Friday August 5: Gstaad to L’Étivaz
The route of this section of the Via Alpina was in flux in 2022, hence yesterday’s instructions to end our hike in Gsteig. This morning we were supposed to take the bus back to Gsteig to walk to our next destination at Col des Mosses. We decided not to do that and to instead walk straight from Gstaad to L’Étivaz, which is the current route.
We headed out for an early start, but discovered that the Eggli cable car that we’d planned to take uphill didn’t start running until 10. Oh well.
Once we got up to the higher trail, we had a lovely ridge and forest walk. We could sort of see the resort at the top of the glacier that serves as a summer ski area in Gstaad. (We know of the existence of this glacier from Return of the Pink Panther, in which Lady Litton is reported to be skiing on a glacier in the middle of summer, though in fact she had gone to the tennis instead.)
Today’s walk was quite easy, at least by Via Alpina standards, though it’s possible that we skipped some harder trail by simply taking the dirt road much of the way.
Today, we crossed the Col de Jable, the pass that put us in French-speaking Switzerland.
The last descent was narrow, slippery, and scary at times – Alpine trails never stop frightening me at least a little. Our goal was the town of L’Étivaz, where we intended to catch a bus up to Col des Mosses. (Yes, we were supposed to walk to Col des Mosses. Enough already!)
We arrived in town right just after those three young people jumpted onto the bus we wanted and it drove away, which meant we had to wait an hour for the next one.
We spent the night at Fleur des Alpes, a little guest house run by a sweet man in his mother’s old home. He was delighted to discover that I could speak French. He served us a wonderful table d’hõte for dinner.
We had a good chat with a Swiss family who lived in town and had just come for dinner with their kids. The degree of sophistication that most Swiss families display is impressive; the kids spoke good English already, and they’d all traveled extensively in the U.S.