Hiking: Stöckalp to Engelberg (aka The Four Lakes Hike)

Yesterday there was not a cloud in the sky and the temperatures were just right for another gorgeous hike. And the benefit of Martin working in a lab with 25 other people is that there are always people ready and willing to go hiking with us. This time we took two graduate students: Julian, who shares an office with Martin, and Nick (from Brazil, not to be confused with Nick from the US whom we have gone hiking with the past two times).

I'm not sure how long the hike was but I'm guessing 9-10 miles. Not too much uphill but a ton of downhill so that I'm pretty sore today. Downhill is *always* worse than uphill. Anyway, let's get to some pictures. Here's lake #1, which was right where we started the hike:



And here is Titlis, the snowy peak off in the distance in the center of the picture. It's one of the more well-known mountains in Switzerland and I'm pretty sure you can ski on it year-round as there was a gondola running to the top of it while we were hiking (and some ski tracks down it). Unfortunately I think this is the only picture we took of Titlis and it's not that great since it's so far away:



Just kidding, here's another pic of Titlis from a little closer but of course it's still into the sun so it's not that great. The sun angle was bad for almost every picture I took on this hike:



Lake #2, which was right next to lake #1:





Julian, Martin, and Nick, having some sort of discussion. This was my view for most of the hike as they were always way ahead of me:



Nick, enjoying the view:



Lake #3, with Titlis above Nick's head:



This lake had the nicest blue-green color so far but I think it's just that the angle of the sun on it was more direct.



Taking a brief water break ... that's lake 3 down below us now.



Lunchtime, at the top of the pass. Behind the guys are patches of fresh snow from the day before when it was much cooler up here:



The restaurant at the top. We passed a ton of restaurants on this hike, and you could have gotten almost anywhere we went by chair lift or gondola. We of course did not take any of those and walked the entire hike instead.



Finally lake #4 is in sight:



The guys by lake #4:



This is where the four lakes hike ends, but we of course decided instead of taking the gondola into Engelberg to instead hike 2 hours down to Engelberg. We got some nice views along the way and saw some cows too of course but we didn't take any pictures of the cows as they were a little too close for comfort (i.e. sitting in the middle of the trail).

A BBQ on the Lake

Yesterday evening we went to a bbq hosted by Martin's boss' assistant Franziska ... who has a lot of money. Her family owns a plot of land on Lake Zürich where they host bbq's and can go swimming. Across the street from their plot of land is an enormous house (which I think would be a perfect setting for weddings, it looks like an old mansion) where Franziska's family grew up.

All of the grad students and postdocs and their partners were invited to the bbq and there was a good crowd there. I snapped a few photos with the cell phone.

Martin and Nick getting ready to do more belly flops into the lake. The water was nice and refreshing though not too cold at all - just right:



Simon, back from a week of vacation looking refreshed:



A view of the lake once the sun stopped shining directly into my eyes:



The house. It didn't have any bedrooms, just a big kitchen and dining area and some changing rooms/bathroom. It's just meant for entertaining and spending time at the lake:



Some of the guys digesting the enormous dinner filled with meat that they all just ate. Then they went swimming again even though they could barely move.



So that's the story of our first swim in Lake Zürich.

Hiking: Schynige Platte to First

Another gorgeous day, another hike through the gorgeous Swiss countryside. We woke up early Saturday morning and took over 4 hours of trains and buses to get up to Schynige Platte where we started our 9-mile hike. From the beginning we had a perfect view of the three big mountains Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau.



And we saw more cows:



The hike was fairly flat for the first half, with a view of mountains with glaciers to our right and gorgeous blue-green lake Brienz to our left. All of the lakes and rivers in Switzerland have this amazing color to them due to the minerals in the glacier water that feeds them:





We took a lot of good pictures of all the scenery on this hike, too many to post here. We also stopped at the usual restaurant in the middle of the mountains for a refreshing beverage halfway through the hike but I didn't take any pictures of it which is very unusual for me. But rest assured that this hike was not missing the usual restaurant!





There were so many glaciers on this hike! I love glaciers.



We ended the hike at the top of a gondola that we took down into Grindelwald where our hotel was for the night. But at the gondola station there was a group of goats hanging out begging for food. They were pretty funny, but I can only say that because I didn't have any food so they didn't pester me too much.



This guy was my favorite. Half black, half white, and super shaggy:



Our hotel room in Grindelwald had a great view of the Eiger, though it was encased in clouds most of the time:



We got a better picture of the Eiger the next morning:



On Sunday we took a train to Interlaken and wandered around there a bit since Martin and I had never been there before. Then we took a boat to Thun and had lunch there, then headed back to Zürich. While we were on the boat to Thun there was a group of accordionists playing for us:



And here's a picture of one of the bridges in Thun. The flowers on the bridges were beautiful - wish mine would look like that. There was also a castle in Thun but we didn't have time to see it. You can see the top of it in the upper left of the picture below. Thun seemed like a neat place to spend an afternoon wandering around.



People were surfing on the waves that came under the bridges here which was fun to watch. The waves in the picture above aren't that great but one of the other bridges created really big waves.

Hiking: Tschiertschen to Arosa

Yesterday the sun came out so we headed south to do a hike starting in the little village of Tschiertschen (pronounced something kind of like cheer-chen) and ending in Arosa (which we've hiked into before but from the other side, Davos). It wasn't a super challenging hike, but it was almost 9 miles so still a good workout.

Lots of pretty scenery on the hike, and a few waterfalls and streams too:





Here's Tschiertschen, where we started:



We took a break mid-day at the usual halfway-point restaurant in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. We had some apple cake and coffee. In this picture are Simon and Nick, two of the guys who work in Martin's lab. Simon is a PhD student from southern Germany and Nick is a postdoc from Michigan.



Some more pretty scenery:



We ran into a large group of cows. There were probably 50 cows here and every single one of them had a cow bell. What a racket. I wish I'd had a recorder to record the sound so you could all hear it. Certainly nobody is losing this herd of cows.





This cow came right on over to help out in case we were lost:



Nick, enjoying the view:





Post-hike beers at a cafe in Arosa. Nick actually had some bratwurst and Simon had some ice cream so it was a good refueling all around:



While we ate we were serenaded by Alphorn players and people fooling around with Swiss flags (though they need to work on their synchronization):



Just another day in Switzerland.