Brace yourself, it’s a long one!
Wow, what an exciting day! A full of fun and adventure! I think it’s safe to say I’ve mastered the Alpine mountains. An Alpinist is a term for adventure seekers who came to the Alpine mountains of Germany, Switzerland, Italy and more, often referring to the many wealthy British elites who came to visit, during the mid 1800’s and early 1900’s.
It started with a walk down the road to the Gletscherschlucht (Glacier Canyon) between the Mättenburg and Eiger, two of the many mountains of Grindelwald. It’s a millions and millions canyon between the two mountains with a river, that flows loud and fast. The canyon used to be completely full of ice for thousands of years, but by now, not much ice remains, as it has massively been melting off over the last 150 years. The sheer vertical cliffs on either side that shoot far, far up is really quite a sight! It goes about a kilometer up the river, and you walk along a wooden raised platform, where it suddenly ends with a wood door. Along the way there are signboards with old photographs and stories and the history of the canyon.
So I took the bus back into town, and went to the main “First Top Adventure” area. (In this case First is the name of the mountain, not meaning the same as the English word first.) It’s a set of activities you can do up on the mountain after taking an extremely lengthy cable tram ride up the mountain. There’s 4 stops you can get off at. The bottom is the base in Grindelwald. The next about halfway up the mountain is the stop of Bort. Above that is the stop Schreckfeld, and at the top stop is the First peak. Each one has activities you can do at them. (I posted an image of the signboard with some of the activities yesterday.) There is a long hike you can do to the Bachalpsee at the top, (Bach Alp Lake) which is quite beautiful, high up in the mountains, but it’s a nearly hour long hike 1 way so I declined.
So after deciding on the activities I wanted to do, I took the tram up to the very top for the ‘First Cliff Walk’ – which is free with the adventure package. It’s a platform the sticks out from sheer cliff rocks giving an unbelievable view of the whole Grindelwald valley down below. So most of the activities you do take you down to the next station below. So when I was at the First Peak, after doing the Cliff Walk, I did the “First Flieger” (First Flyer) activity which is an 800 meter long (half mile/50 seconds long) speedy zip line down far and fast down to the station of Schreckfeld. Fun!
So next when at Schreckfeld, the next thing I did was the Mountain Cart ride. It’s basically a kiddy tricycle with brakes that goes down the mountain. It’s a really fun down hill cart ride. No motor, no pedaling, just a very rocky bouncy road, gravity, and brakes, and your trike. It was really fun zigzagging down the trails, past farms, cows, and going through a zapping electric fence twice (which you have to go through). Parts of it seems actually pretty dangerous, because there’s no rails in many of the areas, and in some of those areas is a very steep jagged drop right on the edge and you could tumble 50 or 100 feet or more. Zooming down the straightaways, and braking on the turns, and skidding over the pebbles and rocks, and that takes you down to the Bort station. Fun!
Next was the “Trotti Bike” ride down to the base of the mountain, back to Grindelwald Station. The Trotti Bike is not a bike, it’s basically just a scooter with big bike wheels with a little standing platform between them. And just like the cart you go down the hill at your own speed, braking whenever you need to. And you need to A LOT! It actually seemed even more dangerous than the carts especially being tall with a high center of balance. It’s a fairly steep, and very long ride, and is very easy to wipe out on, I almost did at the beginning, but recovered. Just like the cart, you go down hill past farms, and cows, the Swiss love their cows, past turns and even going down roads that cars drive on. Though when you get to the bottom you have to walk and drag the uphill a little ways through town to get back. The whole mountain is full of activity! Hikers, bikers, Trotti Bikers, Carters, and anyone doing anything! Fun!
Finally I finished my day of adventure.
Not really.
Since I finished the activities and ended up at the bottom of the mountain, I decided to go back up the mountain! But this time, a different mountain! I took another cable tram car near my hotel up on the mountain. This time the mountain opposite of First, the Mättenburg, to the area on the mountain side known as Pfingstegg. Up there was a bit more hiking, and going down another one of the Rodelbahns, the personal rollercoasters. This one not on a track, but down a tube, like a bobsled on wheels. Although this one was not very long or very fast, but it was still fun going down the track, high up on the cliff side. Fun!
Quite a very strange event happened moments after doing the Rodelbahn (See the image gallery see read about it!) After that I went to the restaurant and had a nice burger, with some of the best fries ever, on the raised patio, overlooking the glorious valley below. Tasty!
The sun started going so I headed down to turn in for the night.
…
Just kidding.
After getting to the bottom of the mountain I went to the very nearby Heimat Museum (Homeland Museum) which details the history of Grindelwald. It’s not very big, but in a neat old home, which has all kinds of displays, figures, machines, and biographies of famous residents.
Then… finally. The day ended for reals. I ended up taking almost 300 images today.
jonsjourneythroughgermany.com 