Swiss Trekking Part 1

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Geo: 46.547, 7.89267

Switzerland is a country I have always wanted to go to and I finally have my chance. I planned to go in March but I didn't want to rush my trip, so I left it out. And now with a chance to see my brother for the second time in 2.5 years, we thought Switzerland was the best place to go for a weeks trip. But I can tell you now that 1 week in Switzerland is only a fraction of what it deserves, although time and definitely money pending.
We both flew in to Basel. I flew from Gatwick and Jeremy from Dusseldorf. We were couchsurfing in the suburbs of Basel and seeing as it was late we picked a Mercedes Benz Taxi as it was easier to get to the house and because it was late we didn't want to muck about with late night transport. Looking at the map it was only a couple of kilometers to the house anyway. So an 8 min trip and 35 Swiss Francs later, I realized taxi's in Switzerland are definitely not for the budget concious traveller.

We met with Silas, our couchsurfer and set up shop in the attic of the apartment. We went for a quick drink and then retired back to the attic with only one mattress, Jeremy took the floor. Big brothers get the better deal of course.
We had to leave early in the morning as Silas had to get to work, it was no problem. We didn't exactly have a plan so we caught the tram in to Basel town and walked around for a little bit, having breakfast on the view point overlooking the Rhine River. It was a beautiful sunny day so we decided to take advantage of the weather and go to Gimmelwald Via Interlaken.
We caught the train to Interlaken where the scenery becomes more hilly with the backdrop of snow covered mountains. Before you know it you are winding around the edge of the Thunersee Lake, delving deeper in to the green valleys.
We reached Interlaken and did a bit of food shopping knowing that Switzerland is quite expensive. We then caught the train and then bus through the valley to Stechelberg and then a cable car to lift us up to the plateau at 1400m high to Gimmelwald.

The Mountain Hostel walkway is about 3 meters from the exit of the cable car and we had previously booked for the following night but seeing as we decided to go there straight away we had to hope for spare beds, but of course its not peak season yet and there was plenty of beds.
The mountain hostel has one of the most impressive views I have seen from a hostel ever. Just below you have the green valley splitting in to two directions with towering mountains on the other side. Behind the hostel all you can do it look up.
There are plenty of walks that can be done here in all sorts of directions and all sorts of difficulty. The cloud had rolled in and blocked the sun, but we didn't have enough time to start a walk anyway. We did walk up to the next village above called Murren. Murren is where you find the supermarket and Atm, we wanted to get some beers but found out that it closes at 12 from Tuesday to Thursday. After walking around the town and watching some of the para gliders we headed back for a beer, or two.

The next day we realized we didn't have as much food as we needed so we hiked to Murren early in the morning and came back before setting off on the real trek to Birg which is a transit point for the cable car up to the Schilthorn lookout. We knew we weren't able to trek up to the Schilthorn due to the amount of snow still up there making it too dangerous.
The morning was perfect blue sky and already heating up. We walked up, up and up; starting through the forest, under a waterfall and up through a wide valley.
Going through the forest reminded me a lot of the Everest base camp trek and looking through the trees a snow covered mountains of gigantic size, I couldn't help get more excited as the day went on. Mountains and hiking are definitely my favourite.

We passed random, empty huts and villages along the wide valley and the view was spectacular the whole way. We could see the Birg transit point on top of the hill and couldn't figure out where the path lead to until we got to the base of the climb where we slugged it out uphill for about an hour following a tiny glacier and getting glimpses of the Swiss Chamois. And even then when we got to the small semi frozen lake up the top we still had to go uphill and around the back to get there.

After 4 hours we reached the snow line and arrived at the Birg transit point. We could see there was no way of getting to the Schilthorn so we stopped and had our home made lunch and cooled the beers in the ice.
After a Planking photo shoot we proceeded downhill, continuing the loop back to Gimmelwald via Murren. It was a nice walk back and I could feel the sunburn kicking in. It was our mistake not to get sunscreen and we definitely paid the price the next day.
The walk and day had been long, around 8 hours. It might have been better had we not gone to Murren for a food run in the morning.
It was so great to be able to spend some quality time with Jeremy as well, to see what he had been up to and to catchup on old times made it even more special.

We returned to the hostel in relief and cooked some dinner and had a few games of pool. What amazed us was apart from a couple of other people, the whole hostel was full of Americans and Canadians and on occasion the father and son duo.
The problem with Switzerland is that it is so scenic and beautiful that you can't stop taking photos, so it turns one blog in to two. So the next blog is for the following day.

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