Steps in the Right Direction: July 9 Walking the scree line of Eiger North Face

Woke up to a beautiful vacation day, rested and ready to begin. While getting ready for our first day of hiking we flipped on the TV to watch the weather. Instead of weather we found news and learned that United air was scramblinging due to a computer glitch. Agents hand writing tickets and people missing their connections. A very big mess!! Thank you Lord! We flew United and made it off the air grid before it went down. I feel terrible for all of those people who are missing their flights and vacations.

We walked back to the train station using the footpaths of Murren. The maze of simple skinny footpaths makes the trip to the train station much shorter. Using our half price Swiss ticket pass we purchase train tickets to Kleine Schidegg for $40 for the two of us one way. We did not purchase the round trip as we are unsure where we would finish the day of hiking. We plan on purchasing those when we have a better idea of where we will end our day. Our plan is to hike the relatively new trail below the great face of Eigar Mountain. We had done some reading about this trail and want to hike it in a clockwise direction to get the best views of the great north face wall of the Eigar. The most notable feature of the Eiger is its 5,900 foot high north face which is the biggest north face in the Alps. The Eiger is 13,020 feet tall and with the north face being a mile long or in this case a mile of vertical when people speak of the North Face, it is Eiger that they are speaking of.

As we set out to begin our hiking adventure, the Eiger, Jungfrau, and Mönch, Jungfrau are all shrouded in the clouds, but the Wetterhorn is just in front of us and is gloriously shimmering in the morning sun. We are following the Eigar trail signs walking through ski hills and cow herds just enjoying the stunning beauty of the day. As we are walking we can see the small town of Grindelwald, not to be mixed up with ity bitty town of Gimmelwald. We walk right through Alpiglen which consists of a few houses and sheds, one of which is a place where you can stop and have coffee, tea, water and a bite to eat or use the dormitory.

As we walk you can hear the cling and clang of the cow bells. Every cow has a wide belt with a bell around it's neck. The bells come in a variety sizes and shapes giving an assortment of bell melodies as they graze. The sound can be easily heard making it easier to find the cattle. Every cow has a bell, even the smaller calves have a bell, theses bells are much smaller giving them a tinker bell sort of sound.

The trail we are walking on is a loop trail taking you lower on the shoulder of the Eiger and Jungfrau and then climbs up higher on the shoulder to the scree and talus of the Eiger northface. Along the way there are carvings in large boulders. I have no idea what the carving says as it is in German. I took a picture for any of you German readers.

As we approach the last third of the hike, the clouds break apart and reveal the massive mountains of Eiger, Mönch ,and Jungfrau. They are huge, covered with snow and glaciers and very breathtaking. We sat down to have some lunch and just looked at the whole mountain view. WOW! Truly amazing. We sat there until the clouds drew back together ending the show. We continued down the loop trail back to Kleine Schidigg to finish the Eiger hike. Here we walked through a gift shop or two before deciding to hike over to Manlichen.

We are not quite sure how far it is to Manlichen. The trail sign say 1std 30 min, and the printed map says 1 hour and 20 mins. What does std stand for? We don't know but proceed thinking it must be a thirty minute walk. As we are leaving Kleine Schidegg I see a random sign posted last cable from Manlichen is at 17:30. It was 16:10 when we left Kleine Schidegg, at some point along the way, I start to observe the people we are meeting on the trail, it seems to me they look like they have been walking for awhile. People who have been walking for an hour just look different than people who have been walking for fifteen minutes. Kathi and I have a little chat about what std might mean? I'm thinking is means we better get a move on or we are going to be hiking down a mountain that we thought we would be taking a gondola down. So we put it into speed hiking mode and high tail it across the alpine up over the mountain until we could see the cable car line we think we need to get to.

The cable cars we see run from left to right down the hill. In my mind I thought the cable should be going down the mountain face from right to left. Oh well, I must be turned around. We hustle up to the cable car ticket office at 17:00 thinking we have made it with 30 minutes to spare! Yay for us!! we even shoot a couple of cow pictures before going into the ticket office. At the ticket office we find we are indeed at the wrong ticket office. We need to get to the other gondola.

Yikes it is now 17:10 and the other ticket office is even further up the hill!!! We now kick it into really high gear!! We make it just in time to take the second to last gondola down. We pay $38.90 for two people to get back to Mürren. If we would have missed this gondola time it would have added another 2 hours of hiking to our day. This cable car runs from right to left. I am glad that my internal compass is still working. We have to take a gondola down to Wengen, then walk through town a bit to find the gondola up to Grutstrulp then train onto Murren.

Got back to our little Chalet to do battle with the stove again. We were able to get one pan of potatoes boiling and one pan of veggies to warm. We lost power during supper, but made the best of what heat we had to be able to eat. Tonight we had mushy potatoes and crunchy veggies.

Looking further into our power outage we have determined that the battery charger for the gps is too much for the system to handle. We blew the circuit when we tried to recharge. When reading the circuit panel it was difficult to determine what circuit went were...It was all in German. By flipping them on and off were able to have a low volume of electricity if we had the stove burner on. Yes, you read that correctly, if we left the left front burner on we had lights, dim, but lights. If we turned the stove off we were in the dark. This seems rather goofy, we go and knock on Albert and Kitty's (owner) door, but they are not home. We make due with headlamps and keep checking to see if Albert and Kitty have come home. At some point we divide we should call Albert cell phone. We come up with a strategy that going to a hotel we should be able to find a phone to call Albert. Ok, we walk to the nearest hotel and talk with the front desk receptionist. You would think they would just let us use their phone, nope. Pay phone.

Hmmm, pay phone looks different and has directions in German! Well, of course the directions are in German, silly. Went back to receptionist to see if she could translate for us. Ha, she is not at the desk. Most likely sitting in the back room with a friend laughing at the two American's trying to use a pay phone.
I rang the bell for her, and when she appeared I asked her if she could come and read the phone to us. I wish I could make this stuff up. She came out and also had some difficulty making the call go through. But at last the call was picked up by Albert who was on the other side of the Valley playing Alp horn. He would not be home until the last train of the night. Kitty would be our best bet. She should be home after 10:45.

Kitty was at a meeting and stayed for some after meeting liquid refreshments. Kitty checked the breakers in their part of the house and then came and checked our breakers. She apologized to us and then said she would call the electrician in the morning. She went back down to her house. She must have decided to take another look at the breakers as all of a sudden all of the lights came back on. Shortly after there was a knock at the door and a smiling Kitty trying to tell us the story with her English skills. By the time we get through all of this it is midnight.

Hiked 10.5 miles, Learned std stands for hour, learned sometimes the stove burner control also controls the lights... and learned how to use a German pay phone. A big day!