We are out of shape

Grosse Schiedegg. remember to click to enlarge pics!

We got up very early and took the bus to Grosse Scheidegg where we would start our hike.  The bus ride itself was an experience.  Up and up and up we went.  I had thought the road to the hostel was narrow and winding. This road made it look like I-70 through Kansas.  The driver has constantly blowing the horn as he approached turns.  In one place the bus had to pass some cyclists.  They had to stop and move to the side of the road and let the bus go.  The road was between two steep inclines there and the bike riders had nowhere to go but the shoulder.  I am sure that the bus was so close to one man that it brushed against his stomach as we passed.

Grosse Scheidegg was beautiful.  Craggy black mountains with snowy white tops stark against a perfect blue sky and emerald green fields running down to the valley traced through with streams and waterfalls.  Fresh air and the sound of cowbells.  The kids were full of energy and immediately scrambled up a huge boulder for a view.  We begged them to save energy, but they were hyper.

We started the hike, confused in a couple of places whether we should take a high trail of the low one.  We chose low since it was paved and we wanted to be sure footed with L in the baby backpack.  Maybe should have followed the crowd up.  It was a beautiful hike, but not very varied since we seemed to be following the same valley.  And we very quickly became tired.  It was very hard to carry L, T was walking on his own and complaining, and the whole things was embarrassingly hard.  I think we were discouraged, too, by the fact that it was supposed to take an hour and a half and after two and a half hours there was no sign of our destination.

S pulls ahead - enlarge and see top left corner

E falls behind

In fact, that is about the time that the road ended and the trail became a rocky muddy staircase heading straight up.  We asked a couple hiking down if we were close.  The answer: "God, no!" Up and up.  R and S went ahead and were very quickly disturbingly out of sight. E stumbled up with L looking like he might have a heart attack, and I walked with T, holding him by the scruff of his neck in placed to make sure he didn't fall overboard.

Finally, with the girls cheering us on from the top, we made it to First. (Please don't look at  map and see how short and easy this hike should have been.) E announced that he would not be hiking another step that day, and I exercised birthday weekend privilege and decided we would all have lunch at the gorgeous mountaintop restaurant.

It turns out the the hike was a little like childbirth.  Once it was over we remembered it foldly and could only vaguely remember how long and painful it was.  So although the whole thing might sound awful, we had a fantastic day.  The kids pet cows, we saw many waterfalls, took lots of pictures, and enjoyed the exercise.  But we did not hike any more that day.  We rode the cable car down with a couple of stops.

E and R ride the zipline

For the first stop, S, the littles, and I took the cable car to the first station and waited for R and E to come down via zip line.  Second stop, at the Bort station we went to the beautiful playground. Then it was just down to Grindelwald again and back to the hostel for picnic dinner on the patio.

prettiest playground ever?