Hiking trails = good trails, originally uploaded by guybowden.
We’ve just had a weekend ‘break’ in Interlaken, Switzerland. We decided to get away and sample the trains, cheese and riding on our neighbouring country so packed up the van and headed east on Friday night. 3 hours later we were in Interlaken at the base of the valleys leading up to the mighty Eiger. We pitched our tent, ate some pasta and went to bed.
The next day we headed off to the train station and got two tickets to Grindlewald - the mountain resort in the constant shadow of the Eiger and Japanese tourists - there’s hundreds of them! All quite strange seeing all these people, especially coming from Morzine - which basically shuts down for May.Once there we realised that it wasn’t going to be all uplifts and downhill - the lift prices put paid to that plan! Anyway - after a winter of not riding, we needed the climbs (haha).The rest of that morning was spent climbing our way up to 1800m (where the snow started) and then back down a hiking trail to Grindlewald and a coffee stop and a rest in the sunshine.
We waited until 4pm when we were allowed to put our bikes on the mountain train up towards Kleine Schiddeg, getting off at the stop before so we could ride rather than slide (in the snow). This time a mix of 4×4 track, tarmac and singletrack got us across the side of the mountain and back down to the main road 700m below. Then a 17k ride back into Interlaken - 7pm - time for a quick beer, shower and off into town for tea (melted cheese and bacon obligatory).
Sunday - time to pack up the tent, and drive up towards Lauterbrunnen, 20 minutes away. Once there we had the odd experience of parking in a multistory carpark before unloading and building bikes - not the normal dirt trailhead carpark! Then up on another mountain train to Wengen - 500m vertical, and not much more horizontal - it was steeeeep. Then off we set on a shorter climb another 400m up the mountain before stopping for some sandwiches (cheese of course) and admiring the view. Then we had a mere 900m decent. Almost all on Hiking trails (i.e. switchbacky singletrack). The beauty of it being that in mid May the hiking tourists that usually walk this route weren’t there. Some 900m decent later we arrived back at the carpark. Then all there was to do was drive the 3 and a bit hours back over 4 mountain passes back to Morzine in time for tea (no cheese) and telly.
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