Travels with rarecat: Awesome alpine hike

After a scenic four hour drive from Fuessen, we arrived in the Lauterbrunnen Valley, the gateway to the Bernese Oberland with its towering Alps. Our hotel is up in car-free Wengen, high above the valley, and we have to take a train up there with our luggage. It was worth the extra trip as our hotel room had a magnificent view of the entire valley, and right above it, the snow-capped mountains with the Jungfrau massif as its centrepiece.

We debated months earlier whether we should take the Jungfraujoch train up to the top and after due consideration, decided against it given that we only have one day to spend here. It was a toss up between the much touted Mannlichen to Kleine Scheidegg alpine hike and the train ride to the "Top of Europe". The train ride included a good hour inside a tunnel and we thought we would have a much more intimate experience with the area on a hike than on a train. Certainly the "Top of Europe" is worth seeing, if we have lots of time and haven't already seen many glaciers this past year in the Yukon and Patagonia. Hopefully we can visit the region again and have more time to spend here. No regrets about that decision as we had a most awesome hike with mountain views all the way along the trail. We were glad we were not just seeing the mountains from a train window.

Based on our experience, given luck with the weather, late spring or early summer is definitely a good time to do the alpine hike - it's hard to beat the beautiful alpine flowers carpeting the sides of the valley. The hike from Mannlichen to Kleine Scheidegg was easy and scenic, surrounded by views of the Wetterhorn, the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau along the trail. I would highly recommend the two hour hike (of course much longer if like me, you want to take photos of every Alpine flower along the trail). What's so great about these Swiss alps hikes is that there is always a train at the end to take you wherever you need to go, not to mention a civilized lunch when you're hungry!

As we still have some time in the late afternoon, we visited Gimmelwald, a quaint little village hung on the cliff on the east side of the valley wall, the first stop on the cable car ride up to the Schilthorn. We would have liked to go up to the Schilthorn but didn't have enough time that afternoon, which is just as well, as fellow travellers reported that clouds have rolled in and they could not see much up at the top although they got a beautiful view one stop below. Mountains are tricky!

This is definitely on my list for return trips!

Lake Thun on the way to Lauterbrunnen

Lauterbrunnen with its amazing waterfall right in the middle of town and surrounded by tall cliffs and mountains

View from our balcony at the Hotel Belvedere

The view down the valley from Mannlichen at 2,343 metres, the beginning of our hike

The view of the other side from Mannlichen

A hiker can't help himself when he saw the awesome massif! I can totally empathize!

The Eiger and Monch in view on many parts of the trail - Jungfrau was just around the corner (below)

And here are all three in a row - Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. The train goes through a tunnel under Eiger and Monch and emerge at Jungfraujoch, the ridge between Monch and Jungfrau

The reasons why spring is a good time to visit...