Saturday July 30: Mürren to Griesalp
This was the most gorgeous hotel breakfast buffet of the whole trip. I deeply regretted that today was also one of the most demanding stages, which counseled against taking advantage of the bottle of champagne buried deep in ice in a silver urn.
But today we were facing the first of the three highest passes: the Sefinenfurgga. We left plenty early to give ourselves ample time.
Alpine Exploratory had suggested that we take the Im Suppe route, arguing that the standard direct route was “unreasonably steep.” Ha!, we said. The wise hiker takes the short route no matter what, especially if he’s worried about distance.
Well. Yeah, the direct route is steep. Terrifyingly so.
But we made it, which gave us the payoff of the most gorgeous green balcony walk to the Rotstockhütte.
At the Rotstockhütte, we fell in with the schedule of an Alpenwild group hiking the same route. This was a bit regrettable, because there were a lot of them and the Sefinafurgga isn’t very big. On the other hand, we were moving very slowly.
The walk to the Sefinafurgga is beautiful – wild and glacial. The approach to the pass itself is ridiculously steep, so steep that the trail managers had added a ladder to the top of the scree, most likely just to preserve the mountainside.
The view from the top was gorgeous, not gonna lie, but the longer I sat on that knife ridge, the less likely it felt that I would ever get up and walk down the other side. The other side consisted of more scary steps and ropes. The Swiss and Germans don’t seem nearly as bothered by this terrain, though perhaps there’s a selection process that has already happened. After the steps and ropes ended, there was nothing but a massive, steep, slippery scree field. I don’t love that terrain.
Anyway! We made it through, and then there was nothing but a very long, very green meadow walk down and down all the way to Griesalp.
NB: One option to consider for this stage would be to make the previous day’s walk longer and to spend the night at the Rotstockhütte. That would mean a night in an Alpine hut instead of the swanky Hotel Eiger, but it would make the two days’ walks’ more balanced, instead of a super-short day to stay in an expensive town followed by a long and difficult one. If we ever do this route again, I’d argue for doing something like that.
Griesalp is barely a town, really more just a collection of hostels. Our hotel had advertised a sauna and hot tub, but our efforts to avail ourselves of these faciities were in vain. The girls running the place and I couldn’t manage to communicate effectively – I think there was a fundamental misunderstanding regarding what facilities even existed. They kept talking about “hot pots,” which was mysterious.
It had been a long day. We went to bed early.