"Spend Your Life Doing Strange Things with Weird People" : Switzerland

Friday I went with my new hostel friend Sam on the cable car to Mürren, hoping for some incredible views. 

They views were absolutely amazing. It was the first nice weather we've had in Switzerland and I was so excited to actually be able to see the tops of the mountains around us.

cable car up to Murren

clouds clearing above

I asked around and the locals said it would be good weather to go up to the Schilthorn, which is actually a 'hit or miss affair' because if you go when the weather is even slightly bad it's as if you're standing inside a fog machine or a cloud. 

Well, we took a remarkable cable car ride there. The first stop on the way was my favorite, there's an overlook that has a glass floor that's about 10,000 feet up in the air. At the stop there they will soon build a glass-floor pathway that encircles the peak. 

 

Next I went to the Schilthorn. The views were absolutely incredible and we had perfect timing arriving there while the clouds were clearing. 

The weather up there is completely different and its own weather system from the weather in the valley or below. It was 2 degrees Celsius and very windy. I froze because I did not bring appropriate clothing for such altitudes (it's hard to pack for different climate extremes over long periods!). 

the rotating restaurant

Notice the icicles forming in the wind

While exploring at the top of the Schilthorn, I met these guys from Australia who went up in just bathing suits and even walked out barefoot on the walk of terror.

This motivated me to go out onto the walk of terror, which basically has a flimsy little plastic rope preventing you from a one-woman "final sledding adventure" starting at an elevation of 10,000 feet.

Sam and I had lunch in the 360° panoramic-view rotating restaurant at the top, with an old couple we met named Ursula and Clause that live in the area and were absolutely adorable. The restaurant was constantly moving while we were seated.

I set off from Mürren along the North Face Trail to begin my hiking alone to Gimmelwald. This hike was the entire reason I came to Switzerland. I stopped at a little mountain store and bought locally grown black cherries, which I tied in a bag on my waist to eat while I hiked.

The trail was often just a thin line of dirt through a cow pasture, or down a steep hillside where I learned the dried cow patties were better traction than the wet cow patties so I became a 'hiking on cow-patty expert.' The views were absolutely stunning. 

Just above the village, notice the mountains go all the way up to the blue sky at the edge of the clouds

my trail

 A little beat up and tired, I arrived in Gimmelwald. I visited the famous honesty shop, which is left unattended at all times and has a lockbox to make your payments in, on your honor.

It then occurred to me that the cable cars running back down into the valley of my new hostel (in Lauterbrunnen) might have already stopped, which would leave me stranded thousands of feet above where I was supposed to sleep. I rushed to the cable car station and learned that there would be another cable lift down in 30 minutes.
While waiting, I met Sämi, who has lived in interlaken his whole life, and Jeff, his friend from Canada. He gave me suggestions of things to do the next day and told me that he had just come from a type of mountaineering where you walk along the edge of the cliffs strapped in only by a harness. They gave me a ride from the bottom of the cable car back to my hostel in Lauterbrunnen.

                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                                            the cable car ride down

I checked into my hostel, which only had about five other non-korean people staying there. Somehow I ended up staying in the go-to hostel for the Korean travelers visiting Switzerland in a group of about 40 people. 

My Hostel and the views behind

My "clothesline" of clothes hanging on my bunkbed after I handwashed them