Lack of Blogging

I haven’t been blogging lately as there hasn’t been too much to report. I returned to work at the beginning of August after three weeks off in July. This is the start of my second year at a school for children with autism. Matt’s work schedule has been a little less hectic with so many people on holiday. He’s been coming home around 5 every night, which is a lot earlier than usual. August has been a low-key month for us but it’s been nice.

Hiking the Aletsch Glacier

Last weekend Matt and I went hiking. We drove about two hours to the small village of Fiesch, which is in the eastern part of Switzerland. Our goal was to hike along the nearby Aletsch Glacier. We spent Saturday afternoon exploring the town and figuring out the details for our hike over a few Schneider Weisse beers at a little beer garden. I prepared for the hike by eating my entire pizza at dinner on Saturday night. I got a few looks from the other restaurant patrons as I made my way through the entire thing. I could tell Matt was pretty impressed too, as he was kind of speechless when I put the last bite in my mouth. I knew I was going to need the energy for the next day! (Note from Matt: I don’t know if “impressed” is really the word I would have used.)

We started our hike on Sunday morning by taking a 15 minute cable car ride up a mountain to another village. This was Millie’s first experience in a cable car but she handled it like a pro. Once we got out of the cable car we started hiking. We got a slow start as we stopped to watch the parasailers taking off nearby. This is a very popular area for the sport. The sky was speckled with the colorful sails throughout the day. We also saw a hang glider crash. He must have been a beginner because we saw him take off and he looked out of control from the start. He barely missed the cable car wires before he crashed. He wasn’t injured but I don’t know if the same was true for his glider. It made a lot of noise when it crashed into the rocky ground.

We were doing a six hour hike but it was labeled as ‘easy,’ so I thought I’d do okay. About an hour into the hike I started wondering who labels these hikes because we were going straight up for a long time. When they say ‘easy’ do they mean for people or for mountain goats? We made it through that section but it was tough. Matt said I only complained a little during that part so definite improvement for me. I actually had some mountain goats following me on the trail for a while. It would have been embarrassing to get passed up by some goats, so luckily that didn’t happen. They must have stopped more often to eat grass than I did to take a water break (which really was a ‘stop so I can catch my breath’ break).

We felt the cold from the glacier before we could actually see it. Once we turned the corner and finally saw it, it was really impressive. The pictures don’t capture how massive it was. The glacier was just so big with these deep crevices in it that were aqua blue. It was a beautiful hike. Click on the picture and it will show other pictures from the trip.