EXPLORING SWITZERLAND'S GRINDELWALD - DAY 5+6 Panorama loop and last hike
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The last one to rule them all. A long time in the making and it took way too long. The last one in the series of Grindelwald exploration. This time I combined the last two days as day 5 was an epic and long day (my fault entirely). The last day was a more relaxed day, as it was an easy walk downwards to the city center, however the day ended with an absolutely stellar shot (in context of that day). Nice!
The hike on day 5 started easy with a relaxing funicular trip up towards the north side of the valley where the restaurant has an epic walk way, which is cool and scary at the same time. After this small loop the trail headed to the small lake up in the mountains, which is a populair place. Even in the morning there were many other hikers and tourists there. So go early. Still the views where quite amazing. In an ideal situation you need to be there with sunrise, but that means you need to hike or bike the whole way up yourself. Hmm.
Continuing the hike downwards was nice. Hiking through an area crossing some streams and waterfalls. This was a nice variation on rocky trails. This was all grass and little streams. Together with the sun it felt more like wandering about than a hard hike. However that hard hike I would discover later.
Ended up at the restaurant where I started earlier that morning. After a proper lunch it was time to go and carry on. The question was do the panorama loop towards the last hotel of the valley or do a even longer hike throughout the lower parts of the mountains and forest area. The weather dictated the panorama loop for the views. So get on with it!
This loop ended up to be a very nice hike with some steep parts, but overall very doable. In the end I saw some marmots and mountain goats. That made the hike even more enjoyable. The loop ended at the last hotel of the valley. You could see the hotel from far away. Although it was late (sort of) in the afternoon, about 17:00, I saw a bus leaving from the hotel to the valley. Too far away to run I decided that the next bus would do as the day before the last trains and buses left around 17:30 - 17:45 in other parts of the area. Well you guess it, arriving at the hotel, I realised this was the last bus. Shit! So call a cab (in Switzerland i.e. expensive) or hike down to the valley and appartement.
So I did the latter, just walk I though, how hard can it be? It ended up adding another 10km to my hike and all downhill which ended up doing almost 1000m of decending. So you can imaging I was done at the end of the day. The total hike sat around 30km now and a whole day out in the mountains and sun. Still you can wake me up for this anytime anywhere! I love it! And a nice sunset shot in the bag as well!
Day 6 was a easy day, hot but easy. Hiking from across the funicular station along the Jungfrau down to the valley. This part is less prone to get bad weather, although it snowed earlier in the week. Still you have all sort of plants, grasses and flowers over this side of the valley. It gets sun but its not in the burning sun the whole day as the panorama loop is. So I recommend this easy hike as a starter or departure hike. Its a the south side of the valley.
As I said taking it easy, with a good lunch, beer and some well deserved relaxing minutes in the sun. As the day before the 30km where still hurting a bit, although not as bad as I was expecting. So maybe next time even further? Lets see!
Topping the day of was a clear sky and a starry night which treated me to a Milky Way sky and an opportunity to take some last photos which made my day complete! Man I did not wanted to leave the next day, still it all comes to an end eventually and this was a good ending!
For now I leave you with some of the shots of that day, mainly on top of Jungfrau, highly recommended! All shot with the Sony A1 and Sigma combo! Don’t hesitate to leave a comment or drop an e-mail. Click to view larger in a light box and navigate with mouse or arrow keys. Enjoy!
