Gimmelwald, Switzerland
When we returned to Gimmelwald, the sky was much clearer and the sun was shining. This picture is taken about 3/4 of the way up on our hike. We climbed for about two hours. It was more than enough to wear us out.
It's hard to see in this picture, but look in the patch of green grass in the left center area, about one inch from the left edge of the picture. That small tan building is a house of some sort. It's only a speck in the distance from here, but when we were climbing down we descended to be a ways below it.
You've see this picture on the main page, but this is the proper context. This was almost as high as we climbed. After this shot was taken we perhaps climbed another 100 vertical feet or so.
You see those rocks at the top, how there is kind of two points? At the top of the left point you can just barely make out a building. This is the Schilthorn at about 9700 feet. You can take a gondola up to it. I think there is a restaurant up there too. Anyway, from here it was marked to be two more hours of a hike up to the top. We had already hiked 2 hours and had to get back to get our train (yeah, that's our excuse for not going up all the way). From Gimmelwald to Schilthorn is over 5000 vertical feet, and since we climbed half way (or more) I figure we at least climbed about 2500 vertical feet, about a half mile straight into the sky!
AHHHH the burning! This long, slow, zig zag descent nearly killed our quads. I think the houses you see below are from a town that is still a ways above Gimmelwald.
Our descent took us behind this raging waterfall. You can see Jamie going behind it. It was a little scary when right behind it because it was loud, wet, and muddy.