The Walking Dom

Section 12-14
Lauterbrunnen-Adelboden

Podcast of the day: ‘Monday Morning Podcast’ by Bill Burr. Been listening to this for at least six years. Huge fan.

Song of the day: ‘The bigger the pile’ by Neutral Zone

I miss: Warm feet

Another section, another friend. Since home is never far away I’ve had the pleasure to hike with some of my closest friends. Laura decided to join me from Lauterbrunnen to Griesalp and we were in for a treat. We went up the Stanserhorn and followed the ridge down, while thick dark clouds were moving in from all sides. I love ridge walks more than anything else, but we had to get down as fast as we could in order to not get grilled by lightning. Then we had to make our way up over the first pass while it started raining. As soon as we got up to the top though, the sun came out and we got to enjoy a 360° view of the Berner Oberland. On the other side of the valley, Blüemlisalp, our goal for the night but still 5 hours away. Sadly Laura started having serious knee problems on the way down and by the end of the descent she walked like Forrest Gump in the opening scene when he still has the metal thingies around his legs. We had to change plans and found a super cute place in Griesalp where we spent the night. It also happened to be Swiss National day and I can honestly say I’ve never spent it at a swisser place than that hut. Red and white everywhere!

“If it rains here, it’s usually heavy rain” said the old man on the porch of the little hut the next morning. The sky was blue, but we knew it would start raining heavily by lunch time. When I am on trail, I have a rule when it comes to rain. If I am still in town and it’s dumping rain like crazy, I will stay in town and wait it out. If I happen to be on trail already, I will push through it even if that means feeling absolutely miserable. I decided to head back home for two days to wait out the storm even if I hated the idea of going back to the city. In retrospect I’m glad I did, because the rain ended up being super destructive. Landslides, floodings and hail all over the country. On top of that, snow had fallen over night, so the pass I was supposed to walk over was completely covered -which to be honest - I was excited about. My dad wanted to join me for a couple of days so we met on the other side of the pass, but after the first downhill it became clear he had the same Forrest Gump problems Laura had had. My dad ended up walking down the hill backwards which is a skill in itself. We grabbed a drink in Kandersteg and then I was on my way to Adelboden. I slept close to the top of a pass and it turned out to be a very cold night. Kind of glad my dad didn’t make it up there. I would have never heard the end ot it.

I’m the worst at picking out camp sites. Normally I keep sliding all over the place all night because I can’t seem to find a flat spot anywhere. This time I got lucky. The spot was flat, the view was absolutely stunning and as I was cooking my dinner, Caro, a hier from Berlin came walking down the hill so I even ended up having company. We ended up chatting for an hour, wrapped up in our sleepingbags, and it felt like we were on top of the world.