Harder Kulm

Laura and I both set our alarms for 9, but we both got up at 10. Technically, I was already walking to the bedroom door when our Rent-a-Dad Simon came knocking and saying, "Isn't it about time you girls got up?! It's sunny with blue skies!"

Which was true, it was sunny with blue skies - it was absolutely gorgeous. But they have cameras on the top of the mountain peaks so you can see conditions up there, and at the top of Jungfraujoch ("the Top of Europe") it was cloudy. Not worth the ~$130 it would take to get up there. Oh, and Canyoning was the other thing we really wanted to do besides go to the top of the alps, but it doesn't open until May 1st. BOO!

So we asked Simon for suggestions and he told us about an "easy 2 hour hike" a little ways away on the other side of Interlaken. We were in - it's not like we had anything else to do. Being in Interlaken on the off season between Winter and Summer is like any dead resort town in a lot of ways. Extremely quiet, very few people, lots of things closed. We finally got ourselves out of the house and began our trek to find the trail. We were loaded with water, cheese, bread, dried fruit, landjaeger, and chocolate. By the way, landjaeger and chocolate have been key elements of my diet here and I don't think it's helping me lose any weight.

The Harder Kulm trail started off normal, moderately steep, etc. But every few minutes we were 20 feet higher and we had to stop and take pictures of our new, higher view. It just kept getting prettier and prettier! I know Laura mentioned this debacle in her blog - but really, we're running out of adjectives. We can only try to feebly paint for you how drop dead gorgeous it really is here so many times. Pictures will hopefully do it justice. Anyway, the trail was a series of switchbacks like most trails, but since we were hiking in Interlaken (Inter = between, Laken = Lakes), we had superior views of one lake or the other at every switchback turn. And in the middle, we just had incredible views of the cute little towns in between. And of course, there were the stunning Swiss Alps straight in front of us, and what wasn't clouded over with a light haze was also incredibly beautiful. We hiked, we stopped, we took pictures, we snacked, and we hiked. We saw 4 bikers, 2 runners, and 2 geckos going up the mountain. I can't even imagine...We were exhausted just walking and stopping every 10 minutes! I think it took us about 3 hours to get to the top, which was 1322 meters (~1436 feet or something). Our legs were KILLING us...we are painfully out of shape and we talk about stretching far more than we actually do stretch. We spent about an hour at the top, which we had essentially all to ourselves. We saw maybe five other people. Eating in the sunlight looking out at the Swiss Alps was an amazing experience. So serene, so peaceful, so gorgeous.

We knew that wind and rain might be coming, so we started heading back down the mountain at 4:00. It only took us an hour to get down without stopping to take any pictures. Unfortunately, I had to go to the bathroom like crazy and even though I was fully equipped for relieving myself outside, I really hate doing that so I had a very uncomfortable hike down. Good story!

We strolled along the street Simon dubbed "Souvenir Street" to get back to his place. When we met him, we immediately set out again to get groceries for dinner. In true Hilary-Laura CS fashion, we paid for the groceries but then Simon ended up doing all the cooking :) For less than Laura's and my Thai dinner last night, we fed all three of us and had breakfast for the morning too. What a deal. While we ate, we watched Cocktail and then Nights of Rodanthe (been watching a lot of movies lately - weird). I also tried my two Rugenbrau beers which are locally brewed beers. They were both delicious.

[Switzerland has some really interesting "Green" things going on. For beer bottles, if you bring them back to the store you can get between .3 and .5 CHF for each bottle. This encourages you to return bottles, since it's actually a fairly significant rebate (beers generally cost between 1.9 and 2.5 CHF). Then the local brewer takes the bottles back and reuses them. Awesome! Also, trash bags here are 2.5 CHF!!!! The trash company will ONLY pick up these types of bags. They are pretty small. This encourages you to have little trash and reuse as much as possible since the stupid bags are so ridiculously expensive!]

After dinner and movies, Simon showed me some videos about his company and also some videos of Canyoning, just to make me even more pained that we're 2 weeks premature coming to Switzerland!

ALSO - Simon has to leave tomorrow for Prague and then Munich, where he's taking a bunch of kids who signed up to tour around with his company. He told us about "mini Oktoberfest" that is happening in Munich starting this Friday and lasting for 3 weeks. We have SUCH great timing!!! I am sooooo excited. The only thing better than real Oktoberfest (which is held in Munich) must be mini Oktoberfest in Munich, right? Very happy with this news...and so happy that it came to us through CouchSurfing, we would have had no idea otherwise (except maybe via our Munich CS host(s).


Quotes:
"Never trust a man in white pants." - Simon's general life advice.

Accomplishments:
Hiked in the Swiss Alps! BOOYA!!!

Travel Tip:
Money saving tip, even though it may seem obvious: GROCERY STORES!!! So much cheaper, so much healthier, and if you're staying with a CouchSurfer, you'll actually have a fully equipped kitchen to make real food. This way you can also find the local beer grocery stores, and get quality beer for way cheaper than you would get in a restaurant, which are about 3x more expensive (seriously).


One more full day here tomorrow; we won't really know what we're doing until we see the weather on TV in the morning...