This region of Switzerland is famous for the trio of peaks: the Eiger, Moench, and Jungfrau. They are truly spectacular peaks and as you see in the pictures - HUGE! There is nothing like them in the United States - at least nothing I've hiked or seen - they're spectacular. In order to get to the trail we needed to take we had to go down by train and then by cable car - take a couple of more trains till we got to our destination. But we learned something today - in order for the train to actually open the doors you have to push the green little button BEFORE you reach your destination - otherwise the train just keeps going. Down, down the hill so when we got out at the next stop it was up, up, up the hill. In Prescott that hill would be considered a mountain - and it was just the beginning. At the apartment, Balin said he wanted me to carry everything and read the maps so that I could practice being a tour guide. Well, I made it halfway up the first hill before I had to hand off the back pack. And reading a map...well I will get better over the course of the next couple of weeks I'm sure. :)
The interesting thing we noticed about the Eiger trail was everyone was coming the opposite way from us. They were all going downhill and we went up hill the whole way - about 5 miles worth of uphill. The sweat poured down me and my butt cheeks even got blisters on them. (I have 3 huge blisters on my feet too!) We kept going though and we made it to the base of the glacier, which was pretty spectacular. There were so many flowers out - I took pictures of them all and plan on memorizing their common and latin names as soon as I can - it was gorgeous. Flowers unfortunately don't photo so well, but I did think the picture of the rannaculus with the Eiger behind it was pretty spectacular. Soon after the glacier we started going down hill, which also has it's challenges. Balin hurt his knee and doesn't think he'll be hiking tomorrow - guess he'll watch the kids. :) I took the backpack back and we headed toward the nearest train station. We were tired.
I tell you what my cross-fittin' friends; we may be in shape to do Olympic deadlifts, but hiking 6 miles and gaining 3300' is not in the crossfit workout. The prowler sounded like fun today. Guess actually hiking is the best way to get in shape.
Tomorrow I'm off to somewhere - and it sounds like I'll be by myself. It'll be good but I hope I don't get lost.
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