Last year on the Haute Route the grandest hotel was the Weisshorn Hotel, of which we wrote effusively. The Rosenlaui Hotel was built about 150 years earlier and has been added onto once a century since without losing any historic authencity. For example, the second floor of each adjoining addition is one long series of salons, parlors, banquet hall, library and living rooms each bedecked with period furnishings, lighting and antiques still in service.

Our room is a suite in the original building on the fourth floor with chaise longue, marble topped dressers and wash basin stand with pitcher and towels. Having just read the best seller, The Goldfinch, whose descriptive narrative details period Persian rugs to coffered oak ceilings, I won’t begin to venture guesses on the provenance of our furnishings. Let’s just say it’s the first time I’ve felt comfortable living in a museum.

And speaking of museums, we took another lay day and visited a 300-acre historical village of Swiss homes, huts and heritage assembled at a place called Ballenberg. Stanna visited it a couple years back with the ladies’ Swiss hiking tour and wanted to ensure I got to see it as well. Not sure when this project began, probably less than twenty-five years ago. Preservationists have taken all sorts of historic examples of real authentic buildings, no matter the size or complexity, and disassembled them insitu and transported them to the Ballenberg hillside setting outside Brienz, where they totally reconstructed them as they were, gardens and all.

Not sure all the interiors are intact, but they’ve managed to teleport the furnishings, clothing, tools, animals, herbs and culture along with the structures. Various 21st century craftspeople populate various trades, from rope making (a 100′ narrow shed), cheese making, homeopathic medicine (including working gardens of all those contemporary herbs), saddle and harness making and on and on.

We have hiked thru alps, villages and towns where we see all these buildings and Monday we got to look inside to see what it was like to live in them. The first thing that stands out is the massive stoves most of the houses have; from as early as 1500 they were cooking in a central hall or kitchen room on a variety of wood fired cooking spots and each of these stove spots connected directly to a massive tiled box in the living quarters. Here they hung their clothes to dry above the heat source and dried their boots beneath it.

What surprised us further was that many of these homes, which often times shared walls with their livestock, were actually duplexes: two-family homes where the central hall/kitchen area was common and each family would have their living quarters on opposite sides. Ballenberg had homes and farmhouses from all the regions of Switzerland, thru most of the centuries back to the 1300’s, as well as those huts and houses which a farmer would utilize from the valley to mid alp and on to the summer residence high up the alp where they kept the herds and made cheese in the highest alps.

Of the trades that they featured, the pharmacist was most interesting because they showed several examples of farms that raised and processed all manner of drugs, potions and remedies, along with the grinders, presses, torts and distilleries. Not to mention the extensive gardens currently in production with all the herbs, plants and roots that constitute the raw materials. Also there was an entire hat makers home: transported walls, roof, stairways, from attic to basement with all the gear, machines, jigs, forms necessary to fabricate hats ranging from straw to felt.

As with all our “days off” it was a ” busman’s holiday” because we walked for five hours around, up and down thru all these grounds, structures, gardens and pens. A great fun diversion only a bus ride down the mountain, a train ride to the next town and a bus ride out to the encampment. Actually it’s really fun to zip around a country on public transportation that runs like clockwork meshing bus and train schedules with very little standing around or inconvenience, because they all connect with each other.

Striking as the day was, learning about how the Swiss people have lived thru the past millennium, it was even more interesting to come back to our own accommodations and realize we are staying in a 380 year-old working 48 room hotel that was every bit the museum we’d just been visiting.

Did we mention that Sherlock Holmes died in Meiringen? At the Reichenbach Falls just a few minutes from the center of town. And that he was on his way to stay at the same Rosenluai Hotel we’ve stayed. The town has capitalized on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s epic story of the legendary hero’s demise, or suspected demise, struggling with his arch enemy the villain Dr. Moriarity. There are statues, streets, bars and restaurants, plus the same English Church featured in his works which has been converted into a museum by the Sherlock Holmes Society.

Guess I’ll have to read the story too.

Sunday’s pass was completely different from the day before. Aerial traffic could wend its way up to the summit for a treat in curvey turns, while the Jochpass itself was rife with hundreds of people but no roads. We’ve begun to approach the resort portions of the Via Alpina and the Bernese Oberland in specific.

Rising out of Engelberg are numerous lifts and a gondola ferrying folks up to the Titlis Glacier year-round ski area and all sorts of hiking trails descending both sides of the Jochpass. Arriving at the base (yes, we did choose once again to knock off about 3,000′ of first-thing climbing) there were already eight tour buses parked in the gondola parking lot. The line for the smaller gondolas had no less than 100 people queued up but fortunately was moving really fast.

Most people chose to start their hike at the first stop, whereas Stanna and I took one more chair lift to a more remote summit. The lake we passed accessing that second lift had a postcard perfect reflection of the mountains and cumulus sky. Here’s hoping the photos turned out.

If you’re worried we’re wimping out, we got in almost 14 miles and nearly 7,000′ of downhill. Stanna is reading Kev’s guide and titrating her endurance. As it was, with only 50 minutes stopped time the whole day, we just managed to arrive in Meiringen in time to catch a Post bus to our hotel. The hike included lots of sunny mountain views, waterfalls and long looks down to the valley below. About midday we could see the back side of the Bernese Oberland massif which is the home of the Eiger, Jungfrau and their brethren.

Check out all cow bells above the door and windows.

I’d chanced to check online about our next accommodation and luckily I noticed it was about 9 miles out of town. What the Google Map didn’t emphasize was it was three hiking hours up the mountain toward Grindelwald. The last Post bus saved making a long day interminable. We were’t sure what to expect this far up a single lane road that the Post bus had to use it’s famous Post Horn bugling around sightless wall to wall curves. Oncoming cars pulled sharply to the edges or backed up to turn-outs to let the Post Bus through.

What a delightful surprise the Rosenlaui Hotel turned out to be.

This map (we really love these Swiss signposts and large photographable maps) only shows the 4,982′ downhill portion of today hike, which starts on the far right as Surenen Pass. It was 2,925′ getting up to that point and that didn’t include the two gondolas just to start the uphill. We avoided the 3 hours and 3,000′ prelude to today’s hike because it would have meant over 11 hours on the trail and 6,000 up with 5,000 down. As it was we racked up 14.25 miles and felt not a twinge of guilt. Our destination, Engelberg, is on the far left.

What amazed us was watching a farmer family of eight drive their herd of cows over the same pass we were ascending. They looked like ants when we first saw them crossing over the summit. We could hear the “ya oops” from more than a mile away.

Once we reached the pass we were surprised to see these two “downhill” mountain bikers coming up from the 5,000′ side. We’d only seen Swiss mountain bikers riding the gondolas up to ride their armored downhill rides. These guys actually had to work for it.

Here’ same couple more photos of Stanna checking Kev’s guide book on the iPhone to see how much further or where we should be watching for a course change.

Dinner in Engelberg was super by the way.

Zero Day is what thru hikers call a day when they don’t log any miles down the trail. Our rest day we only walked between two towns and back. Even though it was probably five miles, it was different as it was totally more urban with town sights to marvel and ponder. Seeing those domestic and cultural “slices of life” always prompts plenty of palaver.

But before I tell about Tell city, let me mention a bit about getting sea water consumė served in a specimen jar. It reminded us of experimenting with cooking spaghetti in sea water on the boat, but in this case I could have floated the spoon if the jar was larger. We needed lots of water to hydrate the salt crystals, which was a problem because when you only ordered tap water to drink they brought out a liter flask and post card saying poor folk in Zambia don’t have clean water, so this restaurant is collecting money for your water to give to the Zambian poor. I didn’t want to drink too much because you didn’t know if they were raising money by the ounce or by the milliliter.

Following on the marine theme, the main meal was a delicious modicum of turbot served on partially cooked rice with diced beets. The fish and beets were great but again you needed more of that precious African resource to swallow and digest the rice. It’s hard to complain because this is a four star restaurant with more cutlery and glassware on the table than is understandable, especially when they keep removing and replacing spoons and forks before you even use them. I did, much to Stanna’s chagrin, ever so delicately tell the owner/server to tell the four striped chef should taste his rice before he serves it again. As we were laying over in the same hotel we were afraid they’d be serving that rice again as rice pudding just to get even. It should be known that they did redeem themselves the next night with a stuffed pork cutlet and new potatoes. The water was still a hassle but we hope our 3 Swiss franks gets down to Zambia.

Back to tell about Tell. Altdorf is the town where William shot the arrow thru the apple on his son’s head. The town square has a mammoth bronze of Wiiliam with crossbow and young son. William Tell is known in Switzerland as the first of the hero’s that stood up to the Habsburg lords and led them country into independence and confederation. The story of his feat, his arrest and his escape are chronicled with edifices, plaques, plays and music, however in the tower supporting his statue the museum tells a different story about how this myth was imported from a Norwegian folk tale. Hopefully the throngs of visitors to the various “historic sites” don’t read the fine print.

Following upon the second nights dinner, we couldn’t help but laugh aloud when the young server announced as part of the pretentious service, that, “you will eat pig tonight”. It was delicious and the only other minor complaint one register was getting the caramel creme out of tiny glass box with a soup spoon.

Our hotel was in a very large alp along with hundreds of milk cows and directly across from one of the ubiquitous milking barns. It was pleasant to hear all the cows coming in, each with their own genuine Swiss cow bell clanging under heads, at 5 AM. Like an alarm that you can listen to and slowly drift back off to sleep.

Fortunately we’re not itching to get walking at the crack of dawn, and coincidently neither are the proprietors who put out the breakfast buffets each morning in our accommodations. Seven has been the earliest they’ll concede to serving and it’s generally 7:30. The hike over Klausenpass at only 2,800′ elevation gain was comparatively short but steep with almost another 4,000′ descent on the other side.

This pass and the highway accompanying it is quite renowned as it has ten times the curving switchbacks of our Red Mountain Pass, drawing motorcycles, bicyclists and every convertible for 500 kilometers to enjoy the thrills of highway department amusement ride. Guide books and signs report this as the first Swiss pass allowing motor vehicles. We particularly enjoyed viewing the cluster of farmhouses and barns just below the summit which would have pre-dated the road.

Our trail to the top also pre-dated the road and only intersected at the summit where we co-mingled with wheeled thrill seekers and bus tourists. We enticed one older woman to make her (our) first cell phone photo. Only after she held the phone up did we notice she only had one eye. A faux pas
for sure.

You might notice this was the first day I was able to zip-off the pant legs. Mostly sunny and definitely warmer than those other snow covered passes. Eager to start down we learned a lesson about reading “all” the yellow sign placards on a trail sign post. Turns out there were two ways to get to Altdorf, our next destination, and we took off at the direction of the top and most visible yellow way marker, rather than walking round to see the other choices point in various directions, like comical signs in some travel spots that point to Paris 800 miles, San Francisco 4,800 miles and Sydney 6,700. It was about 30 minutes before we realized that Kev’s guidebook directions weren’t matching the terrain. So we lost an hour and gained about 3 extra miles.

We’re glad we doubled back because Kev promised spectacular steep
descending switchbacks with wooden handrails with killer views and rushing waterfalls, all of which we enjoyed. The view back from whence we’d come was just as beautiful.

A long day, even with a Post Bus ride across the flats of the valley. Eager to describe our evening meal, but you’ll have to wait for that.

Stanna broke up this next leg into a short and medium distance legs because looking at the distance and the elevations might have been too much for a Wednesday hiking lady. As it was, taking a more leisurely hike worked out fine with the sun finally shining and the desire to do things like pick blackberries (who’d have thunk, this late in the summer) along the way.

Our guidebook, (Kev’s Via Alpina), actually suggests taking the funicular off route to a “ledge-locked” and car-less resort community above Linthal called Braunwald. Similar to Zermatt, only in that they don’t allow or have anything motorized except a variety of golf carts. Views from here looks both from the pass we came from and the mountains we’ll cross next.

Photo above with the arrow is the snowy pass from yesterday. The long traverse across a number of alps took us to tiny village (dorf in German) with not even a post office or a grocery store. Far more cows than people in this neck of the mountains. We re-supplied our lunch provisions from a small cheese factory on the highway passing thru.

Fortunately, our hamlet hotel had what every hiker needs in the way of rewards.

Richetlipass from Elm to Linthal was challenging because we encountered snow once again the last hour before each of two passes we crossed. The second, higher Richetlipass wouldn’t have been a problem except we were only the second folks to cross since the latest snow storms. There were just 8 to 10 inches of snow near the top, but as it was warming it was necessary to kick steps in the snow to bare dirt and gravel to keep your footing the last several hundred feet or so.

The backside was a bit steeper and we needed to sink our heels in first to avoid glissading down off the traversing switchbacks. All went well, just slow, focused and concentrating. Views when the clouds would part were spectacular. Looking down into our destination valley 7,000 feet below was similar to looking down from the Durango/Denver commuter flight over the Rockies.

Once we got below the snow level we took time for a quick lunch on one of the rocks mid-alp. Here we using the true definition of an alp, which is the high meadows leading up to rocky peaks. A Swiss farmer grazes his or her cattle on the alp, and makes alp cheese, which of course is from cows that feed on not just the alpine grasses but the flowers and varieties of plants that cling and grow on the slopes of the alp.

Long day with 3224′ ascent, 6569′ descent into the Linthal valley. Not quite Kev time, but our moving average matched that on the yellow Swiss hiking signs. Almost too tired to wash socks and clothes but we managed, especially when we found the hotel radiators were turned on and could dry things.

The weather wasn’t what the forecast (10% chance of rain after 10AM) said it was going to be. We made it 15 minutes, barely out of town, before it rained, and rained, and when we got above tree line it turned to snow. If you zoom in on the sign, it says not to pick up a bomb.

Turned out there were two other couples in the same hotel that took an early breakfast with us, and lo and behold, appeared behind us on the trail once we rose out of the trees. We never got to talk with them because they remained the same distance behind the rest of the day.

Guide book says we gained 4,100′ but my gps says over 5,000 so I’ll have to get into the track details to see when it started recording. It took us 5 ¼ hrs with stops to reach the Foopass (Kev time was supposed to be 4 ½) but we had a number stops to put on more rain gear and then there’s the matter of 4 to 6″ of fresh snow for 90 minutes to the top.

Almost an equal distance down which went faster, it goes without saying. High points were watching the numerous rainfall induced waterfalls and rivulets cascading off the peaks, ridges and cornices. Oh, and Stanna really liked seeing the ten Swiss hiking ladies coming up the mountain sharing umbrellas. Sorry no photo of them, in fact it was difficult to get out our cameras from under the rain gear. And we saw our first glacier of the trip, a hanging one half way down into Elm at about 4,500′.

Hot shower and our new favorite piece of hiking gear, the hair dryer at the hotel made the day complete and ready for tomorrow. Here’ same view of the Valley we climbed up, just imagine the last 1,500′ all white with fresh snow.

We bested Kev-time today hiking the 5.5 hour Wanderweg (hiking trail) to Weisstanen in just over four hours. Perhaps it’s just because we were fresh and the climb was only 3,100′, but beating the hiking author, Kevin Reynolds, time for a hike is a big deal according to Stanna. Last year we were mostly longer than his posted times.

For those of you curious enough to click on the Spot Locator track you’d have noticed a big jump in the track from the San Juan’s to the Swiss Alps. If you’d zoomed in on the eastern end of the arch and maybe even changed the default map to satellite, you’d see us amble up the Weisstannen (means Silver Fir) valley.

We’re currently bedded at the Gemse (Chamois) hotel, one of two hotels in this very small, as in less than 20 houses, alpine village. It’s an interesting choice of name since the region is famous for introducing the Steinbock (ibex) to the area in 1911. We’ve seen neither, but we’re still below tree line.

It rained for an hour during this first morning so we proved we’d not forgotten any rain gear, both of us donning jackets and rain pants. Forecast is mostly sunny for the next five days, so we’ll see how accurate the Metro Weather forecasts turn out to be.

No other hikers on the trail that we saw, however a solo European guy from our hotel this morning showed up at this one as well this afternoon. Trail was mostly in heavy woods with one long wooden stairway out of a ravine. We lunched on our salami, cheese and loaf at a crossroads water trough common throughout Switzerland.

Off to hike another Swiss trail, this one’s called the Via Alpina and runs from Liechtenstein to Lake Geneva. We’ll only be doing about 16 days of the route, plus 2 layover days to revisit several places Stanna first visited 2 years ago.  Via Alpina is north of the Haute Route trail we hiked last year, a little longer and is said to be slightly more moderate.

This year we’re scaling down our packs to Talon 22’s since we can get all our clothes and necessities into the smaller volume packs.  The weights are almost the same at 10 and 12 pounds.  Only downside is that shopping and gift buying options are reduced to the space which the soon-to-be-depleting vitamins currently occupy.  I’ve got just enough room for a baguette, cheese and salami and Stanna has a little room for chocolate, so I guess Stanna could still buy a little fabric or thread at the end of the trail.

For anyone interested in learning more about hikes in Switzerland we recommend checking out the Switzerland Mobility site.  They list all sorts of routes and even show accommodations along the way.