Today we had our first full day of hiking. The way this generally works is after a quick breakfast we meet in the lobby for the daily briefing. All the Backroads folks draw pictures like this so I’m pretty sure it’s part of the training. Anyway we ended up on the 6.9 mile hike shown in red. We are switching hotels today so we’ll end our hike by walking/hiking to our new hotel.

The hike starts and ends with Gondola rides. (First up and then down) Today we spent all our time above the tree line so we were hiking through gray rocks and boulders, some left over from glaciers. Early in the day we actually hiked through a farmer’s fields. The cow bells were ringing!

Here’s Kelly a little later on the trail in a real live action shot! Note the classic hiker form, floppy hat to protect the face, pole in the left hand for stability. …a real pro in action!!

Towards the end of the hike we could actually see a pretty sizable glacier off in the distance. Unfortunately they are all shrinking here with a few expected to be gone in the next year or so. All our hiking thus far has been in pretty warm weather. We are generally seeing 75 degrees during the day hikes and we were above 6,500 feet today.

Once the hike finished we took the gondola down to Leukerbad (It’s somewhere in Switzerland!) and walked through another picturesque alpine town.

After another half mile or so we arrived at our hotel for the next two nights. It’s a little older but our room is huge. …and nice. I am not exaggerating when I say we could fit 3 of our rooms from Interlaken into this place. This town is known for it’s thermal baths and our hotel has a pool that is the temperature of bath water and the water comes right out of the ground that way. That was a god-send after a 7 mile hike.

And just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get more entertaining, the guy from the Ricola commercial shows up and gives us a concert. That’s an Alphorn he’s playing and it only plays 15 notes. You’re welcome for the education.

That’s all for today, tomorrow we have an even longer hike planned in this valley. Should be interesting …and painful!