Untour representatives gave us an orientation on how to use the train and bus timetables and an introduction to hikes and other things to do in the Heartland area. Following that, Susan and I decided that it was time to get up into the mountains and to test our legs. The Hasliberg area above Meiringen offered a chance to get up high and look over the other mountains. The first photo shows this area of forests and alpen meadows which is a land of cowbells and wildflowers. The peak in the upper right has a restaurant called the Alpen Tower.
The big gondola from Meiringen to Reuti gets you up quickly to a series of smaller lifts that take you to the Alpen Tower at 7,400 ft. Meiringen is at 2,000 ft.
There are wonderful views from the trails at Alpen Tower and for a while we thought we were the only ones up there.
Then we met a young man and his parents from the Netherlands who amazed us. He is a parapalegic who has been all over the world in a motorized chair with his parents help. They were an inspiring family.
The snow was still melting in many spots along the trails but there were also lots of wildflowers. The gentian were especially brilliant.
We took a gondola part way back down and then got off to hike to the next station. There were a group of children in colorful caps who were taking the Dwarf Adventure Trail, a trail that lets them experience the story of the oldest dwarf on the Hasliberg. We figured if the trail was easy enough for them, we could do it too.
It felt like real "Heidi" land to be hiking among the cows, cowbells and flowers. The trail turned out to be more steeply downhill then we had bargained for. Our feet and legs were very glad when we reached the big gondola station at Reuti again and rode down to Meiringen.
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