This story was posted by me on the Diablo Strategy Forum on August the 22nd 2003. I've added and deleted some pictures, so don't immediately assume you've seen all this ;-)
Hi y'all,
As some of you know I just returned from a two week vacation in Switzerland. I've been climbing mountains and walking in the mountains there. I've got a few short stories to tell and some pics to show. Pics were previously hosted by Taibo so they could be seen on the DSF. Thanks again Taibo for helping me out back then. Here it goes...
4 years ago I climbed my first mountain, the 3 km high Schilthorn. We started at the lowest point in the neigbourhood (A town called Stechelberg) so you climb as much of the mountain as possible. Just before we got to the top we got caught in a blizzard. We made it nonetheless. (There's a building on top of that mountain where we could shelter, otherwise it woudn't have been a smart move to continue.) Anyway the weather prevented us from enjoying the scenery (we couldn't see further ahead than maybe a few meters.) Now 4 years later we climbed the same mountain, again starting at Stechelberg. The weather had been good the few days before (30+ degrees Celcius, barely any clouds.) As soon as we reached the top it started raining again. ARGH!!!!!! The clouds prevented us from seeing much. After a short rest we started the descent (in the rain.) As soon as we were below approximately 2700 meters we started to see Alp salamanders... lots of 'em! 20 total till about 2500 meters. I know many people here coudn't have cared less if I had seen 'em or not, but I quite liked seeing them. We were back at Stechelberg in the evening, and even though we didn't see anything for the second time, it was worth it.
Here's me a few hundred meters from the top. At the back you see the mountains Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau (from left to right.)
This is one of the Alp salamanders we have seen.
Although there's not really a big story to be told here, here you see me on an Alpine Route to the Schreckhornhutte.
Another time we set out later than usual so we could enjoy a mountain scenery at sunset. When we did this, it was more like mountain walking because we didn't go above 2 kilometers. After all, we had to descent in the dark, and you can't descent a real mountain at dark. We did go prepared as usual, with the addition of flashlights. We took the picture above and some more. On the way down we came across a sign that said the name of the place we wanted to go to. Problem was that there was a sign that said we had to go left, and one on the same pole that pointed in the opposite direction. ARGH! We picked right and moved off. A bit later we came across a sign that pointed directly into a meadow. What the? We entered the meadow only to dicover the path seemingly ended after 50 meters. We looked around and saw a sign of the path. We moved off again, but a few minutes later complete darkness had fallen in, and the flashlight were used. After some more meadows, farms, barbwire and hell I know what we found ourselves in a forest without a path or any sign of one. Sigh. We weren't lost, because I had a compass with me (and even if I didn't every now and then the sky with the stars was visible, telling us where North was.) (We couldn't see the moon, which can tell you where East or West are as well.) We decided to go all the way back to the opposite signs and pick the other route. We found it, and managed to get back at the Camping site around 23:00 O'clock.
We also made a helicopter flight, lasting 24 minutes exactly. This was pretty cool, since we flew very close to the Eiger, Monch, Jungfrau, Schreckhorn and Finsteraarhorn mountains. Pretty cool.
Below is some more pics. The last pic is from 2 years ago. (It's the Matterhorn.)
