Via Alpina, Switzerland

A beautiful hike with a great team today! After an awesome breakfast at the hotel, as well as our normal packing of some extra fruit and treats for later, we took the bus to take the train to Alpinglen, to shorten the long 6 mile climb starting in the city. Yeah, we kind of messed up our bus ride with all of us missing our stop in two groups. We all walked back to the train station then just missed our train because it took too long to buy tickets! Ok, so we finally got to Alpinglen then hiked up about 4 beautiful miles, walking in the shadow of the mighty Eiger mountain. One to the top at Kleine Scheidegg we got lunch at a restaurant then struck out for another couple of miles (hiked 7.1 miles today) to Mannlichen, then onto the Royal Walk which takes you to a crown-shaped viewing area with spectacular views of Grindelwald, the Inter-laken Valley, and the Lauterbrunnen Valley. All three! Super windy at the top! Videos? We will have to dub over the voices! Haha! Then most of us rode the gondola down to Wengen (Kevin Trimm did the punishing 2 hour decent walk!). Today is National Independence Day. All of Switzerland is celebrating!Read more