forest below that and finally down to the farm pastures.
Our trail then cut in and out of forest, out onto the road and finally onto a very rocky trail which we call the Roman Road. This path has rocks embedded into it which are very uneven and horrible to walk on. We could imagine that at some time in the past it was used by pack horses and donkeys taking goods down from the farms to Meirengen for sale.
At
the end of the valley we came to the Reichenbach Falls where the glacial water meets the steep cliff that drops into the main valley making up the area from Meirengen and the lakes of Brienz and Thun. You can imagine an enormous glacier once filled this valley with side valleys such as the Rosenlaui also contributing ice to it.
The Reichenback Falls are famous because Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriaty were supposed to have had their final altercation part way down the Falls where they fought to the death. This is all fictional of course but the town is making money based on the story and has hotels, cafes and statues based on Sherlock Holmes. The Falls themselves are quite impressive with a drop of 250m making them one of the highest falls in Switzerland.
At the bottom of the Falls we took the funicular back down to Meirengen where we caught a train back to Interlaken Ost. As we were coming out of the station, who should we run into but Mariann. What a surprise. We were heading to the Coop for a drink and cake so she joined us and shouted us afternoon tea. It
was great that the kids could meet her too. We bought groceries here for dinner and headed back to the chaos of Grindelwald where the Eiger Ultra Race finishers were flooding the streets. We figured that for the next few hours it was a good place to stay away from.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.07s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.043s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb