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Berner Oberland, Switzerland
To be lost in the forest, to be cut adrift
It's hard to imagine a slideshow about Switzerland and not seeing picture after picture of snowy, rugged Alps, yet here we are. I had devoted a reasonable chunk of time this trip to the Berner Oberland, the single most amazing stretch of mountains I had ever previously (briefly) seen. I made reservations to stay in a hotel on the very edge of the cliffs in Mürren, paying extra for a room with a view. As I headed uphill from Bern I knew that the weather was against me but I headed on anyway. When I changed trains in Interlaken and again in Lauterbrunnen, I saw the weather worsen and the clouds engulf everything. By the time I got off the cable car and the next train in Mürren, I was in that cloud. With the exception of a few fleeting, dreamlike moments, I never saw anything in Mürren that wasn't literally directly in front of me. Mürren and the Oberland had given into the clouds and there was nothing I could do about it.
With no spectacular mountain views to distract me, I headed back down to the valley to see Trümmelbach Falls, to listen to the cow bells (really loud and annoying actually) and walk the valley floor. With my reasonable choices quickly vanishing, I decided to head uphill. Lauterbrunnen is high (2,600 feet) and Mürren is higher (5,400 feet) but maybe if I went even higher I had a chance. With that in mind, I bought a ticket to Wengen (4,100 feet) and on to Männlichen (7,600 feet) and I was soon headed as high as any reasonable cable car or train goes in the area, still hoping for a chance to get my head out of the clouds.
Finally.
Above the rain and above the clouds, the mountains won again. From Männlichen I took the thoroughly pleasant high elevation walk over to Kleine Scheidigg. The Alps are crisscrossed with well marked trails and easy to understand signposts, walking feels less like a backcountry hike than a super pleasant stroll through a (literally) Alpine meadow. The entire time the only real threat was those damn clouds. They were constantly moving and always trying to move higher- waves of clouds would make a run for it and quickly dissipate, leaving the view (generally) intact and still miles ahead of the rain in the valley 5,000 feet below.
I got out of the high country just in time. In the shadow of the three great mountains- the Eiger (13,000 feet), the Mönch (13,400 feet) and the Jungfrau (13,600 feet)- the clouds and the weather were making a final assault that was soon to be victorious. As I bound a train for the slow, steep journey back to the rain in Lauterbrunnen, the clouds had totally taken over and the visibility was as bad as it was in Mürren. Still before the clouds, before the weather and before the rain, there were views just like this one.
A close up of the angry, icy cold face of the Jungfrau, a 13,600 foot high monster that towers over all in the Berner Oberland. In German the word Jungfrau translates to young maiden, making everyone wonder exactly what the Swiss were thinking at the time.
