Abenteuer

"Abenteuer" means "adventure" in German.  We had a lot of adventures in Switzerland.

 

This is Lauterbrunnen, the little town at the bottom of the cliff.

 

 

This is Staubbach Falls, the highest single unbroken fall in Europe.

 

This is the trail that you had to take to get behind the Staubbach Falls.

 

This is the back side of water.

 

You could feel the mist!

 

This is part of the way to go up that is carved into the mountain.

 

This is another view of Staubbach Falls.

 

Next we went to the Trummelbach Falls.  These falls you can't see unless you go inside of a cave.

 

They had it lit inside so you could see.

 

There is a series of ten cascades through the mountain.

 

It drains all the glacier water from Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau.

 

It's a lot of water!

 

Yet another picture of cool mountains...well, cliffs anyway.

 

Our hotel is at the top of this cliff.

 

Rainbow fence!!!

 

One day while we were in Switzerland my dad asked us if we wanted to go on a hike the next day.  Not an easy hike, but a long and harder hike. 

 

 

He wanted to hike to the top of Schilthorn, the tallest mountain on our side of the valley.  The signs said it would be at least 3 hours and 40 minutes to the top - Five miles long, and 3500 feet rise in elevation.  He said if we wanted we could take a tram half-way up and then hike the last 1 1/2 hours.  But Kieran and I decided we wanted to do the whole hike from the start.  We packed up our lunch and our Camelback, ate a big breakfast, and headed out! 

 

It was steep and we took lots of breaks.

 

We found some snow!

 

It was a long way up!  Here we are at about the half-way point.  We could finally see our destination.  Yep, it's that mountain way in the background.  Look close - you can see a building up there.

 

It went from green grass and fields to lots of rocks everywhere.

 

As we got closer, we started having to do more rock scrambling.

 

But the scariest part was this knife-back ridge with steep drops off either edge. 

 

We could have just taken the tram up if we wanted, but it was a bigger accomplishment if we hiked.

 

Almost to the top!

 

And when we got there, we saw a sign that said, "no high heel shoes."  Um.....duh!

Actually, after we had headed out I realized I never changed my shoes after breakfast, so I was wearing slip-on Converse instead of my good tennis shoes.  Oops!  But I made it.  And it only took us 3 hours and 35 minutes!

 

The view from the top!  We enjoyed eating our lunch at the top with a great view at 2970 meters (almost 10,000 feet)!

 

And surprise!  Who knew?  They had a James Bond adventure land at the top!  Schilthorn is more popularly known as "Piz Gloria," which is what it is called in the James Bond movie, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service."  There is a revolving restaurant on the top of the mountain. 

 

Kieran is taking a call from "M."

 

Who knew?  Kieran is James Bond!

 

Here is the Bob Studio.  What is a Bob Studio, you may ask?  Well, it's where you can get inside of a bobsled and look at a screen to see which way you need to twist.  There's a green screen and afterwards you can watch yourself in a video where you are going down the mountain on a bobsled chasing the bad guy.

 

Here's what we look like!

 

After all our adventures for the day, we decided to take the tram back down the mountain.  My legs sure were glad about that one!

Kühlen Bergen

Kühlen Bergen means "cool mountains" in German.

Let me tell you about the Eiger, the Mönch & the Jungfrau.  Eiger means Ogre, Mönch means monk and Jungfrau means virgin in German.  German is one of the official languages of Switzerland.  They also speak French and Italian.  In Switzerland they have lots of mountains, and aside from the Matterhorn, these are the most famous.  From left to right, they are Eiger, Mönch & Jungfrau. (Jungfrau is the tallest.)

The Lauterbrunnen Valley, which lies between this mountain range and the Schilthorn was the inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkein's imaginary Elvin Land "Rivendell" from Lord of the Rings. 

To get to the place we were staying, we had to take a tram from the Lauterbrunnen valley, and then a train.  Our destination was Mürren, a small village on a cliff, 5361 feet above the valley. 

This is Mürren (as seen from above.)

Cool mountains!  You're going to see a lot of that!

This is our hotel, the Hotel Alpina.

This is not our Hotel.  But it is the view from my balcony.

This is the view from my parent's balcony.  (How come they always get the better room?)

Cool mountains!

More cool mountains!

The only bad thing was...

The bathroom! (It wasn't really bad, but "bad" is how you say "bath" in German!)  This is our bathroom door.

This is "main street" in Mürren.  Yep.  That's all there is.

The Mürren Fire Department.  The train that you can see in the background goes straight up this big hill.  It's a funicular train. 

Cool mountains!

I took a picture of me on a stump near the edge of a cliff.

So Kieran took a picture of himself on a stump near the edge of a cliff.

I took a picture AT the edge of a cliff.

So Kieran took a picture NEAR the edge of a cliff.  (He was a little nervous to touch the fence...after all, it's a long 5361 feet down...)  We saw people fall off....okay, on purpose.  They were base jumping from right on the other side of this rickety fence.  We watched them put on their funky flying squirrel suits and go!

At the top of the funicular train, there is a playground.

And the beginning of many hiking trails....and.....cows.

Lots of cows....with bells...

Tons of sheep....

Like lots of them...and...

Cool mountains!

And cool mowers!  I don't know why this guy is mowing the edge of a cliff, but he has a special mower to do it.  You can't tell from the picture, but he is mowing at least at a 45 degree angle.  There are huge spikes on giant wheels on the sides of the mower.  Wow!

There are lots of hiking trails in Switzerland.

We went on the North Face Trail.

You should know the names of six things in this picture.  The front row is me, Mom, and Kieran.  Can you name the back row?  (Hint: see the first picture in this blog.)

These flowers look like Dr. Suess Truffula Trees.

Cool mountains!

Us standing on cool mountains!

Pigs...(and Kieran)

Cow...

Cool mountains.

Car in the middle of the mountains.  (So, how did it get here?  It looks like a car commercial.  Did I mention that Mürren is not accessible by car?  I mean, how would you drive up there to the cliff, anyway?)

Cool mountains...(A familiar profile?)

Cool house.

There are also these little troughs all over the place that continually spout out spring water that comes directly from the melting snow and glaciers.  You can fill your water bottles at the spout.  It's soooo good and sooo cold!

We had lunch by one.

Time for more cool mountains!

People like to go paragliding here.  We saw tons of people doing it.

Some of them passed right by our balcony.  Here's dinner!

Final Quiz:  Name the following cool mountains:

Stay tuned for more cool mountains!