Stage 10: Gruben to Grächen, Thursday August 2
Low on snacks, we stole some bits of cheese from the breakfast buffet and bought a Swiss kit kat bar from the hotel. That foraging turned out to be a wise plan. Today was a very long day in the wilderness.
This stage was too long for us. Without transport at the end, we’d probably STILL be walking up to Grächen.
Before we could even start walking, we had to take the bus from Oberems back to Gruben, where the trail passes the Hotel Schwarzhorn. That was a good half hour delay.
We started with a steep climb to the Augstbordspass. Like many of the Haute Route passes, the Augstbordspass is high and far from habitation in either direction.
Then we had to make a LONG descent to Jüngen. Note that the sign at the pass suggests nearly 3 hours to get there.
The last stage of this walk was downright scary - exposed and super narrow, with a steep drop off to the side. Chris did the whole thing with his mountainside arm immobilized!
We had already planned to skip the remaining walk by taking the cablecar down to St. Niklaus and then the bus back up to Grächen, a nod to our convalescent who tired easily, but we didn’t even get to Jüngen until 4, so it was kind of necessary. So much for our fear that the stages would be too short!
The cablecar was a surprise. We expected something like the cablecars in Verbier. Um, no. This one can transport four people approximately every ten minutes. We waited an hour to ride it down (you can pay at the bottom). It was still faster than walking. The residents of Jüngen use this cablecar for their normal transportation - there seems to be no other way up or down.
I’d hoped to take advantage of our fancy hotel’s spa, but we didn’t arrive until 6, when the spa closed. Ah well. We had a lovely dinner nevertheless.
