Hiking to Harder Kulm
Interlaken – Tuesday June 25, 2013
I love the hotel we are staying at, a relatively new backpackers with clean and sparse interior spaces, solid walls so no noise from neighbours or their plumbing and double glazed windows. It is so quite that could not hear the heavy rain that was falling outside when I woke at 3 am.
Not much you can do about the weather, so we decided to head out and hike the Harderklum trail on the south side south of town to reach a teahouse and an observation deck looking out over the town. By Swiss standards not a big elevation change at +900m to the top but enough of a challenge for me. There is also a funicular rail that runs from town to the lookout.
As we gained elevation, the rain stopped and it started to clear – the views over the town were quite spectecular. Snowcapped mountains were gradually revealed, we traversed wildflower meadows and birdsong accompanied us for the two hour of almost vertical ascent to the lookout.
We did not spend to much time at the lookout as it was windy and cold and we headed down to Ringgneberg to follow the trail along the Brienzersee and then along the river that joins the two lakes to the old town, Unterseen and from ther back to the Interlaken. The sun came out just as we stopped for lunch but it did not last, disappearing behind the grey wall of low hanging cloud.
And to remind us of where we are, on our way to the restaurant for dinner we were passed by a procession of fancy dress cows and their herders.
