Day 50 - First Cablecar

What a crazy night!  We were woken sometime in the middle of the night by a mighty clap of  thunder that semed to shake the house.  A thunderstorm had descended upon Grindelwald, and we spent the next couple of hours listening to the thunder and watching the lightning light up the sky.  It wasn't long before we had a little visitor ocme in to share our bed as well.  Daniel was a little scared by the storm.  For the next few hours we slept on and off, before finally waking up.  Josh however, slept like a log and was barely disturbed by the storm.  In the morning we looked outside and found that fresh snow had fallen on the top of the mountains, making them look even more beautiful.  The sun was out, the sky was blue and there was barely a cloud in the sky.

After another leasurely breakfast we headed off to the chair lift at the other end of the village for our mountain hike. We arrived at the chairlift and bought our tickets to "First"  The chairlift station of first is 2166m above sea level (just below the level of Mt Kosciuszko).  The chair lift takes 30 minutes to get there.  We boarded the chairlift and started on our way.  As we started to get higher, we noticed it was getting colder.  This could be a problem, as Paul, Josh and Daniel were all wearing shorts, and Mazz only had a light top.  Very soon we crossed the snow line, where the snow had fallen the previous night.  Soon after, we were in the clouds and couldn't see a thing.  By the time we reached the top we were already cold and wondering if a hike was going to be a good idea.  So we decided to head into the restaurant for a cup of hot chocolate and discuss our options.  We still had mixed feelings, so after our chocolate we headed outside for a couple of minutes to see just how cold it was. - Brrrrr, about 3 degrees, and too cold for a hike for underdressed tourists.

We headed back to the cable car and caught it to the station of Bort, above Grindelwald, below the snow line and out of the clouds.  After a short play on the playgound we decided to hire scooters (like bicycles without pedals) and scoot down the 5km trail to Grindelwald.  It was very cold, but a lot of fun, and no one fell off!
After another hot chocolate to warm up, we headed back to our chalet to dress in some warmer clothes.

Once we were dressed a little more appropriately, we headed back into town and hiked to the  Gletscherschlucht, or Glacier gorge.  This is a 1000m long trail along a gorge where the galacial melt water runs out.  It took us about 45 minutes to hike to the gorge, and we got there just before closing.  It was a good job that we had warmer clothes, because it was cold and wet, but very spectacular, with water cascading through the canyon, with 75m cliff faces on either side.  After leaving he george, we decided we had walked  enough for the day, so we caught the bus back into town.