The Eiger...

Well, it was a miraculous recovery for the weather! The weather man was right for once and things did as they predicted. When we woke up at 3:00am for a bathroom break, the clouds were still hanging around and that had us worried. But at 7am when the sun started streaming in thru the curtains I grabbed my glasses and ripped them open only to be greeted by robin blue skys!

This day marked our last day in the Lauterbrunnen area and since it was the first day of good weather we had to make the best of it. Our intended itinerary was just to hike the mountain trail back down to Lauterbrunnen and hop the train back to Interlaken to start our journey to Fussen. But, with all the beautiful weather, we detoured a bit and decided to extend our trip and do the tourist thing.

The hike from the pension to the cable car was beautiful! We had perfect vies of the Eiger, Monch, and JungFrau almost the entire way. The skys were blue and the clouds sparse! We ran into a herd of young male cows that were entirely too curious for our tastes. They followed us around and blocked our path in a few places. Thankfully they're used to humans and move with a bit of prodding. Once to the cable car, we headed down and boarded the next train up to Kleine Scheidegg instead of out to Interlaken. We figured we'd take the train up and over to the next valley and then on out to Interlaken. That way we get a good view of the Eiger and the rest as we ride the train.

Well, at the Wengernalp station, the view of the Eiger was so amazing that we just had to get out and have lunch. We sat on a brick wall overlooking the hiking path and looking directly at the Eiger, the Face of the Monch, and the shoulder of the Jungfrau. After lunch we just couldn't get back on the train, we wanted to hike the rest of the way to Kleine Scheidegg - about an hour. We arrived at Kleine Sheidegg and found that we had about 30 min until the next train left so we just wondered around and took picks. This station was the launching point for folks going to the top of the Jungfrau via train (about 100 Eur round trip from this point - and something like 2 hours). We didn't have the funds nor the time for that so we hopped the train back down to Lauterbrunnen and then Interlaken so that we could catch our train to Fussen.

Now, that was a trip that was interesting - to be told in my next entry.

Lessons Learned:
1. Sometimes it's okay to do the tourist thing - taking the train up and over was the best decision
2. Be flexible - we'd planned on taking the train the entire way up and over but decided to hike - another great decision!