Swiss Alps - Days 5 and 6- Alpiglen to Stechelberg

Time to catch up on the rest of our Alps hut-to-hut trip!  Day 5 had us leaving Alpiglen and heading towards Kleine Scheidegg.  Since this is actually a pretty short direct route hike, Scott and I decided to take the long way through Eigergletscher (near the Eiger glacier).  The morning began sunny but we saw the clouds creeping and it soon became rainy.  It was quite a scenic hike, so we were kind of bummed about the weather.

This trail is actually called the Eiger Trail, and we spent most of our hike underneath the Eiger North Face (very famous for climbers).

Don't worry, once we finally reached Eigergletscher, there was a restaurant at the top.  We were excited to have a warm lunch and spend some time drying out.  This is a picture of the glacier...on the Eiger/Monch (hence the name).

Fortunately, we only had about a half hour of hiking left until our destination.  The rain had subsided, but most of the valley was still shrouded in clouds.  We made our way to Kleine Scheidegg ("little pass"... although pretty darn high).  A few minutes past the train station (of course there's a train station), was our home for the night, Grindelwaldblick.

The next day we planned for a rest day.  The weather wasn't looking so good, our hike for the day involved a 4,000 foot elevation loss, and let's face it, our legs were getting pretty tired.  We took the train from Kleine Scheidegg down into the Lauterbrunnen Valley.

We took a little stop at this very picturesque little town called Wengen, also famous for the Lauberhorn Ski World Cup races.  This picture is taken from Wengen, looking down into the Lauterbrunnen Valley.  This valley is SO steep, as you can see by the cliffs on both sides. I became very curious (concerned) about how we were going to hike around here....

From Lauterbrunnen, we made a stop at Trummelbach Falls.  Trummelbach is a waterfall that drains the glaciers of the Eiger, Monch, and Jungrau.  That's pretty cool in itself...but what if you could see this series of 10 waterfalls located inside of a mountain??   Oh don't worry, the Swiss built a tram and stairwell viewing area inside the mountain.  It's pretty amazing to see the power of the water here. The picture is hard to interpret, but just imagine a corkscrew and water gushing down it.

From here, we continued on a bus to Stechelberg. We spent the night here and got good rest for our last 3 days of hiking!