Mürren: Day 2 … Allmendhubel Hike

Completely socked in!

There was nothing but a wall of white clouds outside our window when I woke up at 7:30a. Thirty minutes later, the clouds were on the move. The town came into view very quickly. The mountains took their own sweet time … never clearing fully unfortunately. Off to the right, the cable car was going up and down … no passengers. There was a big box attached to the bottom that had not been there yesterday. I’m guessing daily supplies are transported in this manner during the early runs of the day.

After breakfast, we geared up for a hike. There are a number of them that one can do from Mürren. The webcams showed the views were similarly socked-in at all of the trails. So, we decided to head up to Allmendhubel, described as “Mürren’s own mountain.” The plan was to take the funicular up ~900 feet (275m) to the station at 6,257 feet (1,907m). We’d decide what to do once we got up there.

Decision made, we walked to the station near the village center. The upper reaches of the mountain were hidden by the fog … perhaps low-lying clouds. Unsure whether we would be hiking or taking the funicular down, we bought one-way tickets with our SFHC. Minutes later we were on the way up, the track partially going through a tunnel. We got some nice views of Mürren before we entered the tunnel … glad for at least that much.

Considering we couldn’t see much beyond the tunnel entrance from Mürren, it came as no surprise that the scenery when we arrived at Allmendhubel was veiled by the mist. At least the immediate vicinity was clear, so we did have some ‘scenery’ to entertain us. We picked up some hot beverages at the café as the damp weather added to the chill factor and we needed a warm-up. We were hoping to drink our beverages on the sundeck, but the benches were all as damp as the air. At least it wasn’t raining. We ended up sipping our drinks while we wandered around, watching the antics of the families in the kids area.

After the ubiquitous ‘big letters’ selfie, we headed to the Flower Trail that loops around a garden where one can not only see plants from Alpine meadows and pastures, but also examples of mountain plants from Africa and Asia, and more. Frankly, there wasn’t much to see, but we did get to see some Edelweiss, so we called our time in the garden a win.

One of the highlights of our time at the garden was a small herd of cows. We were studying some purple bell flowers when we heard the faint sound of bells. We looked around but didn’t see any cows, so we thought that perhaps they were wind chimes. Suddenly, as we were walking towards the sound of the bells — which was growing progressively stronger — the cows appeared out of the mist. The herd continued past us in the direction from which we had come … stopping to graze frequently. We continued in the direction from which the herd had come … dodging fresh cow patties!

With no sign that the weather was going to clear up for us to enjoy the views, we looked at hiking options. No sense going up … the low-lying clouds would hide even more of the view. So, we decided to hike down. We’d been told that the North Face Trail would eventually get us to Mürren — a little over 3.5 miles (6 km). Or, we could take a shortcut. I don’t know if we followed the shorter trail exactly, but our route took us through Mirrenberg, and then across the Mürrenbach, which continues down the mountain to form Mürrenbachfall. The trail was mostly dirt, though the section we followed through Mirrenberg was a paved road.

I have no idea what distance we covered, but I do know that we took nearly two hours with stops for photos along the way.

Oh, by the way, the clouds never did lift, so we never did get to see the mountains from high on up.

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*** SHFC Reconciliation (PER PERSON): CHF 120 outlay … with today’s purchase of a CHF $3.50 funicular ticket to Allmendhubel, we are now ahead of the game by CHF 43.20 pp.Read more