Beatenberg: Day 5 … First Hike?

Before going further, I should first clarify that the “First” in the title is not used in the sense of being first or #1. Rather, “First” is the name of a minor summit in the Bernese Oberland … a popular hiking destination.

When we left the apartment, the webcam for Grindelwald First was showing … well, nothing … clouds obscured everything. But we were hopeful that would change. After all, the completely socked-in Thunersee view from our balcony was just starting to re-appear from behind the clouds that had filled the valley overnight. Why wouldn’t it start clearing there as well?

We had a pleasant drive to Grindelwald … under blue skies and sunshine … decorative clouds coming and going … a bit of traffic when we made the turn off the main road. We easily found parking at the Grindelwald Terminal … on the Swiss Army knife level. We hopped on the shuttle bus to the village center … our parking ticket proof that we were eligible for a free ride. We then walked to the First Aerial Cableway Station … not far from the bus drop off. All going to plan so far!

Undaunted by the queue at the station, Mui got in line for gondola tickets; I went inside the station to check the webcam monitors. The view? Nothing … nada … zilch. The clouds had not lifted to show the beautiful scenery we hoped to enjoy on the way to and at Bacalpsee. I reported back to Mui and we debated whether we should take our chances. “No, let’s do something else,” we decided.

But first, some shopping. We checked out the Grindelwald shops for new rain jackets and trail shoes. We both got lucky with jackets … a bright poppy red one for me … so Mui can locate me easily in the crowd 😄. Mui got lucky with trail hikers; I did not.

Since it was a beautiful day, we opted to walk back to the Grindelwald Terminal to drop off our shopping … and used the time to decide how we were going to further jiggle today’s plans.Read more