Day 23 & 24: Mountain hike + Mountain bike

The weather looked like it was going to cooperate with us on Saturday so we left for Kandersteg bright and early. My friend, Joel, and I left Tscharnergut at 7:00am to catch the train. After about an hour and a half of travel we arrived in Kandersteg. The hike was split into two segments. First we had to hike to a village at the base of the valley. Then we would hike through the valley and up the mountain side to spot a glacier. It was my first time ever hiking into mountains. Basically everywhere I looked took my breath away. Here are some photos from the trip. I took about 200 photos so this is just a small sample.

The low cloud cover would come and go as the day went on. At times we couldn't see the mountain tops but then moments later the peaks would come into sight against the clear blue sky.

Diary farms are common on hillsides and in the mountains in Switzerland. We passed a few pastures along the trail. Here are some calves we spotted wearing Swiss cowbells. At first they would amble away as I neared the fence. Once I finally got close enough to pet one though, he didn't want me to leave. 

Pure spectacle by mother nature. It looked like a machine operated by man gouged a giant tunnel into the mountain side. However, man cannot be thanked for this beauty. The waterfall was created by the amazing power of the melted ice rushing down from the top of the mountain at gravity's request.

The path crisscrossed about many streams. Here is a bridge with a sign marking the hiking trail. Wanderweg means hiking (wander) way (weg) or hiking path. Above the word is the coat of arms of Bern. 

A less fortunate young Alpine ibex (species of wild goat that lives in the Alps). I don't know the events for this little guy leading up to this point, but I'll try to make my best guess. Lil' Billy was playing with the other kids. Their parents kept telling them to quiet down because they could cause an avalanche. Lil' Billy didn't pay much attention as he was having the time of his life. In his joy, he decided to call out his loudest bleat, "Baaaaaaa!" Seconds later he heard a thunderous cracking sound. He scampered as quickly as he could along the jagged terrain of the mountainside, rocks slipping beneath his hooves, but wasn't able to escape the path of the boundless wave of suffocating white snow. Packed like freshly poured concrete, encasing Lil' Billy in silence until the warm days of June have now freed him- lifeless.

On another note here are some beautiful wildflowers.

My hiking guides. Joel in front followed by François.

About a meter wide path. Rock face on the right. Drop-off to the left. And we crossed it. Probably the craziest thing I have ever done. Living life on the edge.

The exact kind of bridge you imagine when I say "here is a shaky wire bridge over a stream." Really cool.

Blue skies. I took this photo on the way back. This was before Joel and I decided to start running to catch the 20:13 train back to Bern. If we missed it, we would have to wait an hour for the next train. We looked at our watches at 19:20.We didn't know the exact distance we were still out, but we estimated about 5k. Turns out it was more than double that. We ended up running for 50 minutes to reach the station at 20:08, just 5min before the train departed. I got back to my room in Tscharnergut at 10:00pm. Ate dinner, took a shower, and headed to Fellergut for a night with friends. We went to the city center and stayed out late enough to take the first morning train back to Bumpliz Nord. A very long, very memorable day.

Patric, a PhD student I assist at the lab, invited me to go with him and his girlfriend to the European Mountain Biking Championships. The championships were held on the top of Gurten for the first time. Gurten is the highest hill in Bern and overlooks the entire city.

Here is a picture of part of the course where the great view of the city below can be seen.The course started on a grass loop. They repeated this loop about three times and then went onto the big loop, which they did seven times before heading towards the finish. The total time of the race for the winner was 1hr32min21sec.

Here is Nino Schurter (Switzerland) leading Julien Absalon (France). They are both the class of the field and minutes ahead of the rest of the competition. The course has jumps (as seen here), tight trails in the forest, steep downhills followed by tight corners and large uphills, and other obstacles. Nino Schurter is "The Man" when it comes to Swiss and European Mountain Biking. He won the last world championships and finished with a silver medal in the 2012 Olympics.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nino_Schurter

Sadly, even with me cheering "NINO! NINO! NINO!" he came up short and finished second to the Frenchman, Absalon. Instead of taking the cable car down Gurten like I had taken it up, I decided to walk. After hiking all day yesterday, I'll admit my legs were a bit sore.