After a pretty intense day up the mountain yesterday, today was actually a lot easier as far as hiking goes – straight down the mountain. First off, we had somewhat of a rough night, because we were the only hikers in the cabin who didn’t plan to climb the peak of the Weisshorn. That means, every other group of hikers set out in the middle of the night (as early as 2 am, and no later than 3:30 am). At least it wasn’t too crowded in the cabin to begin with. By the next time I woke up, our cabin was empty and our hosts still asleep. It was a bit early, and so we decided to leave without breakfast (just whatever we’d brought with us for our hike, which still was plenty anyway). The day, however, was glorious. Not a single cloud, and the view as clear as you probably only get it few times a year. We reached Randa before noon, and decided to leave the car parked as it was by the …

The Swiss mountains have us back again. This time, we decided to hike in the mountains in Valais near Zermatt, and we got us another quite adventurous trail straight up a mountain called Weisshorn. With an altitude of 4505 m (appr. 14.800 ft), the Weisshorn is the forth highest mountain in the Swiss Alps. Usually, alpine rock and glacier climbers hike up the mountain to a cabin near the top in order to set out in the wee hours of the following morning (that’s usually no later than 3 am) to climb through ice and snow up to the very peak. We, however, made the Weisshorn mountain cabin our hiking destination for the day. After a rainy previous day, weather conditions began to change when we left home early this morning, and by the time we reached the car train we could see the sky turning blue. (Yes, you read correctly: a car train is a train on which you drive with your car, and it takes you through a very very long tunnel across …