Day 4: Wengen to Realp

26 June 2011

I had packed really light for the two-day excursion to Wengen.

After breakfast, we took the cog railway back down to Lauterbrunnen. It was a brilliant day, and with not a cloud in the sky, we had a clear view of the Jungfrau.


Lauterbrunnen Valley; Staubbach Falls

We drove back to Rosenlaui, where Piaw and I picked up our bikes and headed down.


Rosenlaui Valley

Since it was a Sunday (and, did I mention, it was a brilliant day?), as we descended, we saw a ton of cyclists heading up to Grosse Scheidegg.

We rolled down to Lammi, and then headed to Innertkirchen. The road up to Grimsel was also packed with cars and motorcycles. Fortunately the weather was warm, though not too hot. We stopped for ice cream at Guttanen and made it to the top of Grimsel for lunch with Xiaoqin.


Grimselsee, right below Grimselpass

The top of the pass was entirely free of ice, unlike last year (which had been anomalously cold). The pass was also packed with cars. We ate our lunch quickly and moved on.

After lunch we headed down to Gletsch and then climbed to Furkapass.


Road from Grimsel down to Gletsch (bottom center) and up to Furka (top left)

Furkapass; Approaching Realp

We then regrouped in Realp, where we found a hotel (just 35 CHF per person!) and ate dinner. I was pretty famished, as we had done over 7,200 feet of climb (which would be the most climb in a single day on our trip).

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