A long day. 19km, 1042m up and 1200m something down, across a 2600m pass.
Cool and cloudy, with sun breaks and sprinkles. And fantastic scenery and exhaustion.
Well, brekkie was OK. They had salmon. And the usual meat and cheese. And a latte milk machine, also per usual. We scooted down the hill to get our stamps, yet missed the gondola up the other side so we chilled for 26 minutes while we watched the cargo loaders swivel around their forklifts, loading gravel and beer kegs onto the pallet that fit under the carrier under passenger space.
Gondola up, quick, and then a friction train to Murren. Great views, and we were amused by the woman with two phones--one for selfies, one for constant video--taking pictures out the window with the emotive weather on the mountains.
Wasn't quite sure where the trail left Murren, and what rail/gondola/chairlift we ended up at, but we just followed the Via Alpina signs and a full km later we passed through the town. Nice place, carless, I'd stay there as a base for a hiking holiday.
The track went up at the typical rate, we had some annoying near-vertical zig-zags, then more up. The views were mostly behind us, so I scooted ahead to take pictures back, and then crap, is it going to rain? Yeah, I expected it, but sigh. It didn't as we walked through a bit a mist, and then it started coming down... with a hut just ahead. Mmmmm, 400m later we were having a Rivella and a mineral water and then soon soup. A great place to wait out the rain.
From here, ugh, the track got steeper, then steeper again. I was already tired, Chris even more so, but hey gotta slog through it. Curiously it wasn't cold--maybe 10C--but it was windy here and there, with occasional annoying squalls. We both put on our wool leggings so we were toasty warm, but the weather never quite got to the contant rain.
Close to the top there was a stairway of some 100+ stairs, which was great--it was getting steep and the trail had turned to slippery chunks of slate or something--and boom we're up on top. Windy, but there was a sheltered bench to catch our breath, and an even longer stairway down to a not-quite-as-steep slate ish track.
Down and down--very vertical, with floating mountains in the mist--but we were way up above 2200m or so, higher than the grassy fields, so there were interesting flowers since the sheep and cows don't go up this high. Snapped a picture of several, but didn't feel like stopping for long. It's already a strenuous day, and I kinda just wanted to stop and rest. I took off my rain jacket four times, and each time it started raining within minutes, so I guess I was pissing off the Rain God and kept it on, even though it was moist and gross inside.
Finally we descended into Cow Land again, the smell of cow shit and gravel roads which kinda made the walking easier. Another couple of hours we were at the hotel in the odd not-quite-village of Griesalp, which has a Postbus stop and, well, the hotel. And that's about it.