Walker's Haute Route Day 9

Day 9: Gasenried – Europa Hut

Our second to last day on the trail! I was starting to feel tired and a bit run down from the taxing trip in general, but was still very excited for this much anticipated route. The Europa Hut route was supposedly going to be the highlight of our trip, so I was hoping for good weather and fantastic views.

The first part of the hike started as a long, steep climb in the trees before the view opened up. On our way up we came upon two German women. We briefly made introductions and started making small talk. Apparently one of the women had hiked Everest base camp just last year while her son summitted Mount Everest. I’m not going to lie, I was quite surprised by this information. This was an older woman, much slower than us, and seemingly not in that great of shape. If she could hike to Everest base camp, then certainly I could make it too. Out of curiosity, I tried to press her more about her experience, but she told us, “I can’t talk and hike at the same time! I’ll tell you all about it when we get to the Europe Hut. Go ahead of us.” Unfortunately, we never got the chance to talk. But it did make Brian really excited and I think he talked about the possibility of hiking Everest for a good 20 minutes after we passed those women.

So we continued on, and once we got above the trees and the morning fog lifted, the first half of the Europa route did not disappoint. Jeremy also quickly realized that this route was not as difficult as everyone was making it out to be, and was quite relieved and pleased. All I could say was, “I told you so.” Some of the ledges were narrow, and there were several boulders to climb over from rock slides. But all in all, in good weather, the route wasn’t dangerous. In bad weather, well, that would be a different story.

We arrived at the Europa Hut uneventfully and sat outside and enjoyed the gorgeous view of the Weisshorn directly in front of that. Brian had a few beers, and I bought a coke light, as I figured with some quick math in my head that Brian had plenty of cash to spare since we had paid with a credit card one night, and we only had one day of hiking left. That night at dinner, we sat next to two German children and their mother. I asked them if they could speak English, and found their English was quite good. They were only 8 years old and doing a weekend hike from Gasenried to Zermatt. What awesome kiddos! Apparently their dad was a mountain guide, so I guess they were born to do this kind of thing.

Walker's Haute Route Day 8

Day 8: Gruben – Augstbordpass- Jungen – St Niklaus - Gasenried

Another picture perfect morning. Perhaps Brian and I had paid our dues with bad somewhat bad weather on previous trips – afterall, the weather backpacking Torres Del Paine in Chile was near horrendous and we had a few rainy days in New Zealand as well. I couldn’t be more thankful for our fabulous luck.

Augstbordpass would be our last pass of the entire hike. It was bittersweet reaching the top. I would have loved to hike for weeks on end in the Alps, but at the same time, I was really beginning to miss Adeline and our life at home. But we only had two days of hiking left, the Europa trail no less and a highly anticipated view of the Matterhorn, and I was going to make the most of it.

We descended Augstbordpass and soon came to Jungen. This was one of the coolest villages I have ever seen. It was a small German village perched right on a cliff, with no roads leading up to the town whatsoever. The only way to get off the mountain and into a “real” town was either to hike two hours down, or take the cable car. Can you imagine? What if the cable car was broken for a day and there was a medical emergency or something? It was quite amazing.

At this point, I was completely sold on riding the cable car down into Niklaus, and so was Brian. We could hike up all day, but going down was quite hard on the feet and knees. We discovered that the next cable car left at 2pm, but only because an English gentleman told us. So we had about an hour to waste, and I gladly took off my pack and laid on the grassy cliff overlooking Niklaus. However, my thoughts of greasy McDonald’s double cheeseburgers were rudely interrupted when Brian yelled at me to wake up and grab my pack, because the cable car was about to leave.

Down in Niklaus, we wandered around the small town for a bit, took off our packs, and bought a coke light. We still had to get to Gasenried that day. It was either a 1-2 hour walk or…we could take the bus. So out of curiosity we just couldn’t shake, we checked the bus schedule and prices. $7 Euro/person and leaving in 30 min? SOLD! I was over today. I thought maybe I would regret the bus decision, but let me tell you, we did the right thing. Because there was no path to Gasenried, we would have been walking along the road with the cars and buses. Ugg. How do we know this? Because we saw Jeremy walking along the road as our bus sailed passed him.

In Gasenried we found a nice bed and breakfast for the night and wait for it…we had our OWN ROOM! It was a glorious moment. We dropped our packs and went into town. I loved Gasenried. Still a quaint Swiss town, but also somewhat civilized at the same time. Around this time, I was getting very anxious about Adeline, as we hadn’t been able to check in with Mimi since the day we arrived in Geneva. So we found an internet café and found that my mom had sent us several pictures. Our little girl already looked so much bigger than when we left her! It was great to see that they were doing well. While I was checking email, Brian saw Jeremy walk by out the window and ran out to tell him where we were staying for the night. We decided to meet up for dinner in a couple hours.

That night we all dined at a pizza joint in town. Jeremy told us about his horrendous walk from Niklaus to Gasenried – I was so glad we decided against that. Conversation was good – predictably it was mostly about Jeremy’s fears of hiking the Europa Hut route, with all it's via ferrata, and for the millionth time I tried to tell him to get over it. After all, it can't be any worse than the ladders! After dinner we decided to reconvene at breakfast and then head out to the Europa Hut!