Ray & Jenny in Austria & Switzerland: 18th September 2010

Yesterday the weather was forecast to be overcast with showers so we decided to go to Thun (pronounced Toon) for some shopping. A nice lazy day away from the hiking trails.

Today we had to make up for yesterday's lazy day, and even though the weather was still overcast, we headed back to Lauterbrunnen to find a challenging trail. And what a challenge it was. Mostly through cow dung and muddy trail due to the overnight showers and trying to keep up an average time for the hike while tramping almost ankle deep in mud. The cows had been using the hiking trail and with it being wet, they had completely chopped it up. Well, the whole trail wasn't like this.

We caught the mountain lift from Lauterbrunnen to Grutschalp, and started our hike towards Marchegg, a vantage point high up above the valley. Before we got to Marchegg, we headed back down a small side valley to Sauslager on our way to Suls. The first part was through rough forest track then over a rocky narrow mountain path, steadily climbing the whole way. The messy trail started on the climb out of the Sauslager Valley on the way to Suls. There was so much mud that it was caked on the soles of our boots and we had no grip. Just inches of mud. Not good when trying to climb up rocky trails that are already slippery because of the rain. We kept looking for small water trickles so that we could stand in the water and wash some of it off. But it was back on with our first step.Thank God we had hiking poles!! The path was not clearly marked and we were worried that we were a bit lost. But, we just kept going until we came to one of the yellow trail markers that give hikers' directions and times to various destinations. After 4 hours, we ended up at Sulwald, the top station for another mountain lift down to Isenfluh, ready to take the bus back to Lauterbrunnen. Despite the hard going on the muddy trail, I thoroughly enjoyed the day and would like to do it again when the mountain is not in cloud as it was today. We caught glimpses of some great views down into the Lauterbrunnen valley.