The Most Challenging of the Trek

This is the tale of the hike that toppled us. 

The day earmarked in the guidebook as “the most challenging of your 100+ mile trek”.  

The day I dreaded from the minute I saw the guidebook.  

It’s behind me now as I type this message to you.  

I did it! 

I did not survive it by “leaping” (my newly found super-power)  We survived it with raw grit and determination.  A wise man once said to me, “We do hard things so that when hard things happen, we know we will survive.”  Well, I’ve always known that.  I was raised on “Pain is temporary.”  “It’s far from your heart, you’ll be fine”.  “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.  Or, my favorite saying to Lily and John as I set out to swim from San Francisco to Marin County underneath the Golden Gate Bridge during shark season: “What’s the worst that can happen? I die?”  (Well, that almost happened on my pass under the Golden Gate Bridge, and that did not go over well with my family – at all.)  Which is why, as I have said before, I have trained for this Alpine trek by hiking 5 miles per day, almost daily (with travel days sort of excepted. Still, when traveling I’d hold myself to 10,000 steps per day.)  So what could possibly go wrong on a trek labeled “the most challenging” of a 100+ mile trek through the Alps?

Before I take you into the trek tale, I want to share the town of Mürren with you.

Mürren is a small, car-free mountain village in the Swiss Alps, perched on a dramatic terrace about 1,650 meters (5,400 feet) above the Lauterbrunnen Valley. We approached Mürren from atop and took a funicular down to the magical town.

The village developed from early farming settlements established by Walser people who migrated into high Alpine regions during the Middle Ages and learned to survive through dairy farming, livestock, and seasonal agriculture. Today, only a few hundred people live in Mürren year-round, although the population grows considerably during the summer hiking and winter ski seasons as visitors arrive from around the world.

One of Mürren’s most interesting features is that there are no public roads connecting it to the valley below—residents and visitors arrive by cable car and mountain railway.

Mürren is also famous for its spectacular views of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau mountains and for its connection to the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which was filmed at the nearby Schilthorn and revolving Piz Gloria restaurant.

We stayed at the beautiful Hotel Eiger. I am definitely returning here with John and Lily!

There is so much to see and do in Murren! Lack of time to enjoy things is one of the downfalls of doing Switzerland on a trek. There is simply not much time to sit still. We typically arrive at our destination by 4 or 5 pm. Dinner is served promptly from 6-8 pm. It is lights out by 9 pm and no noise allowed by 10pm. Most of us are too exhausted to do more than strategize about the next day’s trek over dinner so that we know what to pack and what to wear.

However, we had a special circumstance to spend not one, but 2 nights at the Eiger Hotel – It was Lynn’s birthday, and we were going to celebrate her as our “Bestie” and “Chaos Coordinator”. She masterminded this entire trip. Cheers to you, Lynny! Love you to pieces and am forever grateful to you.

As I mentioned earlier, we entered Murren via funicular, ate a delicious dinner that evening, and promptly fell sound asleep.

I was the first up the next morning and enjoyed a hearty meal by myself outside on the deck overlooking the Jungfrau mountain range. The views from this deck are spectacular! World-class.

Lynn and Rebecca decided to spend the day on a trek down in the valley while I chose to explore the neighboring town of Wenteregg.

I had seen an image of a young girl on a swing in a brochure in the hotel lobby and asked the woman at the front desk where the swing was. She explained it was a couple of miles walk to the train station and a brief train ride away. I headed out on my own adventure, navigating mountainside villages to find my alpine swing.

For those of you unfamiliar with the ritual you see above, I take my green dress all over the world with me for one good shot that summarizes that particular travel adventure.

The green dress and I have danced in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The green dress floated atop the Andes Mountains when I climbed Machu Picchu. It has been showcased in Sedona, Boston, Prague,, throughout France, and now – it has debuted in Switzerland.

I made reservations for us that evening at an authentic Swiss fondue spot, and we reconnected around 6 pm to enjoy a birthday meal to celebrate our dear friend and to prepare for the next day and what is labeled as the “most challenging” day of our 100+ mile trek.

That night was pure magic as the full moon revealed herself to us over the Jungfrau mountain range.

We laughed, we congratulated each other for what we had accomplished so far and we sent ourselves to bed early. In less than 8 hours we were starting our most “challenging” day.

We started the day strong, leaving the beautiful Eiger Hotel behind us. 

I tried to skip out of the challenging day by engaging with Susanna, who ran the front desk.  asked her if the threat of impending thunderstorms should stop us. Dammit!  She said, “No”, as long as we walked quickly, we would be safe.

I then asked her if there were alternate routes we could take that did not require a 3,600-foot ascension. Dammit! The answer was “no”.  One way out only.

I asked her if she had ever done the Soffrengeti Pass.  Dammit! She had done it once and was still standing before me, alive.  So, all excuses pushed aside, it was time to hit the trail.

At the edge of town, we opened the cow gate and began the trek challenge. 

We moved quickly as dark clouds swept the sky above us.  Again, I was in great company with Rebecca, who is an SF-based regatta sailor and reads weather all the time.  And I was with Lynn, a fully licensed hiking guide and Jeep tour guide through the back-country of Sedona.  Both of them felt that if we moved quickly, we could get over the Sofrengetti Pass before the thunder and lightning hit us. Both looked at me with encouragement to move more quickly than I had done on previous days. Gulp.

We walked for miles and miles in a constant ascent. I made sure to keep my partners in my view as we marched forward.

Rebecca is our little “engine” powering up steep faces without losing her breath. Lynn labeled herself the “dining car” as she would sip her water, nibble a protein bar, and meander along. I am the self-labeled caboose, always carrying up the end of the train. Keeping my partners in view while finding “peace with my pace”.

So, what was the most challenging part of the most challenging day? I cannot narrow this day down to one specific challenge but will, instead, share with you an encounter with bovine that not one of us will ever forget!

Lynn and Rebecca were ahead of me, and I could see them stop at the crest of a grassy hill where cows and their calves milled about. I realized it was finally time to stop and eat, so I quickened my pace to join them. However, just then, a loud and aggressive noise from a cow behind me took my gaze from my friends, and I saw a massive cow running towards me mooing with ferocity. I did as I had been told, held my ground, stayed still, and against all my better judgment did not run.

The cow came so close to me as it ran past me that it almost toppled me. I lifted my head from where I stood to see if my friends had seen that cow try to take me out, and it was then that I saw Lynn and Rebecca running back down the hill where they had sat, being chased by 5-7 angry cows.

Fortunately for us, there were two rocks sticking up in the middle of the meadow that stood about 8 feet high.

Lynn and Rebecca were running towards the rock and yelling at me to join them. I had little to no power left in my legs to run, but pure adrenaline set in as these cows were ANGRY. I was the last to reach the rocks; Rebecca was on top of the boulder, and Lynn was trying to scale. Thankfully for me, Lynn stopped, dropped to one knee, and told me to “knee step” up to the top of the rock. I was sure I was going to crush her thigh but pure fear drove me to just stand atop her thigh and save myself.

We now had 8-10 cows circling our rock outcropping like sharks circling blood. They were moving in a clockwise direction, mooing with ferocity and anger. These cows were large, and these cows were angry. I stepped upon Lynn’s thigh, and the two of us threw our bodies to the top of the rock just as a massive black cow was about to crush Lynn against the rocks!

We were scared to death as these massive beasts put their hooves up on the rock as if to climb up and beat us off. We yelled at them. We poked our poles at them and still they circled us with anger. It was so scary! We were so blessed that we had rocks to climb, but we did not feel safe at all. Those “mad cows” came at us for what seemed an interminable time. Then they started to lose interest in us and wandered far enough away that we could descend and creep up the back side of the mountain.

We were not anywhere near our trail, but we absolutely had to avoid a cow encounter, so we walked/ran/crawled/scaled the steep mountainside until we were sure the cows were not following us, and then we had to descend BACK to our trail. Our GPS and topo maps told us the worst of the trek was in front of us. What?!

The Sefinenfurgge Pass is a historic high-mountain crossing in Switzerland’s Bernese Alps at about 2,611 meters (8,566 feet), long used to connect the Lauterbrunnen Valley near Mürren with the remote Kiental Valley and today forming part of Switzerland’s Alpine hiking-route network that we were trekking upon.

Crossing it is physically demanding as we faced long, sustained climbs, loose rock and scree, narrow exposed sections, and an extremely steep final approach where stairs and safety cables helped us reach the pass. The Swiss Alpine Club rates this around T3 to T3+ for experienced mountain hikers only.

Weather can make the challenge much more serious because snow can remain near the pass into early summer, while its exposed terrain, steep drop-offs, rapidly changing Alpine weather, and elevation require strong fitness, sure footing, and a comfort with heights. Are you ready for this?!

I don’t think these pictures do it justice, but we were hiking straight up at an angle I’ve not hiked quite often (okay, never!). We were walking on scree, loose, slick rock, and shale.

After following switchbacks to the peak of the mountain top pass, we had no choice but to climb a 3-story staircase /ladder to the top of the pass. Take a look at this:

My lungs and my legs were on fire when I got to the top of the staircase, and all I wanted to do was rest, but the threat of the electrical storms loomed above our heads, and we had no choice but to begin the massive descent. I am a HUGE fan of down, not up. Rebecca HATES the down and literally flies up mountains. I could not have been more grateful to see those stairs winding down through the valley, but we still had MILES to go!

Hours and hours later, we descended into a valley to the Bergoldi hut where the proprietor offered us house slippers and the chance to rest before dinner and the lightning storm looming above us. We could barely move.

Every inch of our bodies was sore. Toes, ankles, kneecaps, lower back. EVERYTHING HURT, but we did it! Hardest day behind us! Yesssssss!!!!!!! Stay tuned for what happened next…