Day 6
- When: July 16, 2024
- Where: Brig
I slept from midnight to 7 but at no point on this trip have I greeted the morning feeling what I’d call refreshed. It’s more that I will myself to start feeling good. Truly I don’t know if my CPAP machine is helping or hurting me. I’d say there’s a non-zero chance that the pressure setting is wrong and it’s not blowing enough air or moisture.
Had a light breakfast at the hotel, then set out to Riederalp for hiking and sightseeing. It’s an easy train trip from Brig to Mörel, something like 9 or 11 minutes, and then a gondola ride up to Riederalp West. Riederalp is another one of those Swiss towns perched halfway up a mountain, where cars aren’t allowed. Love it. It also seems to have some awesome skiing come winter.
I hiked more than I had planned to. As mentioned yesterday, I initially set out to do something called the Casselweg. I hiked up from the gondola station to where that loop would’ve started but then noticed a different scenic trail to a place called Hohfluh. So far I’d logged ~450 feet in elevation gain, and this segment from Riederfurka and Hohfluh would add another 650, for 1100 gain total. A lot of the hike was like this:
Eventually the clouds opened up some once I made it to Hohfluh, so I enjoyed the glacier view from there.
Hohfluh has a ski lift that I could’ve taken back down (my front shin muscles are still shot from previous days), but then I noticed another lift and viewpoint off in the distance, called Moosfluh. ChatGPT, which has truly been extremely helpful in planning these hikes, tells me it’s another 348 feet of vertical and 1.9 miles of ground distance. That’s do-able.
The last 1/4 of this bit is pretty rough, so I arrive at the top pretty whipped. But: I have a huge expanse of the Aletsch Glacier in front of me. It’s stunning. It looks like a river of ice and snow.
I perch on a bench for half an hour or so, recovering from the hike(s) and savoring the view. Then I take the gondola back down to Riederalp. I grab a prosciutto pizza at a restaurant next to the lift (plus a chocolate ice cream) and then meander back across town to catch the Riederalp West lift back down to Mörel. I miss my train by 20 seconds. I wait 30 minutes for the next one.
For dinner I wandered up and down the main street looking at menus, then settled on Restaurant Augenblick across from the train station, which was fine. Afterward I camped in the hotel’s “living room” and worked on my journal.