Lauterbrunnen Valley
Day 8 - Monday - June 20, 2016
Today we drove to the Lauterbrunnen Valley from Fussen. One interesting thing along the way was that our bus was loaded onto a train for a ride through the mountains. It seems that the fastest route (perhaps the only route) was to go through the mountain rather than over it. Anyway, we arrived later in the afternoon in Lauterbrunnen with good weather on hand. We took the train up to Wengen on the East side of the Lauterbrunnen Valley and checked into our the Hotel Belvedere which would be our base for the next two nights. Since the weather forecast for tomorrow was cloudy and rain, we decided to take the lift from Wengen to Mannlichen. From there we did Rick's hike to Wengernalp and all the way back to our hotel in Wengen. Below are some pictures of our arrival in the Lauterbrunnen Valley and our afternoon hike.
Day 9 - Tuesday - June 21, 2016
We got up this morning to clouds and mist. We were happy we did the hike yesterday. We decided that today was a good day to explore the Lauterbrunnen Valley with a hike from Lauterbrunnen to the "inside the mountain" Trummelbach Falls. From Lauterbrunnen, we hiked past Staubbach Waterfall to Trummelbach Falls. Staubbach Waterfall is very impressive. It is Switzerland's second highest waterfall at a height of about 1,000 feet. When the water is not flowing fast (in summer) the water almost turns to a mist before it hits the ground. The Trummerbach Falls is a series of ten glacier fed waterfalls inside the mountain. It is made accessible by a lift and is illuminated. It drains the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau at up to 5,200 gallons per second. Take a look at some pictures below.
After our valley hike we walked through Wengen before heading back to our hotel to relax. While at the hotel the sun came out just before sunset and painted an amazing picture of clouds surrounding the Jungfrau Mountain. See the pictures below.
Tomorrow we head for our last stop of the tour. The pretty town of Chamonix.