Author: Mark

Oeschinensee selfie

Today we drove up the Kander River Valley to Kandersteg and then took a cable car up the mountain to reach the Oeschinensee (Lake Oeschinen). The far side of the lake abuts sheer cliff walls. I swam (cold!) and then we hiked down to Kandersteg.

This was the second lake, the Tannensee. 15 years ago we visited these as part of a 4-lake hike, but we were younger then. On our way down we bought some local mountain cheese– delicious!

Today we took a gondola up to Melchsee-Frutt to hike around two alpine lakes. This was the first, the Melchsee.

Today we went to the Höllgrotten (the “Hell Grottos”) caverns. They’re small but only about a 20-minute drive from home. I was surprised there were caverns in Baar because it’s not exactly mountainous. We also did a pretty 6 km hike through the woods alongside a river.

Morning mountain: Zugerberg with its view of Lake Zug. More of a hill than a mountain really, but I like this one because I can simply hike home from it. We went early to beat the heat and the clouds helped, but it was still super humid.

Objective-C dinosaur at the Ruinaulta. (For the record, I haven’t actually written much Obj-C in the past year.)

After swimming, we hiked to get a view into the Ruinaulta, the Rhine river gorge (aka the Swiss Grand Canyon). Any cooling provided by swimming was swiftly nullified under the summer sun.

This morning we swam in the Caumasee, Lake Cauma. Favorite alpine lake swim yet!