Grande Finale of APR

Day 22 Montreux - Geneva - Helsinki

Day 21 - from Sonchaux to Montreux

Day 20 - from Les Mosses to Sonchaux

Day 19 - Les Mosses

Day 18 - from Gsteig to Les Mosses

Day 17 - from Lenk to Gsteig

Day 15 - from Oeschinensee to Adelboden

They say that the most beautiful sunrises in Switzerland are in the area of Oeschinensee.. I woke up somewhere before 6 and wend outside to chek out, if it is true..

Early morning.. Lake and surrounding mountains are so peaceful and magnifisent. One big cloud was covering part of the mountain, but with the help of wind and some other laws of Nature, cloud did not remain static, but was always transforming itself, thus opening different view of the same landscape every few seconds.

Tender fog started to cover lake from the other side, it spreaded more and more - quietely, steadely, tenderly.

What more one can want from life than to sit early in the morning on the shore of astonishingly beautiful emerald lake, to hear no other sounds than sound of distant waterfall, to feel nothing than peace of the heart, to experience divinity of Nature.

But soon moment was gone.. people started to wake up.. some fishermen also appeared..

Sleepy Wolf came out as well, but magic was not so present anymore and we just went to pack.

At 7:30 we took off towards Kandersteg, which was 1 hour away from Oeschinensee and has the blessed COOP shop, where we got our breakfast materials.

We took our breakfast on some bench in Kandersteg.

We started to walk towards last classical pass on Alpine Pass Route - Bunderchrinde (2 385 m). With Hohtürli behind our backs nothing seemed as before, and somehow feeling came that this is last day of our trek.. Though there was still 90 km till Montreux.

Just after leaving Kandersteg we stopped near paraglinding school. I stayed there and watch people flying (omg, I am envious! :) would like to try that too..) and Wolf went to look for geocache, which was supposed to be near by. Heehee.. even 15 meters in the mountain area can be real challenge. So geocache was not found and geocoin which we took out of cach in Sargans will go to Finland. :)

We continued our road towards Bunderchrinde, according to the guide we were supposed to be there in 4 hours.

Well.. on the way we had major teddy-bear-fight (fight over nothing really...) After fight we walked for some time separately.... well....

The road was very nice. In the beginning it went steeply up through the forest near mountain and quick powerful mountain river. Then peaceful path through pasture grounds. We made a stop and ate all peaches we had, to make backpack bit lighter.. :)

Then road was steep again - stones, stones, stones. There was nothing more. Just we, stones and our friends - clouds.

Soon we saw Bunderhrinde pass - a narrow gap in the craggy ridge.

We stayed up there for some time. Just two of us in the whole world surrounded by stones and complete silence and peace.

Descent was bit steep in the beginning, but it was ok. Soon already we saw Adelboden town - nice and neat as all Swiss towns I guess.

After some time we arrived to Bonderalp, where we planned to stay overnight. But old man - the host of the place after hearing about our food preferences, got confused and told, that we better go down to the village.. :) Well.. thats ok, I guess. Two more hours of walk. Quite long day to be.

We walked already almost for an hour, pondering over dinner, staying place etc etc. And Adelboden was still quite far away. I saw one car approaching and some sinful hitch-hiking thought came into my mind.. :) I just looked at the car with my big tired eyes, and car stopped. Driver - old man in his 70-ties asked if we want to go with him to Adelboden. YES! we want indeed.

While driving old man asked where we plan to stay tonight. Well, something cheap, may be Shönegg. Old man smiled mysteriously and said that it is not the best place to stay. We also drive by this Shönegg and it looked like a building from some B-class horror movie - just so out of place in Switzelrand.

We arrived to Adelboden, saw COOP and asked for stop. Driver wished as good hike to Lenk for tomorrow and we thanked him many times for a ride.

COOP was our best friend in Switzerland. :) We bought some food (we got into the shop just 10-15 minutes before closing), and looked for a place to stay. We walked on the main street back and forth, but every bedding opportunity had too many stars. And Shönegg was not a place to return to.

After some additional walking and askind directions in German we finally found Rudy-Hus. Well if I will go back to Adelboden, I will also go back to Rudy-Hus. Very nice place, very nice host.

Thus finished Bunderchrinde day.

Day 14 - Hohtürli day!

Today is Hohtürli day!
Hohtürli (2 778m) is namely the highest pass on whole Alpine Pass Route.
So it was very special day and very special feeling...

I woke up at 4 o´clock and woke up Wolf, because "it is already morning!". Wolf did not believe my gut feeling about "already morning" and just checked time... Well I was very surprised to see results.. :)
We slept bit more..
Had nice swiss breakfast - mysli. And took off for Hohtürli (with blessings from our host.. who also predicted nice cloudless weather..).
Hohtürli is 1400 meters of ascend and 1300 meters of descent, all that fitting in 10 kilometers. Wolf was cool. And i felt challenge :)

Path went through the forest and reminded Brüsti at some point... We came out from the forest and found ourselves in the pasture-grounds.
There we saw three most happy, playful young calves.
Calves were running through the pastures.. May be they thought that they are dogs or young horses..
It was very sweet picture... Running happy calves..
Well... unfortunately we all know, what will happen to them in the future...

The road through pasture grounds finished quite quickly and ascend began.
Today was no rain.. but we were walking in the clouds again. So no rain, but no view also..

At some point we took rest.. sitting on big white stone, staring at mist.. Suddenly mist dissolved and beautiful view appeared.. Just for some moments..
One strong swiss lady in her fifties carrying heavy backpack (much bigger that our backpackes together) passed by and asked jokingly, if we were enjoying the view.. Well yeah, we ARE enjoying indeed, but there is no definitely any view present. We shared a laugh, few sentences and continued our ascend.

That magical moment, when you somehow understand with your gut feeling, that there is no much clouds left, and soon you will be ABOVE clouds. Just climb few more meters.. and few more.. and there you are... above the clouds:

it is like endlessly big, soft, warm bed.. and peaks of the surrounding mountains here and there..

this picture was made y another hiker up there, he send it to us by e-mail later. thank him for our only picture from whole trek! :)

We spent some time up there. Took some refreshments, sitting there and enjoying the view.

After rest and heart-fulfilling enjoyment we started our way down towards Kandersteg. Descent was quite steep in the beginning, but not so challenging. On the way you just stop sometimes and look around and cannot believe your own eyes. That something can be so touching.. so amazing. Whom we should thank for the beauty of Nature?

After couple of hours we saw a lake. That was Oeschinensee... Probably the most beautiful lake I saw in all my life.

That was the day we had a bridge kiss..... ;)

We approached the lake and decided to stay there in one hotel, which also had dormitory accomadation. So we are sleeping happily in dormitory for just 52 franks (thats without breakfast).

Anyway... Lake is beautiful, sun set is beautiful.. Today is today. And tomorrow will be another day.

Day 12 & 13 - from Wengen to Griesalp

Day 12 -

We woke up at Wengen VERY early.. as japaneese gyus started to pack and took off.

Somebody claimed that japaneese gyus started to take off, because of somebody's snoring. But I did not hear any

snoring at all, so somebody might imagining things.. :)

It was heavy storm outside in the morning and heavy rain continued also later, so somehow spontaneously we decided to stay that day in Wengen. The hostel was nice and cheap, kitchen was amazing there!
So whole day we stayed pretty much inside, ate pizza for lunch and played card games. At some point we went outside and tried to find geocache, what Wolf did not find previous day, but also today was not so succsesful.
So, just one rainy rainy peaceful day at Wengen....

Day 13 -

We woke up at Wengen in that nice dormitory. It was quite early and quiet.

It was long day ahead as.

We packed quiclky and quietly, had some breakfast in the kitchen and took off for the train station.

Our plan was to take some transport, to save some time - around 3 hours and make a 7 hours walk.

Weather conditions were not brilliant. Far from brilliant to be honest.

Fog was everywhere and rain could start any moment.

We went to train station, took two tickets, payed 6 franks.. :), saw the photo-booth and made funny picture.

With train we went down to Lauterbrunnen, from there up to Grütschalp with funicular, and more up to Mürren with train. That was quick and short trip.

Mürren was mystical place, probably the reason for its mystery was fog. Intense fog covered everything and everyone and you could see few meters ahead, but that is it.

Ok, no views today, just climbing.. :)

But walk up was nice.. Lets say solitary...

We made a refreshing stop at Rotstock hütte. That place was extremely pleasant. We got nice vegetable soup there and ate from one bowl with two spoons. French guy - host, was very happy and cheerful, singing along with radio.

It is hard to explain, but that was one of the most romantic moments during the whole trek.

Hütte in the middle of nowhere. Hot soup - one bowl, two spoons. And the One you love near by. Smiling.

Just enjoying the moment.

We continued our way to Sefinenfurke (2612 m) - highest pass so far.

Soon heavy rain started. Rain can be a blessing, but that was not the case.. :)

We became very soon completely wet (once again - GOOD waterproofs ARE essential!) and wind suddenly became very cold.

On the way up we haven´t met anybody, so it was completely solitary walk.

Just us... in the clouds...

Pass was very beautiful. And it would be nice to stay there for longer time and just to enjoy the view (up there, above the clouds, view was very nice). But wet clothes and cold wind made us move pretty quickly.

Descent was a little bit extreme in the beginning.

It was very fun in those weather conditions and with slippery rope in your cold hands.

Quite quickly we reached Griesalp, where we found nice place - Nature freunde and we got dormitory room just for ourselves...
We had nice röstis for dinner.. And Wolf also enjoyed dessert - his favourites blueberries.
Two nice dogs lived there, they immedeately became friends with Wolf..

After we had nice warm evening, played card games... Wolf won non-complaining days from me.. And I won something very nice from Wolf.. :)

Day 11 - from Grinewald to Wengen

Wolf writes:

Today was windy day (and also rainy every now and then), we took the "wrong" (well at least it was very scenic) path towards the Kleine Scheudegg, what made our trekking day last couple of hours longer - and it also raised emotions in some people.
Instead of direct route to pass, we took Eiger trail (it was at 2 520 meters, or something like that).
It started to rain heavily at some point and we took train from Wengeralp to Wengen, thus saving our poor feet a bit (one hour of walking down).

In Wengen (which is supposedely most beautiful spot in Europe, you can see Jungfrau and other peaks.. but we did not see that much of scenery, as weather condition were not ideal..) we made our usual visit to supermarket and looked for our lodge (we got leaflet from Grinewald), after finding it (very nice place. by the way... they have kitchen, dining room and small library with sofas for the guests..)

We ate our dinner at the kitchen, then Enkeli stayed downstairs watching some russian movie she had found (it was VERY nice movie, by the way.. every second of it.. :) ) I went out to search for geocache. Managed to locate the place where it must be hidden, but GPS connection was so poor, that i gave up the search after some time.

When I got back to our lodge Enkeli was still absorbed by the movie, so i went to our dormitory room to study our trek. Two japanese guys showed up, they are sharing this room with us.

Enkeli also joined me and is now lieing next to me and talking to me while i try to write. I need to remind her, that I am the man and I cannot do two things at the same time :)

I am very tired and cannot think of much of details now, so it is time to get some sleep and let Enkeli continue the diary next time.

update from Enkeli:
the trekking path today was may be couple of hours longer than expected, and may be i got a bit emotional about it, but it does not mean, that i was not enjoying every moment of it.. :) especially now, when i think back.. It was beautiful... and thanks to the Wolf, that we took that path.. not direct one.. :)
Trek was full of challenges for me and I am glad I did that... :)

Day 10 - from Meiringen to Grinewald

I woke up at 6 o'clock - fresh and ready after the resting day... but kind of felt pity to wake up Wolf so early, so just tried to sleep bit more - 20 minutes.. :) after that Wolf woke up also..
We had breakfast at this wonderful Brunner hotel. Fresh bread.. pear jam.. and even waitress girl brought separate knife for cheese (she was also vegeterian, so she could understand why i do not want to use knife, which was used for cutting ham.. :p )

The walk was nice and long.. we gained 1 400 meters of altitude.
On the way one girl asked to fill in questionarries about long-distances walking. We gladly helped her out. We had a good laugh about questions and answers, after even compared some answers.. :) It was clear that Wolf was looking for adventures during the hike, and i was not in the mood of any adventures.. - just nice, peaceful hike, please.... :)

Today's destination according to the book was Grinewald, but it meant more than 8 hours of walking and gaining quite a lot of altitude.. So we decided before, that we will stay 1 hour before Grinewald at Wettelhorn hotel, as they were supposed to have a dormitory accomadation also.
Wettelhorn hotel was very big and crowded with tourists. Always, after quite solitary walking, amidst people you feel like a stranger from another planet or something..
Stuff at the hotel was also quite arrogant, so we just decided to keep walking towards Grinewald..

Grinewald is the town were you can find a lot of extremely expensive shops, restraunts and plenty of rich swiss tourists.. So, there is no need to say, that still we felt as strangers.. hungry strangers.. :) our last meal was breakfast at Brunner Hotel... and it was already evening.. Shop were just closed..

We were looking for a place to stay and for some simple food. We could not find any of those two.. :)
Wolf bought some ice-cream from one nice asian girl and i asked, if she knows some nice-priced accomodation opportunities.. She guided us just around one-two corners and there was very nice, very simple hostel - with a lot of buildings around.
We left our backpackes in the room and looked futher for food - those two were very hungry.... :) but in Grinewald you can find a plenty of opprtunies to eat out for just 70-80 franks for two.. that is a little bit too much, you know.. :)

After long searching we found extremely nice place with very kind lady as a host and we had two very nice pastas.. Wolf ate in addition one huuuuge sandwich.. Happily smiling we returned to our place..

So today's keyword was more FOOD, than "scenery".... :)
well world is variegated.. :)

Day 9 - just Meiringen

Today is the rest day! :)

So today we are staying at Meiringen.. in a nice Brunner hotel with backery and confectionary downstairs..

Today is the rest day..
which is not the reason not to wake up at 6 again... well... somehow i managed to sleep till 7.. :)
Waking up Wolf..

Nicest breakfast in whole Switzerland! We decided to give up the "Best Breakfast Oscar" to Brunner hotel in Meiringen. When visiting this nice town, please, stay overnight there, enjoy Toblerone chocolate waiting for you on your pillow and freshly backed bread at breakfast.. :)
it was very personal and warmest place.. :)

After breakfast i felt like doing nothing and Wolf felt like doing geocaching.
So... we went geocaching.. The cache should have been somewhere near Meiring - just couple of kilometers away.. As you can imagine, in the Alpes, couple of kilometers can mean something completely different, than couple of kilometers in somewhere plain Saaremaa...
All this way up was too much for me on the rest day.. So Wolf went alone and had some Indiana Jones adventures in the caves..
As for me.. I went back to the hotel, put my swimming suit on and went to the Meiringens open air swimming pool... God.. i loved it! :)
Sun is shining, around are beautiful mountains with waterfalls, paragliders flying in the sky, warm, blue water.. it was just soooo nice.. :)
I swam about an hour or so, lied on the grass for 15 minutes, bought vanilla ice-cream with white chocolate and walked back to the hotel.
There was Wolf, who did not find a geocache, but who was anyway very happy about his adventures.

After some rest we went to look for Sherlock Holmes museum, but it did not looked so attractive, so we did not went inside... (all Meiringen is about Sherlock Holmes actually ;) )

We played those huge chess outside in the yard.. Wolf won in ten moves.. :) well.. it would be strange if it would be the other way around.. :)

After that we made a window shopping, it was Sunday and everything was closed.. We even had big troubles of finding ice-cream for Wolf.. After some intense searching we found some ice-cream :)

We had a lunch and spend very nice, quite evening... ;)

Day 8 - from Engstlenalp to Meiringen

I woke up at 6 in the morning again (heheee... and Wolf did not belive that i can be a natural alarm-clock :) 100% organic :) ).
So we woke up, had a breakfast in the company of rich people (who did not stayed in dormitory, but in nice hotel.. :) ).
We ate as much sandwiches as we possibly could and continued our way.
Today was no climbing or gaining altitude - only descent.. all the way to Meiringen.

The path was as usually amazingly beautiful , very peaceful... We just met the same couple few times, and beside them we hardly saw anybody till Reuti..


Before Reuti we saw some garden with sculptures which should captivate the light and be beautiful.. Well, it was beautiful and i would spend a bit more time there, but Wolf was not too much into that.. :)So we continiued our way down, down, down.. soon we finished in Meiringen. Do you know those nice, 100% perfect Swiss small towns? well... that was Meiringen.
Immediately we bought some ice-cream for Wolf (who said that Wolves are not ice-cream addicts? :) )..

In the center we found bigger shop, bought some food for a couple of days, and went to check out the Brunner hotel just across the street. It was advised in our Alpine Pass Route book.
The hotel was nice and they had just for us one small room upstairs for 100 franks per day. The room was nice, we were tired, so we decided to stay.. And as tomorrow is Sunday - we decided to stay even for two days.. :)

The hostess of hotel made as a compliment and said that we look like real travellers.. :) You needed to see the smile on Wolf's happy face after hearing that.. :) Travellers are not the tourists.. I do not know, if we are those or those.. we are just walking through the country.. (so what, if it is small country.. :) ).

From the window we saw some nice snowy peaks..

Day 7 - from Engelberg to Engstlenalp

I woke up at 6, as usually.. and woke up also poor Wolf, who would rather be really sleeping.. :)

We had peaceful morning and nice breakfast.. After that i felt extremely lazy and start to talking about taking rest day or something.. :) Wolf got upset and using all his force took me out of bed (where i was enjoying being after the breakfast..). :)

Somehow at 9:20 we started our journey.
We gained some altitude (ca 800 m). It was not the nicest walk as there were cable cars all around..

We were at Trübsee.... There was very nice mountain lake:

I guess, that is how the lake looked like few years ago.. Now it is surrounded with asphalt road and insteard of horses there are hords of tourists...
Still we took some rest there, ate few peaches, enjoyed the beauty...
Second part of the way up was not so long but stiffer (only 400 m of gaining altitude). A little bit of climbing and we are up - at Jochpass (2 207 m)..

This is historical place... as we had our first fight there with Wolf...
It always first time..
Wolf was not guilty in any sense.. but as i favore a bit drama in relationships... so... that just happened...

The place itself up there was very beautiful... We sat up there, told our stories to each other and promised to never have fights anymore (well well well... so much of a promises...)...

Anyway... we ended up with most sweetest descent... Holding each others hands, enjoying each others company.. as we proceeded towards Engstlenalp...
Beautiful path... Mighty snowy peaks ahead.. charming lake in front...
it was really perfect..

At Engstlenalp we stayed in dormitory (we had it just for two of us..).. We paied 78 franks for both of us with breakfast and got two postcards for free.. :)

Day 6 - from Brüsti to Engelberg

We woke up in this nice z'Graggen guesthouse... very peaceful and quite Brysti...
Sky was cloudy and mountains were covered by fog. Well thats normal so early in the morning - it was 6 o'clock in the morning.
Later blue sky appeared and Sun started to smile kindly. Whole day was beautiful weather.

We had some breakfast later on - bread, cheese, some fruits with mysli and yougurt... We were the only guests on that day, and it was very strange indeed that somebody serves just us. I would feel much more better, if I just could do everything myself. :)
We had a few words chat with this nice guy, who was a host, asked him if many people pass by. He told, that when weather is nice then path can be crowded. While eating breakfast we saw already few people passing by towards Surenenpass.

We packed our stuff and somewhere at 9:20 - 9:30 we started our 21 km way towards Engelberg through Surenenpasse (2 291 m).

The path was easy to walk, weather was fine, we could finally enjoy scenery on every step. On the way we met quite a lot of hikers. It made me think for a moment about my personal preferences: good weather and a lot of people around or bad weather and peaceful solitude? (i am bit into last option :) )

While approaching Surenenpasse Wolf found one most beautiful place - not far away from the pass itself.
One small pond...
without single wave..
surrounded by hills, covered with fresh, green grass..
and mountains on the background, covered with snow here and there...
deepest blue sky...
total silence...
Wolf sat peacefully near the pond, something resembling a smile appeared on his face..
and I, put my backpack aside, and run on the hills enjoying this complete inner freedom..

After some climbing up we found ourselves in the middle of something eternal.
magnicifent. peacefully eternal scenery.


We spend sometime up there and started our way down towards Engelberg.

On the way down we stopped at BlackAlp for a banana milkshake for Wolf and vanilla milkshake for me. But milk tasted extremely strange for me, as i did not drunk any milk for a year or so.. so my vanilla shake was destroyed by Wolf.. :)

We walked, talked, kept silence, admiring the scenery, met many cows, eating peacefully their grass, met other hikers...

On the way we made small picnic near the mountain river.. Ate few sandwiches with tomatoes and cucmbers..

We arrived to Engelberg somewhere at 5 o'clock, looked for a cheaper place to stay, but have not found anyting again.. So we ended up in a place what was bit too much for our budget.. So will see if will need to sleep under the bridges in the end of the trek.. :)

Engelberg os nice neat place with a lot of tourists from India.. I wonder what draws them there. I would go anytime to India to stay there.. :)

Day 5 - from Linthal to Brüsti

We woke up in Linthal completely tired. May be not so tired from trekking, but quite tired from bad weather..
Just felt like escaping rain and clouds and taking a plane to south Italy or something..
We did not take a plane to Italy, but we decided to go as far as possible all the way to Brysti. That would mean - 35 kilometers. And that means - bus and cable car! Just escaping bad weather...

We checked out at 9:30, paied 90 franks for bed and breakfast, and went to the bus stop. Linthal was covered with the clouds and we could not appreciate any of its beauty.
Post bus brought us up to Klausenpass, where weather was already much better. WE looked for micro geocache up there, but with no sucsess.
As Klausenpass is quite popular place, up there is some small restraunt-shop, i bought postcard and sent greetings to my sister in Estonia, Wolf skipped greeting his relatives. :)


As weather was drastically improving, we decided to change a bit our escaping plan and walk a bit - anyway we came here to walk, not to drive buses :)
That was stange walk on a big road, qutie croweded road. After few days of quite some solitude, it was a bit painful to be around of many people..

We walked to the next place, and then to the next.. Making some stops and enjoying the scenery. Down there was incredibly beautiful valley..
Thats was my first time in the mountains and was funny to observe the mind - how it tired to define unknown landscape according to know categories. Mind can do whatever it wants, I was just accepting and absorbing all that beauty...

We made one short stop, ate few peaches and some candies. My feet were giving up - and not willing to move any longer. But who will listen to their complains.. :)
We walked more for two hours and heared sound of approaching bus.

Silent conversation:
me: opens wide her big green eyes, and looks into the eyes of a bus driver with all sadness of tha wolrd.
bus driver: askes with his shoulders and smile, if we want to jump in.
me: gladly and happily nodding.
bus driver: pulls the brakes.

So we basically hitch-hiked the bus without even putting up the tumb :)
We got free drive thanks to our Swiss cards.

Soon we were in Altdorf, which is may be nice town, but we both did not like the energy there, may it was just about the crowd.
We stoped by in the shop, bought some fresh fruits and veggies and went to look for him:


that was the Wilhelm Tell. yeah. local hero. :)

We left from Altdorf quite quickly to Attinghausen and from there with cable car to Brysti.

It was so nice after crowded Klausenpass, ALtdorf, Attinghausen to get up - closer to the sky - to peaceful surroundings, where sun is shining more brightly, when you feel yourself more and more, as nobody else is around.
You and All.

We got extremely nice room in a z'Graggen guesthouse.
Nice hosts, good pasta and beautiful mountain scenery seen just from you bedroom window.

Foot got their rest today, so tomorrow we will be full of power, energy to continiue our journey to to Engelberg through Surenenpass (2 290 m)

Day 4 - from Elm to Linthal

richetlipass

Today we can see some blue sky and finally great scenery is also visible!
We woke up in this nice room with bed and yellow sheets, ate some breakfast and at 9.15 we left.
Today we planned to take a bus and save two hours. Of course Wolf would walk all the way up, but my muscles were bit tense and tired, so he took pity on me and we went to look for a bus stop.

Elm is nice small village-town, where the bus stop near the church and both are in the very center.. We found church and bus stop quite quickly and it was still half an hour till the bus, so we were hanging out there and met one nice swiss lady, who spoke very nice English - thats something! :)

Near by was small shop full of different close and such stuff, we came in to check out if they have also gloves. Kind shopkeeper brought from the basement one big box full of all different type of gloves. Wolf picked very quickly and I needed like 15 minutes more to pick a pair for myself. Anyway that hardest task was also done and we became happy gloves owners.. :) You need those in Switzerland even during summer! :)

Bus came right in time. Besides us there was couple of younger boys, but they went out next stop. So, basically, we had a taxi-bus just for two of us.. Anyway, we drove around 20 minutes by bus and arrived to Ober Erbs, bus made for us 700 m of gaining altitude.. what to do.. :) well, we had another 700m in front of us and aaaall the way down.

Weather was much more nicer than on previous days, we could some surroundings. We passed by small lonely house, big swiss soldier came out and asked us, where do we think, we are going?! We answered, that we go to the Richetlipass and from there to Linthal. Soldier: "Ok, I just needed to know, otherwise, you know, they will shoot." Shoot? wow.. He told us that after first pass we will see the tanks. We went on and heard some shooting here and there, but we haven't notice any tanks.

So we climbed a little bit (446m) to Erbserpass, then we went a bit down, and after that again a bit of climbing to Richetlipass (2261m).

Going up was nice and peaceful.
In the end it became quite stiff and started to resemble actual climbing :)
Wolf was already up, sitting and smiling and i was still climbing my way up, sweating and taking rest here and there. Finally i was also up, near Wolf.. we spend some time up there, enjoying the view.
Peaceful solitude.... moment of silence....

We started our descent (we will need to lose 1 500 m) towrds Linthal. It was quite slippery. Soon we walked into the cloud again... and of course inside such clouds almost always raining.... :)
We were passing by most beautiful places in the whole Europe, but unfortunately we could not see any of this great scenery. just 15 meters around.. - great visibility! :)
We walked on the top of some hill - small trekking path - couple of meters wide, from one side deep down - forest, from other side deep down - river.
Soon we came to most pleaseant part of our today's journey - tons and tons of mud mixed with cow dung.... OMG. :)
It was extremely slippery and extremely muddy.. Perfect place for mud fights.. if there would not be so much cow dung.. :D Anyway every step was taken with extreme caution. This part of the trek took as trice as more time, as it would take with other weather conditions.

Soon we saw in front of us "real road". We were quite tired of all the rain and muddy descent, and somehow developed hope, that journey for today start to finish and that this nice road will bring as to Linthal very soon.
But guess what, soon road was finished and we turned into a deep forest - and all the way down, down, down...

Such a beautifulk forest walk!
Powerful rivers, dark tonnels, fresh forest smells....
Refreshment for the soul..

After quite a descent we saw Linthal from a distance.
Nice town with perfect buildings, perfect surroundings, perfect flowers..
Everything was so extremely perfect.. - Thats Switzerland. well....

We found one shop, bought something for dinner and after some more walking around a town, we bacame pretty much familiar with concept "ruhetag", but finally we found some suitable place to stay.

Day 3 - Vorsiez to Elm

foopass - first love

We woke up at Vorsiez, ate some breakfast (bread & cheese), bought two packs of M&Ms for lunch :) and started our journey. The Foopass crossing was described in the guide book as symbolic...Well it was not so symbolic for us (for Wolf it was :P)...

sure :) for Wolf whole trek was symbolic.. :) Wolf is strong man.. musi to my strong man Wolf.. :)

Quite tuff.. Especially when considering the weather conditions - we could not even enjoy the view - there was no view, everything was covered with with clouds - fog. 1 km up - climbing. Crossing mountain rivers: wet feet. First half we didn't meet anyone... After we met some workers - building the bridges. Rain was almost whole the way. We arrived to Elms - hungry & angry and wet...In the supermarket we bought some food & crashed at first guesthouse we saw ( 10 meters away from supermarket). 52 francs per person. The room is nice, we washed clothes, turned the heater on, ate some sandwhiches, reading and sleep... Hopefully tomorrow will be some view :) and no rain... Hopefully.

anyway, later (as it was raining a lot) we learned to enjoy the rain, fog and abcense of view and people.. :)

even on that day, i do not remember us being angry.. :) we were happy arriving to Elm.. and in this guesthouse they had beautiful bright yellow (Sun colored) bed sheets :)

when i think back, crossing the Foopass was very special.. and for it there is very special place in my memories... :)

Day 2 - Sargans to Vorsiez

first trekking day

- 7 o'clock church bells woke up in Sargans
- Had some breakfast (bread & cheese)
- Found geocache near the castle
- Starting to walk using GPS
- Walking to the right direction , some mad cow running like a dog and mooing-barking
- Starting to walk, but it was quite tiring already from the beginning, also it started to rain heavily at some point, while we were resting at the bus stop, it suddenty became cold and we changed our clothes at the bus stop and were waiting if rain will stop...well...it didn't. One car stopped by and offered a ride, but unfortunately to the wrong direction.

This sounds weird, I would imagine being very much against trying to take a lift :P

:) hei sweetie.. :) you do not have to be agree with everything... you can put it as you remember and as you felt.. ;)


So here we were - cold, wet, hungry near the neat Swiss home with smoke from the chimney and hot chocolate for the owners daughters.

You make it sound like two poor travellers even though my mental state was from described :)

i remember you saying few times in a row how nice it would be to sit in that house (opposite of the bus stop) near the fire place and drink some hot drink (or this particular thing i do not remember..) :)
please, sweetie, do not criticise me... :p i just wrote how it was for me, and exxagerated a bit.. but you can write it down as you remember it.. ;)

After some time heavy rain became light rain and we decided to walk further. Till (?) our destination was 50 min uphill :) At Weisstannen recommended hostels were closed, so we went even further - uphill :)

Hmm I don't remember going much uphill at all :)

it was not down hill for sure :D

At Atlp Vorsiez - dairy farm we found some shelter and some food. Not so much choice for vegetarians though. So I had some fresh salads and peace of cheese. We slept in dormitory room for 20 people - it was just for two of us... 89 francs for everything acc & food

Day 1 - Arriving to Sargans

- Arriving to Geneva
- Veg wrap in Finnair
- Tickets sailer (?) : what will you do there????

not sailer.. :) i just remembered that nice lady, who sold us a Swiss cards.. :p and how she asked what we will do in Sargans, as it would be the end of the world.. :)

- Arriving to Sargans and seeing the lights in the sky.
- Played

Pre-history - Idea for APR trek

how we got idea to go to Switzerland in the first place..

somewhere in June we started to think about our first vacation together.. :)
the competion was very tuff..... .
The system was: we posted top 10 countries simulteniosly to our blog, then we collected candidates to one list (common countries, plus Wolf picked 3 countries from my list, and I picked 3 countries from his list).

Candidates were:

Wolf proposed next destinations:
1. Pilgrim Trail to Santiago de Compostela - Spain
2. Slovenia
3. Tour du Mont Blanc - Switzerland & Italy & France
4. Ring of Kerry - Ireland
5. Austria
6. Alpine Pass Route - Switzerland
7. West Highland Way - Scotland
8. Gascony - France
9. Ibiza
10. Aeolian Islands - near Sicily

My top 10 destinations were:
1 Spain - Santyago de Compostella (some part of the way)
2 the Ukraine - south, there are some very nice places, and it could be fun - Odessa, Krym :)
3 Slovakia - Tatras
4 South of Italy - some small towns
5 Greece
6 Uzbekistan-Tadjikistan (mountains)
7 Slovenia
8 Croatia
9 Ireland
10 UK?

After that we had list of 11 places and started one by one to exclude... That was tuff... :)
In the end top 3 was:

West Highland Way - Scotland
Aeolian Islands - Italy
and
Alpine Pass Route OR Tour du Mont Blanc - Switzerland..

one more tuff exclusion session and the winner was Switzerland :D
well... we did not think at that time how much money that trek will need... but may be we should have thought about it also... :)
anyway...
plane tickets were booked quite soon.. and we started to study materials carefully..