a walk thru the alps day 7: steep

Day 7: Murren to Golderli
Distance: 15km
Elevation: 3000 ft gained. 3600 ft lost.
Eats: the usual bread, cheese and chocolate.

One word for today’s hike–steep and stunning. Okay, two. It was, according to Courtney, scree-liscious. Scree is crumbling slate and shale. We wound our way up a calf burning ascent of said scree. At times I was afraid I’d fall over backwards from the steepness.

Upon arrival at the top we discovered the heart stopping drop that awaited us. (that’s Kim’s sentence).

It was a rather narrow saddle, so we didn’t linger long, especially since Courtney is rather averse to the heights.

The descent involved wooden steps drilled into the rock face. A cable provided hand hold for part of the way, but then was so close to the ground that it’s use was impractical. Since it had snowed the night before there was a light dusting of what became hard packed snow on each step. The views were amazing, though the journey was a bit intense!

The end of our hike was Golderli, a remote valley where our guesthouse had a sun deck. We enjoyed beer, apple strudel, scrabble and reading for the afternoon. Wonderful after the punishing day.

The best part was dinner. “You must have the dinner here” the guesthouse told us. So we did. We sat at a table with an English couple from London. The dirt course came–soup. The second course came. It looked like something you’d feed a cat. Apparently it was salmon mousse. Thankfully Courtney ate mine. Then, as we prepared for the main course, Parmesan cheese and a smooth applesauce appeared on the table. We joked that the main course would be pasta and pork. It came. Macaroni noodles with meat. Katy took one bite and said ‘hamburger helper!’ The Brits had never had the pleasure of such fine delicacies and were a wee bit horrified as we described. It made for some good table conversation.