Rosenlaui and the Gletscherschlucht

Dwight Peck's personal website

Grindelwald and Rosenlaui, 2014

and views of the Eiger

Oscar and Cathy are in Europe, imbibing the views and ambience of northern France, and we've talked them into linking up with us in Switzerland before going home. Grindelwald has been suggested as a suitable venue.

You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

Rosenlaui and the Gletscherschlucht

Our project yesterday was hiking down from the Bachalpsee -- today we're off at the crack of midday to go over the pass of Grosse Scheidegg and visit the Gletscherschlucht, or Glacier Gorge, at Rosenlaui, 10 July 2014.

A nice house near our hotel Cabana

Dig we must! A massive new something-or-other being built right in the centre of Grindelwald

The bus station. Off we go.

The postal bus conveys us from Grindelwald (1034m) up to the pass at Grosse Scheidegg (1962m), and down the other side in the Rosenlaui valley . . .

. . . to change buses at Schwarzwaldalp ('Black Forest Pasture', at 1456m), or . . .

. . . to walk the rest of the way instead. We're off.

The Rychen bach or creek (which some ways down the valley goes over the Reichenbach Falls, where Sherlock Holmes met his first death)

It's a gentle walk of only a few kilometres to Rosenlaui, along the Reichenbach.

Oscar, Cathy, and Kristin

A glimpse of the famous Rosenlaui hotel

The Glacier Gorge is not far off, just above the Rosenlaui hotel

The ticket booth and restaurant of the Gletscherschlucht (1360m), also called the Rosenlauischlucht.

An earlier visit to the Gletscherschlucht, 2008

A short walk up the forest to the gorge above the falls . . .

. . . some of it subterranean.

The view over the falls

Into the gorge . . .

. . . much of it subterranean.

The pathway up through the gorge was created in 1902 ("180 packs of dynamite") and opened for business in 1903.

Oscar and Cathy reading the trailside signs -- the explanatory signage is only in German, but luckily we've got Oscar along.

The track through the gorge was expanded and improved in 1931, and since then there have been modest safety improvements.

Gorge views

The track in the gorge rises gently from 1360m to about 1480m.

Naturally, features along the way have been given cute names, like "DeGaulle's nose", the elephant's nose, and the Cathedral. That's to be expected.

Gorge scenes

Number 4 refers us to "DeGaulle's nose", not immediately evident.

-- Stay on the path please.

At their highest, the walls of the gorge stand 80 metres above the riverbed.

-- Mind your head.

The gate more or less at the end of it. Wasn't that fun?

A cairn farm

We're seizing the opportunity to walk farther up a ways, along one of the trails to the mountain huts up on the glaciers, for the views.

Like this view

The mountain on the horizon is probably the Dossen (3138m).

Dwight and Oscar, Kristin skulking off on the left

Cathy and Kristin in The Nature

Zoom

A little river with its own channel through the limestone

The Rosenlaui Glacier

A moment of repose

The King of the Cairns

Back down the hill, and feeling that . . .

. . . a bit of lunch might be recommended.

The "Café Schluchthüttli", or Little Gorge Hut, and time for a little snacky-poo

Photographing the soup

Wurstli and soup

Oscar and the Rosenlaui Hotel.
Kristin and I were here for a fine hiking/dining visit in 2008, and here's the background:

An inn was first built on this spot in 1795 to capitalize on mineral springs found here some years earlier; it burnt down in 1860 and was rebuilt in 1863. The berghotel seen here was built in the grand Victorian style in 1904, but the mineral springs have long since disappeared under a landslide. The 1863 building is still there alongside the main one and apparently serves as a youth hostel.

This way to the Rosenlaui Falls

A bus arrives from over the pass

From the Schweizerhof Hotel in Grindelwald -- a party of festive lunchgoers (that would have been called a 'jitney' back when they had more jitneys around).

Our postal bus takes us back up to Schwarzwaldalp -- "All Change, Please" -- and another up to the pass at Grosse Scheidegg, with the Wetterhorn looming.

And then down the other side towards Grindelwald (the Eiger in the left-centre)

And back to the Hotel Garni Cabana (a 'hotel garni' offers breakfast and drinks, but no restaurant)

A late afternoon apéritif at the Derby Hotel / Bahnhof terrace restaurant . . .

. . . and back for a great dinner of local specialities in the evening.

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