Interlaken

Miles from Home - 5214.51
Firsts / Highlights - Near miss with riding a zip line, near miss with being hit by lightning, Grindelwald, Top of First, seeing Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau peaks, hike to Bachalpsee
Miles Hiked - 10.45 miles
Vertical Feet - 871 ft.
Route - View Today’s Route Here
People - Just me.


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This post is from July 1, 2009.



My second stop in Switzerland is Interlaken. I didn’t have any strong reason to choose this city other than lots of people saying that it is a fun place to visit. It is a little lower elevation than Zermatt, so it is a bit warmer, but it is surrounded by huge Alps like Eiger and Jungfrau.

I had heard that Interlaken is the adventure sport capital of the world, but I wasn’t really sure what that meant. Right away upon arrival, I started to get the picture. There are many outfitter companies here that offer excursions for sports you are unlikely to have ever tried, and some you probably didn’t know existed. Here are some of them:

White water rafting
Parasailing
Paragliding
Hang gliding
Canyoning
Bungee jumping
Canyon jumping
Skydiving
Zip line
Zorbing

All of these activities are on top of the independent sports you can do, such as hiking, in the high mountains. The comprehensive transportation system includes trains, busses, aerial trams and funiculars which makes access to the mountains inviting.



Combine specialized sports with the generally high cost of doing anything in Switzerland, and it looks like Interlaken may be a great place to have fun and spend a lot of money. I am going to attempt to do the former while keeping the latter under control.

You may not have heard of some of the sports that are done here.

Parasailing – is like water skiing, but you use the wind pulling a parachute rather than a boat for propulsion.

Paragliding – is like hang gliding, but you hang from a steerable parachute rather than a fixed wing. You take off like a hang glider by running off a steep hill or cliff. No airplane is necessary like skydiving.

Canyoning – there is no firm definition for canyoning, but it is a combination of several crazy things you can do in a canyon. They include rappelling down waterfalls, jumping off rocks into a river and sliding down rock formations like a water slide.

Canyon Jumping – is like bungee jumping with the added element of being inside a canyon.

Zip line – is another name for a Tyrolean Traverse. You connect to a steel cable with a harness and slide down the line. There is a particularly steep zip line here that covers ½ mile in 45 seconds reaching a top speed of 84 km/hr. It drops 200 meters over the course of an 800 meter run (25% grade).

Zorbing – is rolling down a hill inside a double-walled inflatable ball. The ball protects you like a Mars lander.

Some of these look intriguing, a few don’t.



I started the day by taking the train to the high Alps just outside Interlocken to a town called Grindelwald. From there, I bought a ticket for a gondola that went to the top of First (First is the name of a mountain, not “#1”). The unusual thing about this gondola was that it had 3 angle stations that redirected the line as it climbed up the mountain. Two were sophisticated decelerate/reaccelerate stations where you could unload, and one was a simple redirection with only a cable change (no decel/accel). Once at the top, it was my plan to do a hike to Bachalp Lake, then take the zip line from the top down to the next station before riding the gondola back to Grindelwald.

I was excited to try the zip line because we have talked about installing one at Steamboat for a number of years. This one was by far the longest, steepest and fastest that I had ever seen, so it was a chance to see what is possible with such an attraction. Other than being particularly steep, the other thing that made this one unique was that it had 4 parallel lines so that multiple people could ride at the same time.



As I was approaching Bachalpsee, I saw that some dark clouds were coming over the ridge and that afternoon rains were inevitable. Since I wanted to be sure to get the zip line ride in, I turned around early and headed back down to the top of the First gondola (top of the zip line). I beat the rain back and thought I was home free. I went to the platform just in time to see a couple of guys take off. It was a rush as they kicked open the retaining gates and quickly accelerated to over 50 mph.

I was to be next, but just before the harnesses could be returned up the line, the rain started. The operator told me that this happens every afternoon. She said that since they could not operate in the rain, I should go to the restaurant and wait it out. I did.

Returning to the platform after the rain, I found the operator looking confused. They had been unable to restore electrical power or communication after the rain passed through. If the top and bottom stations of the zip line cannot communicate, the system has a fail-safe that prevents it from operating. They eventually concluded that the line had been hit by lightning during the rain and that they would not be able to get it functioning for the rest of the day.

So close. One adventure sport attempt foiled. I was disappointed, but at least the lightning didn’t take out the gondola, which would have meant a 3-4 hour hike down in the mud.