Les Alpes...Oh. My. Gosh.

Today we planned to go to Jungfrauhoch, which is one of the highest mountains in the Alps and has the highest train station in Europe.  It also has a living glacier on the top with an ice palace carved into it full of ice sculptures.  We were psyched and dressed for a day of cold weather.  (It's supposed to snow up there tomorrow!)

We took a different route, which was curvy but not nearly as scary, thank God, and arrived at the train station around 11.  I went in to buy the tickets only to be told that they were all sold out and had been since 10 a.m. that day.  Who knew you had to buy a ticket to go to the top of a mountain in advance? I knew there was no way we were going to make a second trip on Friday, so I asked for alternatives.  The lady recommended going to First, which is another mountain right by Grindelwald, and we could take the cable car up and stay as long as we wanted.  It was disappointing, but the kids had wanted to do the zipline on First, and we were not going to be able to do that AND go to Jungfrauhoch, so I figured it was a decent option to make up for missing out on the ice palace.

We had another PB&J lunch in the car (I swear, I don't think the kids are going to eat another PB&J sandwich for a long time!), and then went to the cable cars.  We rode in one all the way to the top station, and it was HOT!  I felt like I was in a terrarium.  First was NOT cold like Jungfrauhoch was, and we were in jeans and long-sleeved shirts.  When we got off the car, we rolled our pants up and made the best of it.  Kirk said to mention that he was in zip-off pants, so he was able to wear shorts while the rest of us suffered.

I have to say, that the view from the top of First was stunning.  We could not stop staring into the distance, trying to take it all in.  It is just so big and so high and so magnificent that you can't even imagine it unless you are there, and even then, it doesn't look real.

We saw a sign for a glacier-fed lake about an hour's walk away and decided to go see it.  I was not thrilled, but I went along because how could I not?  The air was thin, and I am out of shape and wearing blue jeans, but it was a must-do.  We stopped occasionally to take pictures and look at and listen to the cows grazing on the land below us.  Where do they come from? we wondered.  How in the heck do cows get way up here?  We didn't see any nearby farms or barns or anything, but there they were tinkling around a couple of thousand feet below.

If you look closely, you can see some cows at the bottom of the picture.

The walk was beautiful.  There were all kinds of alpine flowers growing everywhere, and colors splashed across the treeless landscape.  There were streams and rock outcroppings, and the path was fairly easy with hardly any scary parts.

This is looking back towards where we started.  Notice the guy walking on the left of the picture.

The lake is at the far end of this trail down by the mountain with the snow on it.

We spent the better part of an hour making our way to the lake, and when we got there, we just sat and took it all in.

After a while, we headed back.  Some clouds were beginning to roll in, and the temperature had begun to drop a tad.  We all were going to take the zipline down to the second cable car station (as far as it goes), so we got in line and waited.

There are 4 seats for the zipline, and the entire process takes about 5-7 minutes.  We were behind about 25-30 people, so we knew we had a bit of a wait.  The longer we stood there, the more the clouds began piling up.  They were getting dark behind us, and we began to get a little chilled.  One of the springs at the bottom malfunctioned, so then there were only 3 seats going down, which slowed things even more.  After about a 45 minute wait, the clouds had enveloped the zipline stand, but it was our turn to go.

The clouds beginning to form

Getting closer

Totally enveloped in a cloud

Two swings were back, so Kirk and Kyle went first.  As soon as they left, it began to rain a little, and the ride operator said they were suspending the rides down.  Another operator knew that we were all together, so she got the girls and me set up to ride down before it really started raining.

Now those of you who know me, and if you have just started reading this blog, you may know that I am terrified of heights, so you might be surprised that I was willing to zipline down a mountain.  The thing with this ride is that we sat in a swing and it didn't drop.  It just sort of started.  However, the clouds were a good thing for me because since I couldn't see the ground, I wasn't as scared as I would have been.

I told the operator I was terrified of heights and closed my eyes to wait for the gate to open.  She said, "Open your eyes, dear.  You will love it!"

The girls and me coming down the mountain

Emily

Claire

Me!

I did, and I did!

It was so much fun!  I loved riding down and when we got lower, the clouds thinned, and we could see the landscape around us.  It was fantastic! One of the coolest things I've ever done.

When we got to the bottom, we learned that we were some of the last people to ride the zipline before the rain shut it down completely.  Another lucky event!

It rained on us on the way down, but we were thankfully enclosed in the cable car.  We went back to our car and left for Interlaken. Our friends had been here last year and recommended a particular restaurant, so we wanted to try it out.

After dinner, which was nice, we started back to our hotel.  I had wanted to get there before dark, but that wasn't going to happen after the long dinner.  We drove and drove, and two hours later, the clouds that had rolled across Jungfrauhoch and First had turned into a thunderstorm.

In the dark and the rain, we were having trouble reading the GPS.  We missed a couple of turns and got mixed up and ended up on a different road than we thought.  Then the "Check tire pressure" light came on, and we started hearing a thump-thump-thump like the tire was low/flat.  We worried that we had run over something when we pulled off to let one of the Speed Racers pass us by.

Lightning at 9,000 feet is a sight to see---from your room in your hotel---not from the car on a winding road in a rain storm with the "Check tire pressure" light on.  It was flashing like a strobe light in front of us, and I had visions of Kirk changing a flat tire and getting struck by lightning.

We crept higher and higher up the mountain, into the clouds and rain.  The GPS was taking us by unfamiliar landmarks (I have a really good sense of direction, so I knew we weren't where we were supposed to be.)  The little arrow told us to turn right, and we could see the hotel up up up, but I didn't remember this road at all.  There was no town, no buildings, nothing that we had passed through before.  It was dark, except for the flashes of lightning, and I knew we were not where we were supposed to be.

The road narrowed from two lanes to one.  It got rougher and rougher, and I was nearing hysterics.  I kept thinking about the people who died in snow storms because they kept going and then the road got so narrow they couldn't turn around.  I was envisioning us careening off a cliff that we couldn't see and into the alpine forest below.

I yelled, "STOP!  WE ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY!"

Kirk tried to assure me we were fine, but I said, "No we are not!  There is no town!  There are no buildings.  This is not the way we should be going!  Please turn around!!!"

So we backed up, carefully, carefully, and went back to the two-lane road.  We restarted the GPS and found our mistake and successfully drove the rest of the way to the hotel with the "Check tire pressure" light on, lightning flashing, and a driving rain, but we made it.

It took me a long time to fall asleep.