Category: SwissGlacier

All in all it was a very enjoyable 8 Days. I am so grateful that I am able to do something like this.

I met a number of interesting people and had long, sometimes philosophical, chats with them. Most were positive, but I spoke my mind to a couple. The places where I / we stayed were very different and interesting as well. Ranging from the Sardine can beds in the Grindelwald Hostel to a luxurious Bed and Breakfast with views of the Matterhorn from the bed.

The trip home started with a short walk down to the church in Törbel to catch the bus to Stalden-Saas Station. We had a short stop in Visp where we caught the train to Bern. In Bern we had the opportunity to have a very nice lunch at a vegetarian restaurant next to the station. The train to Frankfurt was a little delayed but we made our connection to home. We arrived very relaxed at home.

It is so different from the normal car drive holiday. We were able to have a just as enjoyable holiday without a car. Yes we had some challenges with delays and train cancellations but these did not have any real impact on the holiday.

The final stage. The day started with an easy wind down the road to Milbach. In contrast to the other days the climb from Milbach to Zermatt was a gentle climb of 645m over around 30km. Most of the ride was on cycling paths and mountain bike single trails. The single trails were very rocky and quite difficult to ride, even in the dry. The views of Matterhorn were great. Today I was traveling lighter as I left my saddle bag in the accommodation. There were quite a few section that had a steep 30m an more drops next to the path. I felt that this route was more dangerous than the Gemmi Pass path (The Wall). If your fall 30m or 500m the end result is the same and Gemmi Pass at least had catch ropes. All in all I rode/pushed both trails with the respect they deserved.

The trail passes Air Zermatt on the outskirts of Zermatt. As I arrived a Helicopter took off. Then minutes later the next took off. Then I saw Tourists being taken to the next one. I then realised it was sight seeing flights. I find this very ironic as Zermatt is a motor vehicle free town and all the utility vehicles are electric. The helicopters then blast all their fumes into the atmosphere to compensate.

As I arrived in the town of Zermatt there were hundreds of people milling about. After 6 days of being alone on the trail / road this was a bit of a culture shock. I had to concentrate to look at the beauty of the town behind the mob. I cycled through the town and found a fountain where I could fill up my water and cool down.

I started the Day getting to the Starting point Kandersteg from my accommodation in Spiez. At Kandersteg I took a cable car up to Sunnbühl. It was going to be a very hot day again.

The first cycling section was around the tree border height and above. The rock formations were very interesting you can see how the African and European continental shelves have pushed into each other. After just under an hour I reached a little lake. It was already quite hot and I was tempted to take a quick swim. I knew I had a long tough day ahead of me so sensibly I pushed on to Gemmi pass.

The views we absolutely magnificent, the photos don’t do them justice. After a quick coffee and croissant I decided to take on the Wall.

The Wall is a sheer face dropping about 750m. The path is a combination of makeshift steps and gravel paths that serpentine the cliff face. I decided to adhere to the no cycling rule as I would like to live a little longer.

The next section was quite an interesting downhill section from Leukerbad down to the river Rhone (I think it was down the Dala gorge). I needed to take a couple of breaks as my brakes kept overheating and then they don’t work to well. The downhill section was followed by a 30 km flattish section next to the Rhone ironically after about 20km I ran out of water and had to desperately look for a place to fill up as the temperature was about 39 degrees.

My last section of the day was 10km with an 800m climb. If the views were not so beautiful I don’t think I would have made it up. At the top I was rewarded with a quaint little town of Törbel. I kept looking for Peter and Heidi but they must have Been in bed as it was already 7.00 pm

I will sleep well tonight so. I will add the video in a day or two.

Today was a tough one, the distance and ascent were not the problem but the heat I had an average temperature of 33 and a max of 42 and min of 28. None the less it was another excellent day starting at the large lake Thun and cycling up alongside rivers into the mountains.

After cycling the whole day uphill I arrived in Kandersteg and when you get there you look up at the mountains and you realise how small and insignificant you are. It is actually quite humbling in a positive sense.

Another spectacular day I started as early as possible because the weather was predicted to be warm. The first 3 hours was a climb of just over 1000m. The Eiger looked down on me the whole way. After a relaxed lunch at Klein-Scheidegg I had a long downhill ride to a pretty little town called Wengen. On the last section I had to cool down my brakes as they were not working that well. I used the brute force method of pouring water on the with the result of large clouds of steam.

Although the lakes and rivers around Interlaken and Spiez were beautiful they just can’t compete with the mountains

Today I decided to do more then just cycle. The cycling part was only 25 km and about 1500m ascent so I did 2 short 1 hour hikes. The first was in Meiringen to the Reichenbach falls. It is featured in the last Sherlock Holmes book. Sherlock is believed to have fallen down here. I then cycled up to Rosenlaui, the smallest town in Switzerland. Once again Switzerland taught me that it’s hills are not for sissies. The 10 km cycle had an ascent of just over 1000m the whole 2 hours 10 minutes my pulse was not under 140 bpm and a large portion of the trip it was just under and over 150 bpm. On top of this the.road was quite narrow and there was a reasonable amount of traffic. It was quite refreshing to cool down at a water trough about half was up. At Rosenlaui there Glacier was very impressive. Here my second hike up the glacier gorge which was spectacular and very refreshing after the hot cycle. After the hike I cycled up the next 500m which not only had spectacular views but a constant switch between rain and sun. Nevertheless very enjoyable.

Everything that goes up must come down about half way down the 1500m my back brakes were not very happy but I nursed them down.

I had a bit of a challenge to find my hostel but the friendly Swiss helped me.

I had a good night in the hostel. I was the only person in an 11 bed room. After an early breakfast I started on the descent down to Andermatt then to Göschenen it was mainly on broad paths and roads. At Göschenen the mountain bike route ran next to the train line and river with some quite challenging sections and a number of places were I had to push or carry my bike. The whole way had spectacular views of the river and gorges. Once I reached Wassen the real climb started the ascent was about 1200 meters in the 30 kilometre’s . The last 10 kilometre’s was extremely steep and it started to drizzle so I had to push most of it. Even though it was very hard the views where tremendous. It was very pleasing to watch the river in the valley quickly get smaller and smaller. The restaurant at the top was a very pleasant site. I had lunch with a bike packer that had been on the road for 44 days and was on the way back to Freiburg.

From the top of Susten pass it was a long descent on a mixture of road and single trail. They both „serpentined“ there way down (over 1300m). The single trail sections were very steep.

I made a short 5km diversion to the Stein Glacier. Unfortunately it was shy today and hid in the mist so I could only see the area where it had retreated.

I arrived at about 16.30 at my hostel for the night after a short 200m climb followed by another steep single trail decent. I think I will sleep like the dead tonight.

The day started well the train arrived in Lengfeld on time. It was not long before the train had to be diverted and my comfortable 30 min transfer whittled down to 10 min.

The rest of the train travel went perfectly to plan. I needed that after the stress this morning.

The short ride from Göschenen to Hospental was quite enjoyable. The predicted rain did not happen and it was quite warm.