FollowWe had a lovely dinner at the hotel last night, but the real star of the evening was the sunset over the lake. We took lots of photos – Val got this one which we adjudged the best.
Afterwards, the mountains are painted orange in the alpenglow.
This morning we were up early for our hike to First. It begins easily enough, with a wander through meadows beneath the Oberberghorn.
Next, we have to climb the Loucherhorn. There’s no way to avoid this. The track is steep and rocky.
A lake above a lake. We pass Sägistalsee, and there’s a glimpse of lake Brienz far below.
The path gets even steeper, and we climb through snow patches to the Männdlenen hut. There’s a network of these alpine huts all over Switzerland, and you can stay the night. They sell basic food like bread, cheese, cakes and dried sausages. We buy our lunch and enjoy a brief rest, before we start climbing again.
The summit of our walk comes about an hour after lunch at 2620 metres, or about 8500 feet. After that we begin the long descent to First. We pass the lake at Bachalpsee on the way.
Eventually we reach the restaurant at First. I had the best beer I’ve ever tasted, and we caught the gondola down to Grindelwald. All in all the walk was almost 17 kilometres, and we’ll certainly sleep well tonight.
Here’s our GPS trace for the day.
