Of Monumental Beauty

I'm not entirely sure how to begin to write about going to Switzerland. Among other things, the trip was life-changing. Who knew?

I didn't go to Switzerland with the intention of meditating on some grating problem. I didn't go with the idea that I would become enlightened, finding solace in God's giant green earth, in the number-less cascading waterfalls. If you had asked me, before this trip, what my idea of paradise would be, I suppose I would have said something tropical-feeling. Wasn't the Garden of Eden just bursting with life? That sort of thing. Green growth, hot-house, lots of flowers. Someone on the trip described Gimmelwald as Paradise. It took me aback, and made me sort through my personal set of images of what "Paradise" is supposed to look like. As I sifted through all of these thoughts of tropical magnificence, I realized that for me, and who I am, Gimmelwald, and the alps in general, are the real Paradise. A place where everywhere you look, there is something even more astounding to fix your eye on. A place where waterfalls tumble down from cliffs that reach higher than clouds. A place where people live in and on the cliffs, where every day is spent breathing fresh air, drinking ice-cold fresh water, and walking on the paths that a million feet have trod into the sides of the mountain. There is something gloriously simple and beautiful in these things. And to me, that is Paradise. Natural, abundant beauty, the ability to use your human body to it's physical capacity, and the simple, pure joy of feeling 100% who you are. I felt more alive in that weekend in Gimmelwald than I have felt...almost ever. I would say it is comparable to waking up to a sunrise at Montana de Luz, the orphanage I worked at in Honduras.It is an invading sense of peace and clear-mindedness that is enthralling and humbling all at the same time.

Naturally, I'm going back in three weeks.

Yes, almost as soon as I got home, I decided to go again. Originally, the idea was to go with Mary, because she wanted to go, especially after seeing the pictures, and I wanted to go back, especially after taking the pictures. Unfortunately, Mary's parents are coming the weekend I decided to go, so she will not be joining me on my return journey. Maybe it will be a trip for the future for the two of us.

As I did in the previous post about Keukenhof and Volendam, I will try and tell this story with photos. Honestly, there isn't much to the story. I spent a lot of time (almost 15 hours over two days, to be exact) hiking over, through, and around the alps. By the end of the two days, I literally had trouble standing. It was wonderful. I met some excellent people in a completely random pattern of events, who you will see in some of the pictures of the first day's hike.

So, with no further ado, I present to you: Gimmelwald, Sunny and Glorious.

We start our journey with...a journey! In a night train. That means I went to bed looking pretty:

Pretty!

And woke up in Basel looking like something had nested in my hair. Luckily, that's what they invented bathrooms for. Or, well. Something like that.

Lady Gaga promotion-people were giving out free croissants and orange juice. Free breakfast? Yes, thank you, weird Lady Gaga man.

Then I took a train from Basel (which is in Switzerland, by the way), to Interlaken, the nearest "big town" to Gimmelwald and the mountain villages of the Lauterbrunnen Valley.

I arrived at Interlaken, enthused, but slightly tired.

They had a big (read: Normal American-sized) grocery store, which to me, is a big deal, always. Naturally, I went in. And found these, which I thought was ironic, considering I am on Weight Watchers, and did not expect to ever find Weight Watchers things in Europe, and least of all in Switzerland, where I wasn't worrying about it anyway because I knew I was going to be hiking roughly 10 hours a day.

A train from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen followed the grocery store visit. A tasty roasted tomato foccacia roll also followed the grocery store trip. Weird how that happens, huh?!

So happy to be in SWITZERLAND. I was really super thrilled. I just couldn't get over how beautiful everything was. I even took a video:

And these were just pictures from the window of the train.

Once I arrived in Lauterbrunnen, I decided I had to find a way to take a picture of myself looking...like a backpacker.

There are a lot of these all over the mountain villages (and in the valley). They carry runoff from the mountain waterfalls, into the river. Exciting!

This is the Stechelberg Waterfall, if I'm not mistaken. Quite a sight, the minute you step off the train!

Some pictures in and around Lauterbrunnen.

Because it was an absolutely breath-taking day, I decided to walk from Lauterbrunnen to Stechelberg, where the cable car to Gimmelwald was.

This photo, right here, captures a monumental moment in my life, where I fulfilled a life-long desire to walk through a field of flowers in the shadow of a mountain. It was amazing.

Happiness as a result of field-of-flowers-ing.

There were a lot of paragliders and base jumpers swooping all over the place. It was pretty cool! Paragliding has gone on my list of things to do before I die. Here's a clip of one guy landing:

 

Once in Stechelberg, it was a cable car up the mountain to Gimmelwald.

The cable car was (is) a bit nerve-wracking for me. It's just a lot of empty space underneath a metal box, hanging from a wire...thousands and thousands of feet in the air...

I didn't actually remember to take any pics of the hostel, so I stole this from their Facebook page. The hostel is hundreds of years old!!

I dropped off my stuff in the girl's room (turns out I was the only girl staying on Friday night), and headed up the mountain to the next village up, Murren, to go grocery shopping. It was a bit steep. As indicated by this photo.

Avalanche prevention. To break up the snow.

I came back to the hostel around 2:30, dropped off my groceries, and was promptly swept into a hike. I had no idea where we were going. I just figured "Well, I came here to hike."

It turns out we were hiking up a mountain, to a peak called Bryndli. This is early on. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

There were some beautiful waterfalls.

We walked down some rickety stairs (everything was rickety and slightly unsafe. It was thrilling, in a dangerous, 'I-could-die-at-any-moment way.) to get to one of these waterfalls.

You could walk behind (and, theoretically, underneath), the waterfall. I didn't want to be pummeled to death, so I opted for the behind route.

Behind the waterfall with our excellent guide, Nigel.

We hiked up to this lovely grassy-covered knoll area

 Then we hiked some more, and quickly got to a point in the path, on the side of a very steep hill, where the snow hadn't quite melted yet. That was where the hike got reeeaaally interesting, really fast.

This is a picture of what we had to do to get over the patch of snow on the path. Go off-road, crab crawling up this (very steep) hill, with the wild hope of reaching "the top" so that we could find our way back to the path.

This is what I was looking back at (had I had the balls to look back down at any point while crab-crawling up that hill). Not exactly, like, a short fall.

Upon arriving at the top of the hill, we were thrilled to be alive. Also proud to have made it up the hill. There was an alternative way back down, so we didn't (thankfully) have to crab crawl back down the hill.

We continued onward, pumped on nervous adrenaline, and got to the last jaunt of the hike up to the peak - this rocky, narrow path, with a few metal bars for support. Mind you, this is 7,000 feet off the ground.

But we made it. We were very proud. I was a bit shakey from the nerves, if I'm perfectly honest. I'm going to try it again when I go back and see if I don't feel a bit better about it the second time.

We got to sign the special book.

And then we took some epic pictures.

The group I hiked with. The other girls in the group were from Oklahoma, and this hike was only their SECOND HIKE IN THEIR ENTIRE LIVES. We all survived. Which is amazing.

Then we made the equally steep climb back down.

And across several shale-slides where the trail was simply gone.

And some snow. In shorts and tennis shoes.

Then there was this Lord of the Rings thing that we ran along. It's appropriate, because Nigel is Canadian (like Sean Astin, who plays Samwise), and he kind of looks and talks like Samwise. So really, we were in LotR. Totally.

At several points along the trail they have these - fresh mountain steam faucets. Also at one point, I just filled my water bottle from a stream. That was one of the greatest moments on the hike, drinking clean stream water.

Then we clambered over this mudslide.

Naturally, it was also quite steep, and dangerous.

At one point, Brynne decided to start cursing the mountain, which in return caused her to slip into the giant mudslide, coming out like this.

Jordan was a victim as well.

I thought this was cool. The stream made a little tunnel in the snow (shows just how much snow they got, eh?!)

We passed some more waterfalls on the way back.

That peak is the one we climbed. I KNOW, RIGHT?

Back at the hostel, we were all very dirty. And hungry.

Naturally, I ordered fondue and a giant mug of beer. It was delicious.

Watching the sun set on the mountains. Full, exhausted, and completely satisfied. Beautiful.

On Sunday, I woke, had breakfast, and decided to take it easy.

So I went on a much less rigorous hike. For six hours.

When I got back, Helmut and I had a photo shoot around the hostel, as this is tradition. Helmut is my stuffed animal horseshoe crab. He's quite nice, once you get to know him.

A few more pictures of the peak we climbed.

A wee bit closer up. See the little white bit on the upper left hand side? That's where we had to go off-road.

Some meaningful graffiti in the girl's room.

That evening, I had some drinks with some of the hostel folks.

Including the owner, Walter, who adamantly avoids photos.

Gotcha.

Helmut apparently wanted to join in the festivities.

So did the Dutch men and the Candian couple with their nice bottle of wodka. The Dutch men and I had a delightful time speaking Dutch to one another without anyone else (even the Germans) understanding.

On Monday, I sadly (it was almost tragic, to be honest), left Gimmelwald, made my way back to Lauterbrunnen, and eventually back to Basel.

There was a lovely cathedral in Basel.

I took this cool, ancient ferry to get over to the cathedral (it's powered only by the current of the river).

And folks, that was about the entirety of my journey to Switzerland. I plan on going again in about three weeks, and spending Saturday, Sunday, and most of Monday in Gimmelwald. I will come back on a night train from Basel at around 10 Monday night. I'll have Tuesday to pack, and I leave Wednesday, back for the U.S. Hoi, lawdy!