Heights of the Glacier

This is our view the next morning! Such beauty

 See the small ribbon of a trail from the height of our hut? We came from the left side of the lake yesterday, then crossed at the base of the lake then ascended a zig zag trial to the right of the lake to where we are standing.

 The Turtmann Hut was now on the Swiss German side of the country. We had a tomato onion salad, tomato soup and a goulash over rice. Plenty of food was served at our hut. As we walked into our hut the night before there was but a dim light in the food hall where all were gathered. It was very hushed as us weary travelers walked into the main door. The host was a retired Swiss German woman named Bridgette. She had kept a plate of food warm for us, thank goodness. She showed Matt our room while I cleaned up, used the facilities and pumped. (Didn't stop to do that in the rain)

End of day 2

This was to be our recovery day on Wednesday. You saw our view above. The colors in the sky were so beautiful. We took in our breakfast leisurely. Bridgette asked if we wanted our breakfast at 5 or 7am? Hikers in the alps do not sleep in.

We opted for the lazy time of 7. Hot tea, cafe, yogurt with muesli, bread and cheese with a cold meat tray, some type of plain flake cereal was the standard breakfast everywhere we went.  I missed the chocolate croissants from the French side of the country.

 After the amazing hike yesterday, we were glad the itinerary called for a six mile loop up to the Barrhorn Mountain. This was the highest hikeable summit without the need for technical equipment. This mount had jaw dropping views of three other famous mountain peaks.

This six mile loop was going to be an easy hike, a way to stretch our 14mile legs and just enjoy the view and trial. Or so we thought. To quote one of Matt's favorite movies "That John Denver Backpacker's Magazine is full of Crap." We were to learn that the mileage on this day and almost every other day was wrong.

 Matt had befriended 2 Belgian men who stayed at our hut last night. They headed out with us on the trail. Matt loves to meet new people on the trail and find out new things about what they do and where they've been. These two were a banker and a Employee of BMW in Belgium. They were a few years older than us but were on their guy trip to hike across the glacier. At this hut you either come to hike the Barrhorn (like us) or hike across the glacier (like these guys).  You'll see some pics of their glacier hike soon. The glacier hike is called an Alpine walk and requires ice axe and crampons for your feet. Not to mention ropes to tie to each other. That adventure was not for us this time.

Our hut sold bottled water or you could get fresh mountain water along the trail. Which we opted to do everyday.

 This was such a perfect day. The sun was out and the weather perfect. In fact I had gotten a sunburn that day.

You can see our hut below, just a little dot on the right slope.

This second day of our hiking was truly more mountain climbing than hiking. I am not too much of a nervous person, so I thought before this hike, but this day was a bit steep for me.

Here is good example of our steep trial. Yes our trail blaze shows us to go up the side of this mountain by holding onto the steel cable and walking along a 8-12inch ledge. Matt had not fear and loved the adventure. (Corbin is just like him)

But I made it! Just pray and take one step at a time. That is my advice. Here is where our trail splits and the Belgians take off to the right for the glacier and we hike straight up the mountain.

 Their view of the glacier was so amazing. This is a famous part of the glacier trail.

We took our time, had lunch packed for our day hike and enjoyed the sun on our skin.

The path it self looked like a gravel pit but the views were spectacular!

There were these stone pillars that Matt called alters the first day along the trail. We learned they call them "stone man". You can see Matt leaning on one here. You are to add a stone that builds them up as you go along. We added stones to the points in the trail that really felt like an accomplishment to reach.

As we hiked we kept looking and pointing out where we thought the Barrhorn might be. Because this day was only a six mile loop we didn't have much further to go. Matt kept and eye on the mileage of his watch and we were nearing three miles, which means that we should be near the top. Then we see two hikers descending down the trail towards us. We didn't see these two at breakfast, but found out they were among the 5am breakfast eaters.

Happy to take a break and chat we asked the two girls how much farther to Barrhorn?

Here is the incline of our trail at this point. The girls see my trail running shoes and say oh honey you aren't going to make it up the mountain and the snow in those shoes. ( You see mine had gotten soaked in the rain last night. The rain ran down my legs and into my shoes. So I was letting them dry out in the sun and figured these shoes could take me wherever I needed to go since they were a bike tire on the bottom)

So... come to find out we have another 2.5 hours to hike to reach the Barrhorn! Mileage was wrong yet again on our itinerary. There was no 6 mile loop but it was 6 miles to the top and then 6 miles back. Goodness who published this info. Anyways we sat on this trail for a moment to decide our plan of action. Neither of us were up to the task of hiking another nine miles today- three up and six back. We loved the views we had at this point and it satisfied us to turn around.

We had gotten to this point in the trail that you see here below and it was just too precarious for me. This was a rather smooth large knob of a rock with little notches in the side. That was our trail to scale up the mountain. Again, not the throw caution to the wind on the mountain kind of a gal.

Here is the Barrhorn that you can see on the left knob and the little Barrhorn you see on the right knob.

So, let's pretend.          We made it!

It was truly a beautiful day and we were happy with our decision.

We got back to the hut in time for a late snack before dinner. The cabin was very quiet. Time to snuggle in for a bit of a nap. (our body clocks are still off, I kept wanting to wake up around 1:30a to get going for the day.

We met an elderly English couple who had hiked up to the hut to see the view of the glacier. Loved talking to the old man and hearing all the tales he told of the hikes they had been on and the history of where we were at that moment. They recommended the most beautiful glacier was the mountain range that borders Spain and France.

My nap was well needed, my knees began to hurt on the descent. It was so steep coming down and the tension of going slow and steep hurt them. A large guided hiking group came in tonight about 28 hikers. The hut was chilly tonight , layers are my friend.

I didn't take any pictures of the inside of the cabin. Our room had a large bunk bed. Yes that was singular tense. There were four beds/ mats on the bottom and five on the top. Matt was a bit freaked that we would be laying beside people we didn't know. But Bridgette let us have the room to ourselves. We didn't have to share. Matt was skittish about no locking doors and two people wandered in our room looking for theirs I presumed. Typical hostel set up, which Matt was not familiar with.

Met a couple at dinner who spoke English. They were from the town that the story of Heidi originated from. Such beautiful country here. We were describing our hike the day before and how it looked like what we imagine the story Heidi and they cheered right up and said how that story is where they are from . How cool is that!

Matt read Moby Dick off his phone to me and lulled me right to sleep.

End Day 3