Weekend Trip 6 Part 1: Grindelwald - Faulhorn hike

We haven’t been able to hike for a few weekends, so Luke wanted to make sure that our weekend plans definitely included hiking, lots of hiking. He chose where to go and researched which hikes he wanted to do. We ended up going back to Grindelwald (but first visit for him) and doing 2 hikes. The first hike on Saturday was from Bussalp up to the top of Faulhorn, then down to Bachalpsee and on to First to catch the gondola down to Grindelwald. The hike on Sunday was from Grosse Scheidegg to First via the panorama trail.

These photos are from the Interlaken Ost train station, which is cute, then from our arrival to Grindelwald. We booked a 3 person hotel room, but we got 2 rooms adjoined by the bathroom. It was a little bit awkward because the bathroom doors didn’t lock from the inside, but Luke liked having his own room. We walked around Grindelwald a bit so Luke could see the town, got some Glühwein and looked at the gondola before dinner at the hotel restaurant.

On Saturday morning, we took a bus from Grindelwald to Bussalp. It was about a 30 min bus ride, up a mountain, mostly on a one-way road. Every so often, the bus driver would sound this loud musical horn to let oncoming vehicles know we were on the way up and to get out of the way. Totally safe. I didn’t take any photos because I had my eyes closed most of the time.

I sat by a couple of young girls from Zürich who had driven down for the day to hike. They were planning to have a coffee at the restaurant before starting their hike (and thus I named them “Coffee Girls”), as well as where they’d go out in Zürich on Saturday night.

The last photo is looking back at the bus stop/restaurant where we started our hike. It’s the building on the far left with the Swiss flag.

This was a difficult climb for me. It was 887 m in elevation, and it felt like most of it was steep. The last bit of it before we could see the climb up to the restaurant at the top of Faulhorn was also what I affectionately called the Mud Pit. There has been some snow up there, but it has also melted, which makes the trails very, very muddy. When the mud sticks to the bottom of your hiking boots, they lose their traction and you slide down the mountain. I tried stopping and cleaning them off from time to time, but I’m already the slowest hiker on the mountain, so I didn’t want to slow things down even further. But we finally made it up to where we could see the Bachalpsee on the right, and the climb up to the restaurant on the left. I totally almost bailed on climbing up to the restaurant because it was nothing but switchbacks - but I made it! And it was worth it for the food!

This is the view from the start of the climb up to the restaurant. Luke wanted to go out and enjoy the snow a bit before we went up. And of course, the obligatory Rösti photo.

Right behind the restaurant, up a little higher, is the peak of Faulhorn. We went up there after we ate, and it was really freaking me out. The dropoff on the back side is almost stright down, and there is not a railing in sight. I actually have a fear of heights, so I can’t really deal with stuff like that. I went up, took a couple of photos, then went immediately down.

When we started down to Bachalpsee to go catch the gondola at First, we started to worry that we would miss the last gondola of the day. That’s why there aren’t many photos of this leg. I also deleted this part of my watch data from this part of the hike.

Luckily, we made it back to First before the last gondola of the day, AND we made it to our 8:15pm reservation for fondue that evening. They even had gluten free bread for Luke!