Hiking the Hinter Lauterbrunnen Valley

The upper part of the Lauterbrunnen valley has been turned into a preserve, both natural and cultural, and we decided the next day to hike a bit of it, to see a few of the 72 water falls.

Billboard map of the place

Rustic chalet with solar power

A few of the waterfalls

Bain of alpine hikers; and cows

Although the scenery was beautiful, the trail good, the
wildflowers abundant and gorgeous, this hike turned out
to be more about berries than anything else; here, the
first of the explosively delicious wild strawberries

More waterfalls

Thus

Part of the smelter of a late medieval silver mine

But then we ran into one of the largest deposits ever of
blueberries/myrtilles/huckleberries/bilberries, whatever; no
human or ursine competition; end of hike

We bagged enough for dessert, breakfast, and then some;
we never hike without plastic bags

It's a beautiful trail, well cared for by Tourism Stechelberg

And Vicki's knee is holding up well, despite
the weight of the berries

Gimmelwald

Vicki's new knee has been doing fine in all the city walking we have been doing, but it was time to try it on the trail in a more rough and vertical environment. So we decided to hike from the valley up to Gimmelwald, on the cliffs above, capital of the Rickie Stevie League of Cities, but also the site of pleasant other memories for us.

Vicki on the trail

Heading up the trail

Looking across the valley toward the big
mountains

Achtung! Falling stones!

A glacier spilling over from one of the big mountains

Finally we reach the outskirts of Gimmelwald

Thus

Looking down to the campground and Stechelberg; not to
over-do it, we took the cable car back down

Back in the valley, looking up

Return to Lauterbrunnen

Our stay in Lauterbrunnen two years ago was marred by a lousy campground, Camping Schutzenbach or somesuch, and we moved on to Grindelwald. But before moving, Vicki had taken a hike to the end of the road and noticed another campground, Camping Rutti, in Stechelberg, which we decided to try this time. It was a good choice.

Our site at Camping Rutti

Valley view

Ditto; not the Staubbach, but pretty good

At the campground, a cruciform tent! Is it facing east?!

Mountains!

We left Basel thus edified and drove to a stellplatz that turned out to be free parking in an RV sales and service center lot down the road toward Bern. The next morning we proceeded on south, and, topping a small hill, beheld

The Berner Alps...Eiger, Monch, Jungfrau, etc. 

Thus the museum phase of our summer trip ends, and the mountain phase begins 

Basel Museum

Basel is one of the $wiss cities we had not previously visited, it was sort of on the way, and we were particularly interested in its museum. The museum has a seriously enforced no fotos policy, but I did snatch a few of the more interesting/compelling items. Its collection of Holbeins, elder and younger and siblings too, is the largest there is. And there is much else, right up to present.

A Cranach Paris' Judgment (same model again)

I wasn't able to "document" all my pix; I
think this is a very different Cranach
madonna and child

As I said, there are dozens of Holbeins; here's Younger's
Erasmus

And a genre piece whose title I don't remember...damn!

And this, Junior's Entombed Christ, unusual if not
completely unique; early 1500s

Another unidentified (by me) but worthy 16th century gory
piece

And another I've got to get the title/artist for
(help me, art fans!)

There was plenty of more recent stuff, a lot of Impressionism
and Post-Impressionism

Including this guy

Quite a few Picassos; story goes the museum wanted to
purchase a major Picasso, the local fiscal conservatives
got it put on the ballot, and the artsies won; Picasso was
sufficiently gratified that he gave the museum another
half dozen of his works

Even a couple Dalis: here his Burning Giraffe

Courtyard of this fine museum, with copy #1,743 of Rodin's
Burghers

Pilatus

The other reason for visiting Luzern was Pilatus, a small (7,000 feet) peak west of town, but one of Europe's great mountain landmarks. My interest in Pilatus is four-fold: 1) view from the summits; 2) regard for Pontius Pilate, whose spirit allegedly dwelled near the summit (it was Pilate who asked, philosophically, "what is truth?," then went on to other things); 3) on Pilatus, supersitions about mountains began to fade after visits, in the 1700s, to the summit demonstrated that no one dwelled there and nothing bad came of climbing; 4) Wagner climbed Pilatus; 5) I wanted the exercise, but did not properly calculate the 5600 feet descent. Five-fold. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

OK, I took the cog-wheel train to the saddle

at the top; it is the world's highest-angle

cog-gtrain, 48 degrees at the top; depicted a

bove is how it works

The train; note its terraced structure; had I walked up, I

would not have arrived till mid-afternoon, when everything

had clouded up

Morning view, Lake Luzern below

Lucerne below

Tomlishorn, the western-most, and, I think, highest

summit of Pilatus

Tribschen and the Wagner Museum, center

But the glorious thing about Pilatus is that, on a clear

morning, such as this, you can see, not all that far away,

the whole of the Berner Alps: here, the Finsteraarhorn,

the Schreckhorn, the Weisshorn, others we camped

below in Grindelwald

Summit schema from Esel, the eastern summit of Pilatus

And, snowy in the middle, the Monch, then the Eiger, its

north face in shadow, and then the Jungfrau; totally

exhiliarating!

Looking from the Tomlishorn to the central summit

(mostly Japanese turbuss-folk), and then the Esel; I

climbed the Esel and Tomlishorn, but skipped the

crowded middle

Looking down from the Tomlishorn, toward Luzern,

trails and a high chapel

It's all well above tree-line, but not above flower-line; the

whole trail around the summits is covered in flowers and

in flower labels

Looking down toward the descent trail, 5600 feet...

Down the trail, looking back up toward Esel and the

central summit (hotel, restaurants, gift shoppes, etc.)

And, click to enlarge, a little red train about to enter the

48 percent grade

I got back down by 4pm, had a Cailliers ice cream bar, thanks to Vicki, and we headed on past Luzern to a lay-by in extreme eastern Switzerland