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Our campsite at Interlaken.
The X trail at bottom left.My Last blog entry ended with a bit of a cliffhanger. Sorry.
On Wednesday 13th I (Donna) flew home from Geneva after we received very worrying news that my 22 year old son had been taken to hospital with a fractured spine.
A worrying 4 day wait for him in hospital to get a full diagnosis but the outcome was thankfully the best we could hope for. His fracture was stable and there was no neurological damage. He was discharged and home very soon and I was able to fly back to rejoin Martin who had been on standby to return home with the ’van in Geneva .
We quickly hitched up again and towed back to Interlaken where we had been when our trip was interrupted . Since then we have enjoyed glorious weather in the high 20s. The snow on the mountains is disappearing rapidly and we have enjoyed fantastic bike rides and walks around the spectacular scenery here.
It’s time to relax you might think. Well err NO???
Tonight the area has been put on a serious flood alert.
Global warming has caused a
The offending river as it meets Lake Brienz
The swollen river water is white with glacial debris. A boom separates it from the blue surface of Lake Brienz glacier close to Grindelwald to melt and recede in recent years.
This has caused a large lake of melt water to accumulate at the glacier's snout, the surrounding mountain side has apparently become unstable in the recent hot weather and is in danger of collapsing into the lake. Combined with the additional high level of spring melt water from the hot weather, the lake is in real danger of bursting its clogged outlet and flooding the entire area down river with a surge of water.
Our site lies adjacent to the outlet of this river into Lake Brienz!!
Don’t think we will get a lot of sleep tonight! However there does not appear to be any local panic and the lakeside camp site is still packed with Swiss public holiday campers. We went up in to the affected valley today and did a spectacular walk . We wondered why it was so quiet up there on a public holiday. Now it seems to make sense.
Apparently , according to our Swiss neighbours we should be ok here and have plenty time to evacuate.
We may have to move on sooner than planned
Happy Wanderer
Fantastic hike from Murren. .
Watch this space and pray it doesn’t rain.
Update; We survived the alert.No dam burst (yet) The rain has not really come and we are currently sweltering in temperatures on the 30s!
We have had some eye popping views the last few days on our hikes and journeys which will rank among some of the best we have ever seen. The photo's cannot do them justice . The legs are suffering from the gradients though. We keep taking the tablets.
We leave the area tomorrow and are heading a little south via the Gotthard Tunnel to Locarno close to the Italian border and to meet up with our son.
Auf Wiedersehen pets.
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