Come for the glacier, stay for the apple tart

Ali – Last week we made the family decision to brave the 3.5 hour one way train to ariel tram to gondola trip to  Bettmerhorn to hike along the Aletsch glacier for our Saturday outting. We were inspired both by the fact that this is the longest glacier in Europe and by an imaginary dialog we envisioned between Maya and her grandchildren. The dialog went something like this: 

Grandma Maya: I still remember the time I saw Europe’s longest glacier.

Grandkids: Grandma Maya, what’s a glacier?

Grandma Maya: A glacier is a big chunk of ice

Grandchildren: Grandma Maya, what’s ice?

Grandma Maya: Well ice is what happens when water freezes

Grandchildren: Grandma Maya, what’s freezes?

Grandma Maya: It’s what happens when something gets real cold

Grandchildren: Grandma Maya, what’s cold?

…..

Inspired and depressed by our global warming humor, we figured we better check this baby out before it’s too late. The Aletsch is 23 km long and up to 900 m thick. Joe said that it is melting at a rate of 27 inches a day but I have not been able to confirm this figure and I’m suspicious given that this is clearly a metric system glacier. [Joe: Actually, it was 20cm per day…metric!]

So 7am Saturday had us on a train headed south with butterfettmachers in hand. Hours later we arrive at Betten where we hop on the largest arial tram I’ve ever seen. More akin to a dangling shipping container smuggling immigrants than an arial tram with hikers I would say.

The arial tram let’s us off in Bettmeralp, which is a cute ski town with no cars and overpriced lodging.

We wandered a bit until we found the gondola to the top and climbed in with a nice German tourist heading to the top. He spoke only German and tried to tell us about the local fauna, which consisted of schafe (sheep… got it!) and murmentler (spelled phonetically as I heard it). He spent a couple minutes trying to describe this mythical beast but we were clueless. 

So we reach Bettmerhorn where there is the requisite cliff-side mountain top restaurant and a starkly beautiful landscape that is  ‘alien world’ awesome. 

The Matterhorn sits in one direction and the Aletsch glacial sits in the other direction nestled lovingly in a valley. Pictures don’t really do justice; it felt a bit like seeing a black rhino- impressive, large, weird looking and destined for extinction. 

We hiked along the edge for 3 ish miles, scrambling over what looked like a rock slide covering the trail but actually was the trail. Then we veered off and headed into a valley which had a small lake infestation. 

After hiking for another mile there appeared on the horizon our midway point: the Gletscherstube. Roughly translated that means glacier living room and it’s a little hikers hut sitting in the middle of nowhere. Now we had all been looking forward to this midpoint as the hiking guide claimed there was delicious apple tart to be had. For a small hut in the middle of nowhere it was ridiculously crowded but we squeezed in when a group of Brits vacated their seats and immediately ordered beer, Rivella (quintessential Swiss beverage made from milk whey) and apfel küchen. 

Soon a lovely Swiss couple joined us and asked about American politics. They confirmed for us that the Swiss watch American politics like Americans watch reality TV: a dirty pleasure that entertains while making  you feel superior.  

After stuffing Küchen in our pie-holes we headed back on the trail. There were a few live obstacles in our way on the last leg of the journey, including the fierce Swiss guard cow that attentively monitors the trail for threats. We didn’t see the guard cows in action as they were pretending to be regular lazy Alpen cows but we knew better. What self-respecting Alpen cow would be lying across a cliff side trail when there are fields of verdant Alpen hills to wander? So obvious.

Finally we made it to Fiescheralp for the gondola down to catch our 3.5 hour train back to Zurich. We were all a bit fried from the Alpen sun and had to endure the airless train because, you know, drafts are deadly. But well worth it for a peek at a melting wonder.