A few cautions: "First" is the last stop to get water for 24 hours, if you’re planning on spending the night at Falhorn. So fill up, and buy extra water if possible – drinking water is very expensive at Falhorn. Also: I think Falhorn is the highlight of this hike, but it would be even better if you get a private room, which are supposed to be very difficult if not impossible to get. I’d suggest booking this room as early as possible, and then planning your trip around it. We called about three weeks early and were only able to get a bunk room (yuck, see below).

This was going to be a long day, and I woke slightly nervous about the possibility of climbing 1,000 meters. When we were sitting at our kitchen table, planning this trip, 1,000 meters seemed like it would be hard but no problem. But the 300 meters we did on the first day seemed almost hard enough, and at times I wondered who planned this vacation! But we were off to a good start—an all you can eat breakfast at the Rosenalui (which we had to eat quickly, to catch the early bus), a good bus ride to Schwarzwaldalp, and then the climb.

Climbing in the Bernese Oberland, while still climbing, still had a variety that the Valais didn’t. You didn’t simply ascend for half a day. We broke up the day into 200 or 300 meter chunks, and after those chunks you had a bit of flatness to coast on. The first third of this hike was beautiful – through some pine forests and along some rolling streams that reminded me of the sacredness and specialness of Lake O’Hara region in the Canadian Rockies, and the alpine meadows we loved in Jasper. Forests were rare in this part of the Alps, making this a very different way of hiking for Harold and myself. We’re used to enjoying a varied ascent through the woods, and then suddenly—after hours of hiking, rather like magic – you emerge above the tree line at an overlook. In Switzerland, we were practically always above the tree line (a fact Harold realized a little too late after the left side of him got sunburnt on day two). But the cool thing about being above the tree line is you often could see the trail that you’re supposed to take, winding around and through the mountains. I loved seeing our path spread out before us, like the yellow brick road or something.

The steady climb, for me, is such an intense, meditative and harsh experience—but it was easier than I expected, since in part I had no choice but to keep climbing up with 20 pounds on my back. Toda I learned how to hike very slowly, thanks to the older Swiss people that I observed. The pause slightly after each step and take frequent breaks—you rarely see them out of breath. I love climbing like that.

The wildlife in Switzerland is rather domesticated (or farmcated?)—cows, sheep, and today we crossed a pig field and had the cutest pigs charging at us through the mud. I like to think that they ran towards me in particular because they knew I would never eat them. They seem to especially like licking our hiking poles…and then suddenly they all collapsed to the ground on their sides.

Two other special treats: Harold began spotting wild blueberries in the bushes, using his eagle-eye that he developed from following a little white golf ball across the sky while playing golf. Though the berries weren’t what we call filling, they were little bursts of sweetness that kept us going ….and then we met our friendly German friends, Claudia and Sabrina. As I mentioned, people our age were sparse. And the Swiss people tend to keep to themselves. And there was also the language barrier—Harold and I had taken 2 years of college German, and tried to dig the German language out from our depths of our brains before we took off, but we were definitely not up for conversing. So we began playing leap frog with Claudia and Sabrina—we caught up with them, they caught up with us for the first 1/3 of our hike today. They were wearing jeans, and carrying packs as large as ours, which made us feel a little better about our burden. We ended up having a nice conversation with them at Falhorn, and ran into them several more times in the next few days. It was comforting to see a face we recognized in a foreign country.

This was all on the first third of our hike. Then suddenly, once we turned onto the high route towards First, we hit the crowds of Grindewald.

It was funny—when reading trail descriptions, and people mentioned the touristy nature of Grindelwald, I thought I wouldn’t mind the crowds. Because they were Swiss crowds, different than our crowds, and we knew we weren’t coming to the Alps for wilderness, but rather for beautiful mountain scenery and good hikes. But I’m very glad we listened to the Lieberman’s and decided to avoid entering Grindelwald—there were enough crowds above Grindelwald as it was. There is some energy to be had from hiking amid crowds, but after a while the energy deadens and I just wanted to be able to appreciate the beauty by myself and a dozen others. There’s a technical complication to all the people too—sometimes the trials aren’t wide enough, especially on an ascent or descent, and though those assenting are supposed to have the right of way—tell that to the group of school children who charge down the path, forcing us to step aside as we were huffing and puffing up an incline. It takes up so much more mental energy when you aren’t allowed to get in the zone of climbing and just allowed to focus on moving one step in front of the other.

On the other hand—it was cool that so many people were outside, enjoying the mountains and being active. This part of the trail to first was relatively flat and easy with good views. We saw tourists in jeans and impractical shoes, we saw families, we saw hikers with good boots, we saw school groups, and a few people like us with packs (though, for the most part, we definitely won the large pack awards). I love the fact that in Switzerland hiking is for everyone, into their old and older age. That said, if possible I would have started on this trail earlier perhaps, to avoid the crowds!

First, a bustling place with a lift descending to Grindelwald, had a ton of birds and was also a great place to stop and have lunch and prepare for the climb ahead—they also sell highly recommended nut pastries here.

The last third of the hike today was the ascent to Falhorn. We had been able to see the Falhorn Inn on and off since First —an isolated building on the top of a crag. The clouds were beginning to come in, and sometimes swallowed Falhorn Inn, and sometimes spit it back out again. On this portion of the trail, the crowds thinned somewhat as the trail steepened, but there were still groups of hikers coming down from Schynige Plate (the hike from Schynige Plate to First seems immensely and unendingly popular, a reason to leave Falhorn Inn in the morning as soon as possible, to have the trail to yourself for as long as possible). The crowds didn’t diminish the beauty of the Bachalpsee (a pristine lake), or the cows that posed in front of the lake, or the view we got every time we turned around.

The ascent from Bachalpsee to the Faulhorn Inn was brutal and steep, but we expected it. A piece of hard candy helped me midway through to garner the energy to get up. The constant “Grutsi” was wearing, so I decided not to greet anyone (and I hoped they understood why) as I thrust my head down and plodded up. Harold tended to sprint up mountain sides as quickly as possible, while I generally took it as slow as I needed to not start hyperventilating (that’s how the Swiss hike, after all!).

Once I reached the almost top, Harold was waiting for me to admire the view--incredible, incredible mountains. And we were almost in the clouds, which were clammy and wet and not quite as pretty as they are when viewed from a distance. I was dismayed to find out that there was still more climbing to do - a hard 10 minute windy ascent towards this little shuttered building (swallowed up by clouds at this moment) which would be our home for the next night.

It felt revelatory to reach the picnic tables outside the Inn, which have to be one of the nicest spots to sit and read while the sun is setting. I had wanted to get to the Falhorn as early as possible, since I thought maybe a double room would have opened up, or maybe they assign beds as a first come, first serve basis. No double rooms had opened though, and they didn’t let you check in (if staying in the dorms) until 4 or 5. Falhorn really only has one common room—a room where you eat, drink, and unfortunately smoke. We bought tea for 4 Francs a cup (ouch!), but it tasted wonderful, as our bodies tried to relax from the hard ascent.

The Falhourn Inn: the location of one of the worst nights of sleeps I ever had, and a place where you can witness one of the most incredible sun sets and sunrises above the clouds, on the peak of a mountain. An inn where I ate a large plate of potatoes (plain Rosti) and was rather hungry afterwards, and a place where there was no drinkable water in sight (they melt glacier waters for the sink water, which is undrinkable). A place where there was no where to go if you couldn’t sleep, where they laid out the dorm sleepers like sardines (God forbid if it was a full house—luckily the dorm room we slept in was about 25% full, which seemed crowded enough).

This was my first experience with the Matratzenlager, which I expected to be like the dorm rooms I’ve stayed at in hostels – bunk beds, widely spaced across. Maybe each bed would have a little reading light even. Maybe you’d have a separate mattress from that of your neighbor. No such luck. None of the books could prepare me for stepping into the dorm room, and seeing not bunk beds but large slabs of mattresses, where you slept on a narrow space that has your number on it. And there were two floors of this in a tiny room, wrapped around a tiny open space in the middle which could barely fit four people standing, and that tiny open space was already filled with a group of older men trying to find room for their backpacks. I had already read there’s no need for modesty here—the rooms are co-ed, and you need to change your clothes and no one really stares at anyone else here. But I wasn’t prepared for the amount of people they could cram into one room (about 42), and how there was barely separation between you and your neighbor.

Some people might be able to get a good night’s sleep in this environment, but I wasn’t.

That said, the Falhorn was one of the highlights of the trip, and I’m also glad I will never have to re-experience that sleepless night of listening of neighbors toss, turn and snore, as I tried to stuff the earplugs further into my ears (they didn’t seem to block out any of the sound!). But the views were unmatchable. We were lucky enough to have the clouds part before dinner, and to see the 360 panorama of the mountains. But latecomers climbed up in clouds, and the clouds stayed put (parting briefly during dinner, causing half the room to rush out when the sun shot through, but the clouds came back quickly enough). But we were in for the most beautiful unset I’ve ever seen. After dinner, everyone gathered on the highest point at the Falhorn Inn, this little knob of rock behind the inn, and stood around and gasped as things grew dark. It was pretty chilly, everyone in hats and gloves, but I had never been above the clouds until now. Above the clouds, the sunset was a line of light orange—and just the highest peaks peaking out of the clouds like sea serpents. I felt like quite the mountaineer. I thought this is probably a view humans aren’t supposed to see (should we really be up so high, overnight?). It was an incredibly special moment.

After the sunset, everyone gathered into the dining room to sit and read, or talk (at least, those of us in the dorm rooms gathered there). We got to converse with our new German friends, who had taken an incredibly harder route to Falhourn, and were trying to replan their vacation to do easier trails. Writing in my journal that night, I thought about hiking in the wilderness of the U.S. made me always think how vast the world as, and how small and unimportant we are (it’s you, sleeping in a little tent, amid really large empty mountains). Here in Switzerland, hiking seemed man conquering nature, and humans were everywhere. Even when we were climbing away from the lifts, the roads, and the little villages, there were still the cows with their ringing bells and Swiss army fighter planes up ahead rehearsing dog fights. Hiking, while stunning, wasn’t as humbling here.

The dining room closed at 10:30 or 11 p.m., and then it was staring at the dark ceiling in the dorm room, listening to others snore…