June 22nd - Rosenlaui Valley hike

This was another fabulous hike and day. Our objective was to hike as much as we could down through the Rosenlaui Valley that runs to the west from Meiringen toward Grindelwald. The photo above shows what a dramatic valley it is. The pyramid shaped peak in the far right is the top of the Eiger. In the upper left is the Rosenlaui glacier. The falls in the lower right is the Reichenbach Falls.


We were off on the 10:55 Post bus on a warm, sunny Sunday morning. The bus was packed. It took an hour to drive the winding road up to Schwartzwaldalp, the end of the bus line. Along the way, we drove through meadows with cows grazing.

We were surprised at the number of people at the end of the bus line. It turns out that there is another private bus line that runs from Schwartzwaldalp across the Grosse Scheidegg to Grindelwald. And trails branch out in all directions.

The trail we took was a gentle trail down through the forest and meadows. Lots of wild flowers and cows. The farmers use a unique kind of hinged gate that I had not seen before.

We arrived at the Rosenlaui Hotel at lunch time. And what a lunch we had. Soup, salad and the "Wanderer's Board" of meat, cheese and fruit. There has been a hotel or spa in this location since the 18th century.


A farmer was moving his herd across the trail as we came along. Interestingly, he used a goat to lead the cows. The cows wear small bells when they are up in the alps. They wear large bells when they move up or down from the valleys. That is supposedly the reason the large bells are hung on the barns or cheese huts.



After lunch, we continued our hike through the meadows and along the stream. When the trail got to be steeper than we liked, we stopped at the next bus stop and waited for the bus. Susan got a chance to catch up on the Euro Cup soccer matches (in German of course).


We got off the bus at the top of Reichenbach Falls and took a staircase down along the falls to the funicular station. There we met up with Sherlock Holmes who had somehow escaped from his fight with his nemesis Professor Moriarty and asked for help.

The Reichenbachfall-Bahn funicular has been running since 1899. From the bottom we caught the bus back to the center of Meiringen.