Monday: Oeschinensee, Doldenhornhütte

For this guest post, we have Chaz, who stayed back in camp on Monday and had some fun activities of their own.

David, Mr. White, and I went for a day hike. First, Mr. Youmans and we hiked up to the lake. Somehow cement trucks found a way to climb and descend this very steep hill. At the lake, we went for a swim (it was cold). David dealt with this a lot better than any of us temperaturely challenged people were. We desired lunch, but were forced to settle for expensive restaurant food. After this, Mr. Youmans departed back to Kandersteg as we took on another challenge. We decided to hike to Doldenhornhütte (a hut up on an intimidating cliff). As we began, we made a very good pace. We got to the hut in less than the Swiss posted time. WOW! As we climbed we noticed an Alpineweg (translated to alpine trail), marked in blue, as a shortcut to get back from the hut (note: these trails are usually classified as requiring special equipment, training, or guidance). We did not see any snow, ice, or equipment requiring terrain in our observations. We decided it would just take "Balls of Steel" to accomplish. After a quick break of 10 minutes we departed for our decent. We reached the blue trail and embarked on our new adventure. The trail began climbing with the cliff below growing taller and taller (also with about a 700 ft cliff above as well). The trail was not more than a foot wide and sloped sideways about 30-40° downhill. We enjoyed many precarious views, constantly thinking "hmm... it would not be too good to fall right now." We got some good pictures, and continued. This fun trail continued for a while, and then finally ran into the regular trail (also significantly steep). After another hour or two we found ourselves back at home in Kandersteg. I consider this hike a great success, considering we completed every single segment of our hike faster than the Swiss posted times. (Again! WOW!). That is the story of out time.

Thank you for your time,
Chaz