They call it the “murder(0us) wall” – the Eiger north face, one of the six great north faces of the Alps. When we made the Eiger our hiking destination for today, we had no clue yet, how close we’d come to experience this mountain’s treacherous reputation for ourselves. You see, everything started out just lovely. All we’d wanted was a fun day in the mountains, with a bit of hiking, and a lot of grand views of the mountains and the scenery around. And with dear cousin living so close to the famed mountains of Eiger, Monk, and Virgin (Eiger, Mönch, Jungfrau), our day’s destination was pretty clear to start out with: the Lauterbrunnen valley, from where we would decide what and where we would hike. (Last year, I’d hiked the mountain ranges across from Eiger and its two companions.) So, we parked the car in Lauterbrunnen, and decided to hike up to Wengen (more like walk, because there’s no trails; just follow the road). The weather was glorious (warm, the sun shining happily all …

Look where dear cousin took me just after sunset the other day … A little mountain right near his home, and this is the view we had of a soft purple evening in the Alps … beautiful! Perfect view of Eiger, Mönch, Jungfrau (Eiger, Monk, Virgin)

August 1 is the Swiss national holiday – cause for much celebration in Switzerland. I was lucky to get to spend this special day with the Swiss together. We ended up going to a little mountain (Selibüel) near the larger mountains of the Gurnigel (perfect view of Thun, the lake of Thun, and the Alps of the Berner Oberland), where we stayed until the sun had set, and from which we had the grand view to watch all the bonfires and fireworks that were fired up all over the country Gurnigel Lake Thun with the peaks of Jungfrau and Eiger (if I’m not mistaken) in the background …

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 …

Our goal today was to visit Hell’s Valley, a gorge in the heart of the Black Forest. Now, we didn’t end up quite there, I believe (we kind of took the wrong turn), but we did end up somewhere in the depths of the Black Forest. And if not as “gorgeous” as Hell’s Valley, it was still a pretty place. Here are more pictures of our trip (though sadly I forgot to bring along my camera, so they’re whatever my phone was able to handle):