Trip 43

September 20,2023

Today took us from Luzern to the Lauterbrunnen valley. From Luzern, take Swissrail to Interlaken ( 1 hr 45 minutes) and then change there to the Berner Oberland Bahn (BOB), a private rail, to your destination in the Valley (45 minutes for us). For this time of year, we’ve not seen the BOB so crowded, it was just packed, but fortunately we got seats (no seat reservations on this route). Unfortunately, it may be the case of the destinations’ popularity taking a toll on its charm.

Aside from Interlaken itself, there are a number of larger and smaller villages and cities along the way. Lake Brienz (YouTube), a high Alpine glacial lake is a real summer resort.

We arrived about 12:30, knowing our room wouldn’t be ready so we stopped at the COOP (across from the train station) for some things for lunch before walking further into town.

Later in the afternoon, we took the walking path out of town (along with many others), with the mountains looming in the distance and on both sides. The “path” isn’t really a path, but a road for residents and service vehicles, a bit more than a tractor wide. Walking past Camping Jungfrau campgrounds, it’s not as busy as we’ve seen it, but still quite a number of people who bring tents, trailers, RVs or rent one of the cabins. There’s a sign on the path than warns those using GPS for navigation that this is not a public road; been there, done that elsewhere.

To our left, we periodically see (and certainly hear) helicopters ferrying loads (construction materials) up and down the valley. They have a landing base on the other side of the river that runs down the valley. Due to the helicopters, there are no drones allowed in the valley.

The road leads on quite a long ways (we’ve never walked the complete distance to Stechelberg) , with many farms and even one with a cheese vending machine.

Looking ahead, it’s impossible to feel anything but awed by the natural beauty of the mountains. There are a few smaller waterfalls, but nothing as large as Staubbach Falls.

It’s about 4pm and looking ahead to the mountains, we can see at least 6 paragliders. We sat on a bench for a few minutes and heard the whooshing sounds of a sail unfurling above – two base jumpers had taken off from the cliffs in front of us. We followed (YouTube) their descent (YouTube), it doesn’t take long to reach the valley floor. As exhilarating as it must be, it’s dangerous. There is a monument in the Lauterbrunnen cemetery to 8 paragliders and base jumpers who died from 2012-2022.

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