Hike from First to Lake Bachalpsee, Switzerland

Due to very shoddy internet service over the past week, we have unfortunately fallen very behind in our blogging. So these next blogs will appear in rapid fire. On our third day in Switzerland (last day staying in Grindelwald) we decided to take the gondola up to First and do a hike to Lake Bachalpsee and then down to Bort where we caught the gondola again down to Grindelwald.

Overall the hike was about 7 miles. This may not seem like much but let me assure you, it was. Less than a mile of the hike was uphill so I thought, “No big deal, I could walk downhill all day.” WRONG. Downhill hiking is actually way more difficult than I realized! You may not be huffing and puffing like you are when you go uphill but your leg muscles have to be tight the whole time to keep you from letting gravity take over and falling down the mountain. While I really enjoyed this hike (and the others we did) from a visual perspective, I definitely would recommend being in better shape than I am if you ever want to visit Switzerland haha.

*Just a note about this hike from First… It is quite expensive to take the gondola up to First. We got 50% off for liking them on Facebook at it was still about $65. I think it was worth it for that but if we had paid the full amount, I think we might have been disappointed because while it was beautiful, it wasn’t necessarily much MORE beautiful than hikes you can do for a good deal cheaper.

Back to our story…The first (and much shorter) leg of our hike was to Lake Bachalpsee. Here are some photos from that hike...

 On the gondola up to First:

This cliff was pretty awesome but I'm not sure you can really see the details because it's so shaded. Basically it was formed of hundreds of thin slabs just stacked on top of each other.

Reed bought me Pringles to help make the hiking more bearable but they were gone within the first 5 minutes...

Reed said his one goal for Switzerland was to see "wild" cows and goats..."the kind with bells around their necks." I have tried repeatedly to explain to him that if a cow has a bell around its neck, it can't possibly be "wild" but he's not buying it. So anyways, here are Reed's "wild cows and goats" and he was EXTREMELY excited to see them.

Upon reaching the lake we set up a lovely little picnic and I took a little nap while Reed tried to see how far he could handle going into the freezing water. To be fair to him I should say that I think he got a little farther than this picture shows haha.

After our little rest we headed down the mountain to Bort where we would catch the gondola again. The hike down took us about 3 hours (possibly the longest 3 hours of my life). Here are some photos from that hike:

(Sorry more pics of me than Reed this time...Reed was manning the camera and I was too sick of hiking to think about taking photos haha)

This cow was just randomly standing in the way of the bridge blocking our way across it. Reed tried all sorts of things to get it to move but it refused haha. We think he is sick of tourists coming through his pasture.

This was me extremely excited to have reached the bottom of one long stretch of our hike...little did I know I would be hiking downhill again 1/4 of a mile later. I should note that this should have been a heel click but obviously the cameraman was not fast enough haha.

I reached a point on our hike down where my legs seriously felt like jelly (remember we had hiked all day the previous day AND I have been sitting at a desk for 3 years doing basically nothing athletic haha). At that point I stopped caring about what my arms were doing and just kinda let them do what they wanted while I focused on not collapsing. Reed thought it was pretty funny how they would flail about as I hiked. This picture is the least embarrassing of the arm flailing ones.

Also to help my jelly legs Reed started pulling back on my shoulders as we walked haha (he’s a great hiking partner). It looked VERY bizarre but it actually helped so much! It made it feel like I was just walking on totally flat ground haha. We thought it was so funny though that we had to set up the gorilla pod and take a picture.

Reed, on the other hand was about as happy as can be throughout the entire hike:

However, towards the end of our hike, even Reed was pretty exhausted. I’m obviously so tired I don’t even know how to make a “tired face.”

Though I was too tired to really enjoy any views at the time, I’m sure glad Reed still took pictures and forced me to take some because I have been able to enjoy this hike much more looking back on it from the comfort of my bed :-).