Trip to Bachalpsee (or Lake Bachalp)

We woke up later than usual and had a wonderful buffet breakfast outside, at our hotel. We headed out for the gondola ride to the stop called "First," which was WAY up the side of one of the huge Alps around Grindelwald. The gondola ride was beautiful, filled with rocky cliffs, snowy peaks, foamy waterfalls, lush green meadows, and flowers in bloom. When we got to First, we began our hike to Bachalpsee (Bachalp =Bachalp, see=Lake). It was an awesome hike with all the snowy peaks, shortcuts (which were great, really fun, but one resulted in a mud and snow covered child), and snow along the path, perfect for snowball fights, which we had quite a few of.

Here is the view we had while on the hike:

Here is me after slipping and sliding in the snow and mud:


More views along the way:

We got to the lake hidden up in the mountains and it was so cool!  Bachalpsee looked amazing in the magazines we saw, but the pictures totally DID NOT do justice to the real thing.  We had a snack and played on the snow at this amazing place for a while.

On top of the world!

We hiked back from the lake and had lunch with great hot chocolate on a big deck on top of the mountain.  (My dad tried a traditional Swiss dish called “raclette” that was really gross and weird, but I don’t want to go into it because it makes me want to throw up.  It was basically a pool of melted cheese with some potatoes on the side.  Blech!).

Then dad and I did this awesome thing that was sort of like a zip cord, but not really.  It was called “the First Flyer” and it was basically a kind of harness that you sit on and get strapped in to and then you fly down from one cable car stop all the way to another cable car stop, which is way down the mountain.  It looked crazy and scary and you couldn’t even see where you were going to end up in the distance. 

Here is a poster advertising the "First Flyer" that we saw after doing it (we didn't get any good pictures or videos of the real thing because, well, we were ON it):

You put your feet up on this gate in front of you and then the person helping you says “Ok, you ready?” If you reply “yes,” then they press a button and the gate goes away and you just zoom out into open air and zoom down the mountain at like 90 mph.  It was AWESOME – so much fun!!  Dad and I were both at equal speeds at the beginning, but then he started getting faster and faster and I got slower, but then suddenly I passed him and flew past him.  The ending was NOT as smooth as we expected – we thought you would slow to a stop, but not at all.  You go just as fast as you do in the beginning if not faster, since you just went down a huge mountain, and then suddenly you see ground and a house in front of you and you brace yourself for the impact and when you’re about to hit it, you go “pweeechk” – you swing up in the air really hard.  

Dylan was too young to do it, so he and mom hiked down to the next stop – it took us 36 seconds and it took them 25 minutes!  (That tells you how far our flight was!).  They had a great hike though – they even got a little lost and were worried they wouldn’t make it to the last cable car. 

We all met up and took the cable car down and went back to the hotel and then rested and had a last dinner in Switzerland.  Tomorrow: Italy!!