There is NOTHING safe about this!

Throughout the first two days of our time here in Switzerland, we hiked 10 and 12 miles each day, respectively, but none of those 22 miles moved us forward, towards the Matterhorn. They were merely a “warm-up” for what was about to happen.

We swam in an Alpine lake, we drank water from glacial waterfalls, we danced in the fields with cows to the music of their bells, but now it was time to lace up and get serious.

Day 3 had us on the trail using our GPS and our GAIA guides. We did not hire a guide on this trek; however, we are following GPS directions and we have a designated check-in spot for each night.

Again, I am so completely grateful for the fact that I am with two mountaineering and hiking guides who know how to read topographic maps and are experienced hiker-climbers. Bex tended to my blister and taught me how to fuel up properly. Everything is intentional on these treks, and everything must be thought through prior to the first step.

We left Hotel Victoria in Meiringen via bus and sent our luggage forward to our next destination in Grindelwald.

Right out of the gate, Lynn and Rebecca wanted to “add to the hike” so they chose to do what was described in our guidebook as a “torturous” side journey. Yours truly was not in the mood for anything more torturous than I had done the past two days, so I told them to go ahead and do the “torturous route” while I walked towards Grindelwald on my own.

We all have the GPS guides on our phone so we know where to turn and when to stop on the trail. The Alpina trail is marked with different colors and symbols that keep us on the right path.

Yellow (Walking Paths / T1): Marked with yellow diamonds or full yellow signs. These are wide, smooth, and gentle paths suitable for standard footwear and beginners. They require no special skills. I LOVE these trails! ha!

White-Red-White (Mountain Trails / T2–T3): Marked with two white stripes flanking a red center. These paths are narrower, steeper, and rougher, often crossing rocky terrain or exposed ledges. They require sure-footedness and proper hiking boots. This is what we are trekking on all day, every day.

White-Blue-White (Alpine Trails / T4–T6): Marked with two white stripes flanking a blue center. These are advanced routes for experienced hikers only. They often include pathless sections, steep snowfields, glaciers, and sections requiring hands for climbing or navigating ladders and chains. Special equipment like ropes or crampons may be needed. I hope to never see this symbol on my trek. Gulp.

The “torturous path” that Lynn and Rebecca chose to go on said it would last 45 minutes and take them through a steep gorge and drop them back at the point from which they began.

I set out on my own, grateful for the head start as my two companions walk a lot faster than I do.

I absolutely loved walking through the forest in silence with nothing and no one around.  The fern-covered forest floor was quiet. Nothing was heard but an occasional “wow” emitted from me as I came across one scene more beautiful than the next. 

The forest walk was so magical I felt as if gnomes, angels, and fairies were flitting amidst the deep mossy rocks, ferns, and undergrowth. 

Massive Alpine trees filled the landscape and then, all of a sudden, the forest opened to sheer granite rock walls with waterfalls flowing through the rocks. It is breathtaking!  I literally had to just sit down and take it all in.

I probably sat in front of those rocks for 40 minutes in sheer awe of the beauty and the mass of the granite.

Lynn and Rebecca showed up, and it was time to continue the ascent up and over the mountain and then back down to Grindelwald.

Grindelwald was like a cold slap of ice water in the face compared to the solitary quiet of our hiking, with only the clip-clap of our trek poles banging on the slate stones. Grindelwald, however, was a bustling tourist town. Our hotel was right above the bus station where, at any given time, 30 to 40 buses were dropping off and picking up tourists.

We heard a statistic there that 70% of all tourists who visit Grindelwald are Americans. I would say the Asians and Indians follow close behind. The sounds of Grindelwald are a cacophony of French, German, American, Indian, and Japanese travelers.  The streets are lined with gear shops and tourist traps. One can buy anything from an ice pick to a croissant, to a stuffed animal, to a cowbell here. All for a hefty price!

I arrived at the hotel first, and there was a commotion in the lobby. 

As I approached the site of the commotion, I realized the hubbub was over our luggage. There were two men yelling in German. One of them was yelling and holding my flip-flops over his head and shaking them in the air like his fist. When I told the men those were my bags. They told me I was in violation of the transport policy and we were only allowed one bag, not two bags, as each of us had,  and that I should never ever have anything extruding from a pocket. And he shook my flip-flops at my face for emphasis. He told me that if I ever put luggage in the lobby that was not properly sealed, and exceeded more than my allowed baggage, that my luggage would not move forward.

I thanked him for informing me and set out to go buy a bag larger than my carry-on so that I could consolidate all of my things into one piece of luggage. I’m sure everyone knows Switzerland is the most expensive country in Europe and I’m sure everyone knows that a tourist town is the most expensive town in Europe. My luggage snafu sent me back $200, but at least I was in compliance, and compliance matters greatly to the Swiss.

Dinner that night was subpar. The servers were crass, and the food was downright weird.  I had a prawn curry that I could barely get down. Dessert was a gelatinous mound of something that no one dared try nor recognized. 

The three of us couldn’t wait to get out of that hotel and back on the road again.  No one slept that night as a massive thunderstorm came in and stayed over our heads for hours. 

It was pouring rain at 6 am when we awoke. The thunder and lightning had subsided. Lynn and Rebecca were excited to do a rain walk. Little did we know what we were getting into.  We never should have gone on that hike that day.

We started our journey in a downpour. The two of them had the proper gear with waterproof coats, waterproof hiking pants, and waterproof shoes.

Yours truly had on ski pants and a Northface jacket that I thought were waterproof but were not in the least bit appropriate. 

I hope someday for you to enjoy this trek as I am right now and want you to learn from my mistake that you MUST take proper gear and be prepared for the worst as it more than likely will happen while you’re on the trail. Invest in the right gear! It will serve you well.

Our task for the day was to go walk from Grindelwald to Murren. To do so, we had to go up a mountain, over a pass, and take a gondola down into a valley.

We synced our GPS coordinates and the three of us headed out in the rain.  The only ones on the trail that morning.  The image below reflects my true feelings about what was ahead of us for that day – aka sheer terror.

Visibility was good at the start, but as we moved higher, it became about 10 feet. 

This was disappointing as we were hiking for the views. Well, there were no views on this day, but still, we had to climb the mountain to get up, and over the pass, so we pressed on through the fog and rain clouds, hoping with all of our hearts that the thunder and lightning would not hit until we scaled the base of the Eiger Mountain. 

Rain crashed on my Northface hood with such force that I could hear nothing else but the pelting of the large drops. I became ensconced in my own world, aware only of the shale and rock path I walked upon.  I put one foot in front of the other as we pushed against wind and rain ascending the north face of the base of the Eiger.  We stopped from time to time to check in on each other and shared an historic moment drinking glacier water from the myriad of falls that began to form in front of us due to the non-stop rains. A portent of what was to come…

Two and a half miles into our trek, we faced our first hurdle.  Three male cows stood directly in our path, appearing in the foggy rain like phantoms.  No amount of “shooing”, yelling or cajoling would move those creatures, so we decided to let them own the path and we would hike “around” them. 

It was during our walk to the side of the cows that we realized we had to ford the waterfall in front of us to continue on our hike.  The “river” in front of us that led to a death-drop waterfall only feet away continued to get larger and more fierce as the rains poured on. We had a true sense of urgency to cross.  Time was not on our side.  The longer we waited, the more the waterfalls gained velocity and spread wider, making our crossing more difficult.  

We sent Rebecca up the mountain to find a more suitable place for us to cross, and god bless her, she went straight up that rain-soaked mountainside, walking along the gorge while Lynn and I stayed back, trying to solve how to get past the 3 male cows in our path and the 1 female who stood at the waterfall’s edge. 

Rebecca returned through the mist to report to us that “up” was not an option and the only thing we could do was try to move the cows and cross the fall where the trail led us.  No amount of yelling moved the female out of our path, so we, instead, addressed the male cows, against our better judgment, and poked them in their hindquarters until they “yelled” at us and moved forward 2 steps.  It was this forward movement that got the female out of our path, and we slid down the grass to the edge of the top of the fall where I fell way out of my comfort zone.

I trained for this hike by walking 5 miles per day for 1.5 years at 6300 foot altitude, but I did NOT train myself to “leap across the top of death-drop waterfalls through waters rushing over rocks.” 

Lynn and Rebecca jumped before me and showed me the path to take.  But panic set in for me.  I could not recall the last time I leapt from one object to another with the threat of falling to my death down the sheer face of a waterfall, so I had nothing to lean on but blind faith in myself.  

My two friends stood on the other side of the waterfall yelling through the pouring rain words of encouragement, but nothing could get me to leap. Then Lynn yelled across the waterfall: “Just because you don’t feel safe doesn’t mean it isn’t safe,” and that comment incensed me so much that I let my anger drive my body forward.  And I leapt towards her.

I leapt from one slippery, water-covered rock to the next but was still in the middle of a waterfall, balancing on a rock, friends on the other side yelling encouraging words at me.  They yelled things like “momentum is your friend”.  “Don’t stop”! “You’ve got this!” And it wasn’t until I got so damned angry at myself, and at all of us for getting ourselves into this treacherous situation, that I gathered the gumption to leap 2 more times to the other side where they were waiting for me with cheers and wet hugs. 

I cursed them both.  And yelled at the top of my lungs: “There is NOTHING SAFE about this!”  (I may or may not have sworn a few times also).  But guess what?  Because it had not stopped raining for hours upon hours, the entire slick mountainside began to swell, and new falls were appearing faster than expected.  We had nothing to do but pick up the pace and forge forward. 

I am here to report to you that this 62-year-old learned how to master “the leap” as we traversed not 2, not 3, but SIX different waterfalls before we reached the top of the gondola!  Each leap became more familiar, and I became more confident in my jumping ability. 

There was, however, one waterfall we simply had to walk through as it was so deep and the water was rushing so hard past us over the drop that we forded it on foot, with water rushing up to our kneecaps. One misstep and we were over the edge of the falls.

We did it!  We got to the gondola we were supposed to reach. 

There was a door open in the station that we walked through into a room with a bar at the back side that served us French fries and some melon.  Lynn and Rebecca shed their waterproof clothes and were completely dry underneath, but my ski pants and NorthFace jacket had me soaked to the bone, and I started to shiver uncontrollably, so I asked if we could keep moving. 

Our next move was a massive descent towards a train station that would take us to the Alpine town of Murren.  We had another face-off with cows on the way, but we had checked the train station distance and time of the last train off the mountain and knew we had to win the cow-face-off, so we pushed through them.  One of the cows ran after Lynn and separated me from her and from Rebecca.  All I could do was yell, “Stop running”!  But she did not hear me, and she continued running from the cow until he grew bored with her and came to face me. 

So here is where I will share with you what I hope comes in handy for you.  One of the locals told me “Cows are simply very curious animals.  If you approach them, talk to them in a calm and steady manner and walk in a calm and steady manner, they will pay you no heed.  However, if you run, they will run after you, curious as to where you are running, and will following/chase you.  So guess who struck up a dialog with a cow?  The great and talented “LEAPER” known as “me” .

The 3 of us made it to the train station just in time to get an Irish coffee and snuggle into our train car for the ride up yet another mountain to Murren and “Hotel Alpinrose” and our next grand adventure. 

We were soaking wet and dead-tired, but I learned how to trust myself to leap over raging waters and was kind of on Cloud 9 as the train pulled into the station in the town of Murren. The proprietor of the hotel let me store my wet clothes and shoes down in the boiler room for the night, and I am happy to report I was able to slide my feet into dry shoes in time for the next day’s trek.

Believe it or not – this was our first full day of tracking our 100+ miles to the Matterhorn. Here’s to best wishes for smoother travels through the Alps. Thanks for the stickin’ with me through the rain and sleet. Thanks for sticking with me and my sore feet. We’re just getting started.