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Published: June 14th 2017
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Flower Power
A myriad of flowers on pastures with mountains across the valley The day started with a thunderstorm reverberating around the mountains. The valleys must turn into sound boards for the thunder to bounce off so that the noise is amplified. It didn't last long and the weather soon turned to cloudy and warm with no rain for the rest of the day.
We packed a picnic lunch and headed of to Zweisimmen about 15kms away in a different valley. This valley is named for it's Simmental cattle rather than Saanen goats of Saanenland. We went to the Tourismus office to enquire about the best hikes to do in the area. We chose to go to Sparenmoos which is known for rolling pastures and flowers. We wound our way up and up a narrow road from 900m to 1650m. I'd hate to think what it's like on a weekend as there is very little room to pass any oncoming traffic. Eventually we arrived at a large parking area where you usually pay 5F to park but there was no-one there. Just us. Nice! We sat on a bench and had our lunch then set off on the orange marker route which was known for the flowers to be seen along the trail.
Poetry in flowers
A field of buttercups and other bog plants. The colour is amazing How correct it was. Much of it was set between two rises into a wetland of spagnum moss with many bog plants. Some had fluffy white tops that I hadn't seen before and displayed a sea of white tops. The trail continued along a gentle ridge covered in wild flowers which we often see at home in our gardens but much smaller because of the harsh winters - primroses, violas, daisies, buttercups (large and small), dandelions (yellow and orange), grasses, forget-me-nots, docks, clovers, and others that were familiar but I couldn't put a name to. It was really lovely. When I compare these pastures with home we have more of a monoculture of grasses which probably accounts for why cheeses here are much more flavoursome. Our views were out to steep valleys, all farmed, and to the high alps in the background. It was a warm humid day so we were rather hot and bothered by the time we got back to the car on the uphill leg.
Today I felt a little like Heidi or, maybe, on the filmset of The Sound of Music. The hills did seem to be alive with the sound of music with cowbells
ringing and birds singing. I could also imagine a Heidi skipping through the fields of flowers.
Back in the Simmental valley again we drove up to Lenk which is a village at the head of the valley ending up against the alps with snowy mountains and many waterfalls over the vertical rock walls. We passed through here on our Swiss Alpine Pass hike and when we now look up to the passes on either side, we wonder how we did it. We remembered and checked out the small hotel we stayed in and the restaurant which previously had had extremely polite young people as patrons. At the time we were impressed by the fact that the young people who came in acknowledged us politely with a greeting and did the same when leaving.
Back in Zweisimmen we had a wander about the town and finished the day with a beer at a Backerei where we also purchased some bread....... strange to buy bread and beer, tea or coffee at a Bakery.
So ended a perfectly perfect day in a hikers paradise.
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Rob Sutton
non-member comment
OOPS
Missed the bus?