Glärnischhütte

We went hiking this weekend. The plan while we’re here is to hike quite a bit.



We thought we’d start out easy and work our way into it. There is still snow in the high Alps and it was supposed to rain on Sunday and Monday (I didn’t have to work because apparently the Swiss also celebrate American Memorial Day) so we thought we’d go to a closer place where we could return to Winterthur if we didn’t feel like making a huge weekend out of it.

On the suggestion of our host mom, Marianne, we decided to go to Glarus and then catch bus to Klöntal. She suggested we hike to the Glärnischhütte (a guest hut) near the Glärnisch glacier. She said we could go to the area together because her husband lives in Glarus and she and her kids were going there for the weekend. In our minds, that meant we were going to ride the train there with her. But instead, she gave us a ride and brought us pretty close to the trail head. That was pretty cool.

The Swiss mountains are different than the Rockies, where I’ve been hiking in the past. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but I’ll try to explain.

First, they seem to rise faster. I mean that you’re on flat ground and then all of a sudden, there’s a sheer cliff. On this hike we walked through a valley for quite a ways. Then we had to climb and climb.



Second, the mountains are greener. There is grass much of the way up, even on the little ledges. This made for a beautiful walk through the valley. There were a number of low volume, high waterfalls. The water from each of these eventually joined together into one river, which flowed through the valley.



After about three hours we reached our goal, the hut. In the above picture you can barely make it out along the left side, about 3/4 of the way up - it's on the ridge with the highest waterfall. At this point, it started to rain so we sat inside a bit, rested and talked to the people running the hut. They told us it’d be another hour to the glacier. After a little break we decided we should see the glacier while we were almost there. This is in the snow area on the top left in the above picture. We didn’t see anyone above the hut and the view of the valley was great. Hiking is one thing that is hard to capture in pictures, as Bryan says, you really have to see it for yourself.

Some of the other guests at the hut said it wasn’t a real glacier with all the blues and colors, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. We got to a place where there was a pretty high snow mass in front of us and could see some cool blue tints. We decided not to go any closer because our reward to risk ratio was very low at that point. We could see all we were going to see and glaciers are very dangerous without the proper tools to help you if you fall into a crevice.

Then we trekked down. When we got to the bottom it was about 6:15. We were planning to catch the bus back into Glarus. The bus left at about 7 so we waited at picnic table near the bus stop. A family of three arrived about 6:30 to wait for the bus as well. We hung out until about 6:50 when the restaurant owner told the family that the bus wouldn’t come at 7 because it wasn’t summer yet. We thought, “Uh oh…now what do we do? Glarus is at least 8km ~ 5 miles and we are really tired.” The other family just started walking and decided to hitchhike. So we did the same. The first vehicle that came was a small Jeep. The family was walking behind us and got a ride. We were a little ways ahead and tried to also get a ride. It worked! First try. We are awesome! It actually worked out quite well because the family could speak German to the driver and the passenger (conversation is polite as a hitchhiker, or so I hear). Also, very few Swiss vehicles could fit 7 people, as this one did with two tight benches in the back. Then, when we got to Glarus, the family was also going to the train station, so we just followed them there. We ended up getting on the slow train, the one that stopped at every…single…town…along the way.

On the trip, we walked at least 10 miles and went up 1350 vertical meters (4400 feet). “That’s an easy hike to get yourself started?” you are asking. You’re right, it’s probably not that easy. But it was a great hike.



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Bryan the prophet said "we're going to burn"

On Friday night Bryan said "we're going to burn." He turned out to be sort of prophetic. Let me explain.

Yesterday we finally got our halbtax, which allows us to buy half price train tickets. We then bought tickets to a soccer game between FC Zurich and Young Boys (Bern). FCZ was in 1st place in the top Swiss league and YB was in 3rd. So we went to Bern (Bryan the prophet). There was a cheaper, extra train going from Zurich to Bern, and we got tickets for that one instead of the normal train. Guess who else was riding? Yep, all the FCZ fans. It was a pretty fun trip to Bern with all the chanting and singing (one song was to the tune of When the Saints go Marching in and another to the theme of Tetris).

When we got to Bern, there were all these riot police at the stadium. Our tickets were in the home section - we thought we had seats in the Zürich section. So we jumped bandwagons and cheered for Young Boys during the game. We were in the lower level of the Stade de Suisse and the home crowd was pretty rowdy. FCZ scored in front of us in the first half. Then YB scored in front of us early in the second. FCZ scored about 3 minutes later to go back up one. Then YB scored again to tie it. I took a picture of our section immediately after that. Finally, with about 5 minutes to go, FCZ scored to make it 3-2 and the home fans were stunned.

On the way back, we again rode with the FCZ fans. At first the two across from us talked to me/us a little. They seemed sort of nice. After a while, there weren't being nice though. The one was saying stuff directly to me in German that he knew I couldn't understand and the guy across the aisle from Bryan was wiggling his fingers or something 6 inches from Bryan's face. Then the guy across from me decided not to throw cigarette number 21 out the window with the other 20; instead, he put it out on the garbage can thing between us, and it burned my leg (Bryan the prophet). "Sorry" he said, unconvincingly. But we made it back the rest of the way to Zürich and had awesome Kebaps or Kebabs.

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We made it.

We made it: we are here in Switzerland. I'll let you in on a little secret: it does not seem much different than South Dakota or Iowa; other than the facts that, on a good day, I can see the Alps from my window, everybody around me is speaking a language I can not understand, and it took me four days to find a way to get power to my computer. Last time I was in Europe, the whole everybody-is-speaking-gibberish thing was a bit shocking for me, but maybe I am used to it now. Who knows?

So what have we been up to? Settling. Lots of settling, really. And sleeping. To steal a phrase from Travis, I think I slept enough in the past two nights that I shouldn't ever have to sleep again. But that may have been necessary since the seven hour time difference cut out one night's worth of sleeping. We've been getting aquainted with our house-mates, finding food, calculating train tickets, and finally today we both started working. Well, I haven't started working, yet, because I decided to write this blog first, but I'll start working soon enough. But that's all, for now. Leave us some questions in the comment area and we might try to answer some of them in future blogs.

But now, I should start working...

The Motivation

I am getting really excited about going to Switzerland. This is how it all started.

It was the middle of Fall, 2006 -- at that time, I was in the midst of preparing an application for a summer research position in Southeast Asia. I had spoken to my advisor, Heidi, about it and we were trying to find a place where I could go -- and I was talking to some of my friends, my office-mates. Heidi came into our office and asked me if I wanted to go to Switzerland instead of SE Asia. The company I worked for in Indiana last summer had an office in Switzerland, and they were impressed with the two others from my office who were there at the time. I was applying to go to SE Asia because I thought it'd be an adventure and I could get some experience. Heidi was presenting me with the same deal, only across the Atlantic, not the Pacific. Well, to make this a little shorter, they had a job for me at Zimmer and I took it.

I was in Switzerland for three days in 2002. I loved it. It was my favorite place to visit because it was so natural and I loved the Alps. I am very excited to go back. This map shows Winterthur, in the NE (straight north of the TZ in Switzerland and the L in Italy for those of you who are not geographically inclined), near Zurich. This will be the home-base for what I hope will be one big summer adventure.

The Beginning

Here we stand, on the edge of a new beginning. On May 14, 2007, my brother, whom many of you may know simply as 'Travis', and I will be embarking on a Swiss Adventure. We will be calling Winterthur our home, and from what I hear, we'll be residing in a hostel, hopefully full of fun and interesting travelers. We have no intention of hording our adventure; we don't want to keep it all to ourselves! We want you to be part of it! So please, check back every once in a while to see what we're up to; leave us comments, questions, suggestions, or encouragement.

As a picture fitting for the beginning of the trip, Travis posted his passport, complete with his brand new, shiny work visa: