There are just some places that are great to go with your spouse. Beaver Creek is one of them. It’s such a beautiful place. We took the weekend to spend without the kids at the Park Hyatt, which is one of our favorite places. The hotel is great, but there are lots of fun things to do there. Soon after we arrived, we headed over to eat dinner at Splendido. The food was wonderful, but the best part were the souffle’s for dessert. They were ridiculously good. Our dinner was a great way to start our awesome weekend trip.
One of the fun things about being around Sara’s parents is their love for biking. It’s great to have grandparents who are active and want to go out and do things. There are lots of great trails by their house like the Murdock trail, the Provo Canyon River Trail, and then long loops through the mountains to make sure that your legs will be burning and your lungs weeping. Sara, Franz, and Mike did the Alpine loop, which is a stunning, beautiful climb around Mount Timpanogos. The trees and scenery are stunning. Sara flew up the climb and proved that she is still Queen of the Mountain. Coming down, Franz went so fast it was a little unnerving to try to keep up. That man has no fear. It was a great ride. Another great ride we did with all the kids was biking up the Provo River trail to Vivian Park. It’s a great ride and just a beautiful river with great scenery. The kids did great. At the top of the trail, there was a park for Madeline to play at with her siblings. The best part, of course, was that the way back was all downhill. Downhill makes for happy kids.
Any vacation wouldn’t be complete without some silly long hike. Mount Timpanogos seems like a straightforward hike, and for the most part it is, but it is a long, long hike. The waterfalls, wildflowers, and stunning views make it all worth it. Peter and Andrew basically raced up the mountain, proving that it's really annoying to go hiking with younger people with good lungs and springy legs, but we kept up with them pretty well. Emerald Lake was beautiful and there were mountain goats just hanging out alongside the trail. Crossing the snowbanks was tough, but getting to the summit wasn’t too bad, especially since we’re pretty used to the altitude. The views from the top were perfect. It was a beautiful day to be in the mountains. The real beast was coming back down. It’s just a long, long way by the time you get back down. The entire hike was sixteen miles round trip. Sara ran down the last couple of miles and the boys spent time just enjoying all the waterfalls. Afterwards, it was a race to IN-N-OUT for everyone so we could refuel our bodies. It was such a great hike, but one we would pay for with sore legs for the next couple of days.
written by Mike One of my favorite things to do in life is go hiking. So it was a great day to be able to get up early and hike with my best friend up Y mountain. Bonus fact, it was also the place of our first date. It was fun to hike up the switchbacks, take in the views and just sit and talk and look over the world. Plus, we did it all before anyone else really got up in the morning. There’s something great about being up in the mountains and watching the sun come up on the world. Makes you grateful that you were around for another year to take it all in. Later on that day, we had doughnuts and opened presents. I’m always happy when I get a surprise for my birthday. For years, I have been coveting a new Taylor guitar. It was pretty great to be surprised with a new guitar for my birthday, super fun to play with great sound and great action. Abby was a sport because her birthday got delayed until we got to Utah. I think it paid off for her in the end and it was worth the wait. Great food and good times. Birthdays are about being with family, laughing, and eating too much frosting.
written by Mike Mike and I decided to head up to Staunton State Park for a new adventure ride. We left early in the morning and arrived at the State Park in good spirits. It was a little cool when we left but the initial climbing at the beginning of the course helped warm us up quickly. We rode a big clockwise loop starting with the Staunton Ranch Trail. This steady uphill climb was mostly a rather wide single track. The trail was incredible with amazing views. This trail eventually dumped us onto a service road that took us up a short distance until we met up with the 4-way intersection. We took a left and headed on the Marmot Passage Trail. This was a pretty spectacular section of the loop. It was a steady uphill climb for almost a mile that brought us to the top of a beautiful lookout that overlooks Lion’s Head. The top was mostly a rocky section and I was having so much fun navigating the rocky section that I didn’t even stop at the top to see the views. The rocky descent was super fun and reminded me a little of biking Slick Rock in Moab. Once at the bottom of this little section, we decided against doing the Chimney Rock and West Meadow Trail and instead bypassed this section altogether by riding up the Bulging Elk Trail that looped back around and took us back to the 4-way intersection. This time we headed on the Border Line Trail and put our bodies to the test on the hardest climb in the park. We climbed for about 1.2 miles. It was grueling at times but definitely doable. We made the short trek up to the overlook and took that as a much-needed break. The views were something else! As we continued to descend, we headed onto the Mason Creek trail and just loved biking through the Aspens and other tree sections. We were diverted to the Bear Paw Trail for part of it as a short section of the Mason Creek Trail was closed for rejuvenation. There was another great overlook at the top before the super fun descent all the way to the bottom. This was probably the coolest ride we’ve done in Colorado by far. It was such a beautiful place to bike and only an hour away from our house. We will definitely be coming back here to bike, hike and camp!
The last time we biked Rampart Reservoir was almost 6 years ago. We decided to ride it again, now with more experience on the mountain bike. We decided to go counterclockwise, although part way Mike informed me that this direction was much harder than the clockwise loop. Great. We were already too far into the course to turn around and go the other direction. The first few miles were tough with many impassable sections. It felt like we were off the bike too much. The saving grace on the first section were the incredible view. I guess that is really why people keep coming back to bike this place. The course isn’t always rideable but the parts that are can be really fun and the views on a sunny day are pretty amazing. We finished the 11.57-mile loop in 2 hours and 10 minutes and then headed to Rudy’s for some yummy BBQ.
With our XTERRA Beaver Creek triathlon only two months away and still scheduled to happen both Mike and I spent a great deal of time this month getting in our biking, swimming, and running. Luckily Flying Horse opened up their swim lanes by reservation only on May 11th. We swam three days, biked twice and ran 3-4 times every week. We had fun swimming together and biking at Red Rocks, Stratton Open Space, Black Forest Section 16 and the occasional road bike on the Cottonwood Creek Trail. It has been nice to have a race to work towards, even though in the back of our minds we know at any time it could be cancelled. What’s even better is that we have been able to train together. I’m so glad Mike and I like doing the same things! BIKING RUNNING SWIMMING For Mike's birthday this year I booked a weekend away to Beaver Creek at the Park Hyatt for some relaxation and outdoor adventure. Since the weather was a bit colder than we had anticipated, we left our mountain bikes at home and planned on doing some hiking instead. We left on Thursday evening and got to the resort a little after 9pm. The hotel was exactly like I had remembered it a year ago with some slight updates to the lobby. We headed up to our room, which we got upgraded to a suite, and turned on a movie and ordered room service while Mike finished up some work from the day. It was nice to just sit and watch TV together before drifting off to sleep. The next day it was so incredibly cold and snowing and so we decided to sleep in. We ate a very yummy breakfast in the hotel restaurant before walking over to the Allegria Spa to check out their services. We booked a massage for the following day and then grabbed our coats from our room so we could head to the village to do some shopping. We went into the various shops and didn't buy much except for a cute pair of ski socks for Madeline. We stopped at Rimini's for a warm ham and cheese sandwich and a Nutella and banana crepe. It all tasted so good. After a few more shops, and talking with some pretty great locals, we headed back in the hotel to grab our suits so we could spend some time in the outside jacuzzi. We love sitting outside in the jacuzzi when its cold and snowy outside. There is just something so magical about it all. The rest of the day was spent napping and relaxing before heading to dinner at Hooked which is a seafood restaurant. We ate the most delicious Japanese rolls. They were like no other rolls we had ever eaten. Then we headed out to find some yummy dessert. We decided to drive down to Vail to grab some dessert at a local Ale House. It wasn't quite up to par but that was ok because the fries we had were delicious. Then we headed back to the hotel and grabbed our free s'mores kit and headed up to the room to eat the chocolate and go to bed. It was much too cold to actually go outside to the fire pit and roast s'mores. The next morning, we woke up to cold temperatures but sunny skies. We ate another fabulous breakfast and then headed out on our hike up to Bear Lake. We took the Bear Lake trail which followed the creek. It was awesome to be able to hear the creek alongside the trail almost all the way up to the lake. Most of the trail was snow covered with the snow that had fallen the day before. It was actually really great to hike in the snow. The hike up to the lake was relatively easy and we enjoyed being together. It was super peaceful up at the lake and we enjoyed playing with two little birds who enjoyed our crumbs. We decided to head back a different way and took the Overlook trail which had us venture across the various slopes. It was pretty spectacular hiking through dense forests before popping out on the open slopes only to cross and then hike once again through another set of trees. This went on for quite some time and eventually we lost count of how many sections we went through. As we looked at our watches it became clear that we needed to pick up the pace if we were going to make it back in time for our 3:00pm massages. At one point we actually started running on the trail when we could. With only 15 min before 3:00pm, we were getting desperate to find a short cut back. So, like idiots, we decided to get off the wooded trail, and just walk/run/slide down the last sloped mountain straight back to the hotel. It was kind of crazy going straight down the mountain. Mike used his hiking poles and glissaded down some of the snowier sections. We just laughed and laughed all the way down. We made it back to our room with only a few minutes to spare. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting pampered and then relaxing in the 5-Step Aqua Sanitas Water Sanctuary. It was the perfect way to unwind after our 8-mile hike. After showering and getting ready for the evening, we headed down to the bar in the lobby area and ordered the most amazing appetizer while we killed time waiting for our dinner reservation at Mirabelle's. We ordered the Cheese and Charcuterie Platter and it was DELICIOUS!!! Then it was off to Mirabelle's to eat some tasty French cuisine. It was the perfect way to end a pretty perfect day and a pretty fantastic getaway to Beaver Creek! Of course, it snowed throughout the night and when we woke up to go home it was all snow covered. That was pretty magical! I really do think there is nothing quite like doing something fun with your spouse. Mike and I both love many of the same things. One of the things we love to do that is easy and pretty accessible from home is biking together. We have really tried to take advantage of this great weather to be outside together. We decided to head out on our road bikes to bike from our house all the way to Costco via the Cottonwood Creek trail and the Santa Fe trail. The only major roads we had to cross were Briargate and Union Blvd. We road Royal Pine from our house across Briargate and once we popped out onto Austin Bluffs, we got right onto the wide sidewalk which turned into the trail at Woodmen. We biked all the way through the new section (which is AWESOME) and stopped at the Crit Café at the Criterium bike store. It was so amazing to sit outside on the patio sharing a burger together. I couldn’t think of anywhere I would rather be than spending quality time with Mike. Thank you, Mike, for lighting up my life with adventure and your amazing presence.
Back in the spring I found out that Billy Joel was coming to Denver to perform in August. There was no way I was going to miss out on this opportunity to see one of my favorite singer/songwriters of all time. I grew up listening to Billy Joel and watching his incredibly fun and entertaining music videos on laser disc. I remember sitting with my brother, Greg, watching those laser discs over and over again. Since I didn’t delay in getting tickets I was able to get some pretty great seats on the floor. Mike and I ended up making a date getaway to Denver and spent the evening at the concert and then stayed at the Ritz Carlton for the night. We got upgraded to a suite which was awesome. Thank you Platinum American Express card! We ate dinner at Elway’s at the hotel and then headed on over to the concert at Coors Field. We were pleasantly surprised at how cool it was to be so close on the field with the floor seating. We walked around and got a closer look at the stage before the concert started. We’ve both been to many concerts, but I think this was probably one of my favorites. Everything about the concert was perfect from the stage set up, to the great set list of songs, to the hilarious comments made by Billy Joel, and of course being there with Mike. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend our anniversary this year than to watch Billy Joel and stay the night in Denver together.
On a normal summer day, Quandary is a miserable slog up boulders (like most 14ers) and a line of neophytes trying to cut their teeth on a tall mountain. However, this was no ordinary summer day. Instead, we went early in the season while there was still plenty of snow on the mountain. We arrived at the parking lot early in the morning, only to find a moose hanging out right by the road. A good omen for the rest of the hike. The start of the hike wound up through beautiful forests and it was cool with the promise of sun. By the time we reached tree line, it was clear we would be in snow to the summit. Perfect. The snow was firm, so there was no post holing and we climbed quickly into the clear morning ski. Denverites were wondering who the speedy little kid was that was passing them, and all I could do was puff out of breath for someone to tell him to slow down. In the end, Peter would make it to the summit a good 30 minutes before me. The climb was excellent, and we had our spikes on as we made a straight line to the top. We stayed at the summit for about 20 minutes, had lunch and then headed down. The best part was that there was snow covering all the big nasty rocks, so we could glissade all the way back down. On our way, we saw mountain goats playing in the snow. It was quite the site to see. Once back to treelike, we ran back to the car (Peter because he can, me because I had to). It was a great climb with lots of wildlife, clear skies and good memories. So glad to have a cool kid like Peter who likes to be out in the mountains. It makes all the hard work worth it.
I love Father’s Day because the weather is warm and sunny, and we get to celebrate Mike. He is hands down the best husband and father to our family. I don’t know how he does all he does and still comes home with a smile on his face. He is frequently seen spending time with the kids, making time for me, cracking jokes and keeping us all informed of things going on in the world. It is not uncommon for him to tell us random facts too. We all feel smarter when we are with him. His talents are beyond anything I have ever seen. He is kind, smart, hard-working, skilled, patient, dedicated, and so incredibly handsome. I’m not sure where we would be without Mike. We are definitely lucky to have an amazing man in our life.
Mike and I were so excited to do a half marathon together in Las Vegas. We flew into Las Vegas on Friday evening and my parents picked us up at the airport and had our numbers waiting for us. Since we came in too late for the Expo my dad picked up our numbers when he picked up his own. Mike and I stayed at the Waldorf Astoria hotel since it was kind of a race/birthday weekend. We got into the hotel, made our massage reservations, and ordered the most fabulous chicken and spaghetti dinner to our room. We got up at 2:30am and were out of our hotel and into an Uber by 3:00am. We met up with my dad at the bus pickup and then we all rode the bus up to the starting line. The weather was perfect. We got to the starting area in enough time to go to the bathroom and warm up. With 10 minutes before race time Mike and I headed to the starting line. When I realized that the start was further down the road than I thought I started to jog. I made it to the front of the startling line with 2 minutes to spare. I was going for a PR today of sub 1:30 so my miles needed to be no slower than 6:50/mile. I started out running in front of the 1:30 pacer group. They kept going ahead of and then behind me for much of the race. I eventually tagged onto the tail of a really tall guy who was running the pace I wanted to hold. We didn’t talk but it was good to have someone to run next to. The first 9 miles were all at 6:40 pace and I felt awesome. As we made our way further down the canyon and sun started shining on our faces, I used my tall friend to block the sun from my face for 4 miles. It would have been perfect if he hadn’t stopped to use the bathroom at mile 8. Still, my body felt good and I wasn’t breathing hard. I made sure to thank him after the race. I continued on with a fantastic pace until mile 10 when the course took a turn upwards. That mile and the two after were a bit slower than they should have been. Miles 10-12 were low to mid 7’s. I had banked enough time that I knew I could still break 1:30 so I mustered all the energy I could and started to pick up the pace for the last mile of the race and clocked a 6:56 pace for the 13th mile. My official time was 1:30.19 for the Revel Mt. Charleston Half marathon but myself and several others clocked the course as long by .10 so my adjusted time is 1:29.43!!!! I placed 2nd in my age group, 7th woman overall and an overall 47th out of 1988 runners! This was the fastest half marathon I’ve run since I was 20 and pre 5 kids. Mike and my dad both ran great races considering they were both injured. Both came in under 2 hrs. Mike finished in 1:56 with an injured knee. He amazes me! This was his first race in over a decade. Afterwards, Mike and I went back to our hotel to eat, sleep, get a massage and sit by the pool the remainder of the day!
I decided to tag along with Mike to Atlanta while he participated in an ENT conference. We brought Madeline along with us and left the boys at home while the girls stayed at the Garlocks for the weekend. We stayed with John and Amy and had a great time hanging out with them. John and I were able to go on a 9.3-mile trail run together at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. It was such a great run and also very challenging. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and watching General Conference together while enjoying Amy’s cinnamon rolls. After Mike got back from his conference we all headed to the town of Rosewell to eat at a cute little southern restaurant called Roux On Canton. We had fried okra and pickles for our appetizer, which was very southern. On Sunday we watched some more General Conference, ate more cinnamon rolls and went for a walk around the neighborhood. On Monday Amy and I took Madeline to Stone Mountain. It was decorated for Halloween, which was fun. We took the Sky ride up to the top of Stone Mountain and walked around on top. Then we came back down and rode the train with Madeline. Later that night, Kyle and Natalie watched Madeline while Mike, John, Amy and I went to the Simple Minds concert. It was so much fun to hear some of those songs we grew up hearing. On Tuesday we headed to the Atlanta Aquarium with Madeline before getting on our plane home. Madeline LOVED the whale shark and kept calling it Destiny from the movie “Find Dory.” It was fun to walk around the city of Atlanta before heading on our plane back home to Colorado. STONE MOUNTAIN SIMPLE MINDS CONCERT ATLANTA AQUARIUM We were up early and packed for the airport. We set out to explore Zurich. We walked down the main banking street and found the most amazing little souvenir store. Too bad everything was so expensive! You could blow some serious money in a place like that. We then grabbed an Uber and headed to the Lindt factory for some chocolate indulgence. When we stepped out of the car, the air was heavy with the smell of chocolate. Sara was instantly in heaven and freckles started jumping off her arm and heading directly for the chocolate store. It’s hard to explain how wonderful Lindt chocolate is in Switzerland, but they must feed the cows cocaine because it is magical stuff. Magical. After spending unreasonable amounts of money on chocolate, we headed back to old town. We wound our way through back alleys and little shops. We walked along the river. We heard an amazing string quartet and heard the church bells chime one last time. The bells heralded the end of our Swiss adventure. We grabbed an Uber to the airport. We got our passports stamped and indulged ourselves in the Priority Pass lounge. We hopped on our Edelweiss Air flight. There were empty rows in economy plus, and because we had upgraded we each got our own row to ourselves, away from the noisy family and their kids screaming in economy. The service was impeccable. The direct flight was easy. We arrived in Denver and breezed through customs with our global entry cards. Traveling right is the only way to travel. Myisha greeted us at the airport and soon enough we were back in the minivan heading down the highway. We were excited to see our kids. Excited to be back home, but a piece of us will always long to sit in the crisp mountain air, eating chocolate and croissants and talking about nothing in particular while the mountains stand silently above us.
It’s easy to get up in the morning when you know that bread, cheese, jam, fresh juices and other wonderful goodies await you. We were up early because we wanted to be out on the trail and up the mountain early on the train in case we had some good weather. We weren’t prepared for what we saw after breakfast. We finished packing our bags to drop in the lobby, had our day packs ready to go, when we walked out onto our veranda and were completely dumbstruck by the site of the Matterhorn. It was giant and majestic as it towered over Zermatt with a commanding presence. It was hard to believe that the mountain had been there this whole time, shrouded from our vision by the clouds. It was immense. It was regal. It was the perfect finish to our long journey.
We rushed out of the hotel and over to the cog railroad to make our way up to the Gornergratt. The views from the train up the mountain were outstanding. With each turn of the cog the views grew more immense. More peaks. More glaciers. More expansive views! Soon we were above the clouds and the majesty of Zermatt was on full display. Any of the views along our hike were worth the trip, but this place blew them all away. It’s hard to even begin to describe the immensity and the grandeur that surrounded us. To be able to see this on a perfectly clear day was a great blessing. We road the train with a wonderful older couple from Palo Alto. It was fun to see how blown away they were by the views as well. We arrived at the top of the Gornegratt and ran like giddy kids on Christmas morning around the top of the mountain to take pictures and take in the panoramas. We were on top of the world and witnesses to the immensity of God’s creation. Everywhere we looked, we could hardly believe what we were seeing. The Matterhorn was just one majestic peak among the glaciers and precipices that culminate in this part of the Alps. It was awesome. After spending time taking it all in, we hiked back down the Gornegratt to Riffelsee, where there are 2 lakes that reflect the Matterhorn. Picture time for Sara! Yelling at people to get out of the picture for Sara and getting a picture with a Toblerone in front of the Matterhorn was priceless. After a morning of visual delight, we headed back down the cog to our hotel. We gathered our belongings and headed to the train station. Riding first class is the way to go. We headed down to Visp, and then got on the bullet train to Zurich. It passed through the mountains, by Interlaken, and then to Bern. Soon enough, we had left the Alps, the pastoral side of Switzerland and were in the banking capital of Europe. It’s hard to believe that in 2 hours we were suddenly somewhere so far away. We walked from the Zurich Central train station along the river to our hotel. The front desk clerk was from Portugal and was amazed that Mike spoke fluent Portuguese. It’s worth noting that everywhere we went, the service in Switzerland was amazing. It blows the service in America out of the water. The hotel overlooked lake Zurich and the old town. Dinner was a traditional Cordon Bleu and ridiculously tasty apple filled crepe with ice cream. How were we going to go back to America and eat normal food again? Of all the places that you don't want it to be rainy, Zermatt is one of them. Fortunately, this was a down day with no traveling needed, so we enjoyed a nice breakfast (hooray for bread and cheese and fresh juice!). After breakfast we hiked through Zermatt and went shopping. It was fun to spend time in each store and find something unique for each of our children. We hiked through to the top of the town to the chair lift that takes you up to the glacier. There were people going skiing. Zermatt is one of the few places you can ski year round because they ski down the glacier. We ate lunch at a little coffee shop in a back alley and had Lindt hot chocolate and a Brie sandwich. It was pretty decadent. After a day of shopping, we went back to the spa and just sat around in the hot tubs and lounged around in the spa. It was great to have time to just do nothing. Too much of life is spent in doing too much. Sometimes, you have to just take time to do nothing.
After an afternoon of doing nothing, we headed out and had pizza at an Italian brick oven pizza place. Since Italy is just a short cable car away, the Italian food is pretty authentic and pretty good. After dinner, we ate crepes and talked with the guy who worked there who was from Germany, but came to Zermatt to work and to snowboard since you can board all year long. Sounds reasonable to me. We strolled back to the hotel in the rain and enjoyed a great nights sleep. Gruben! No need to hang around here for long. Breakfast was early in the morning, so we got up, put our bags out, got our hiking stuff on and grabbed some breakfast. As soon as breakfast was over, we headed out and UP! We were one of the first groups out of the hotel and we hiked with speed up the mountain. We hiked up and up, and up some more. We had to go from the valley floor all the way to the Augstbordpass. The start of the hike was through beautiful pine trees that helped distract us from the fact that we were going straight up. We continued up and up through the mist toward the Augstbordpass. We were glad that it wasn’t raining. We came upon a heard of cows that were sneaking in and out of the mist. It was kind of cool to hear the bells and then see a cow pop out of the mist. The trail got steeper and we had to go up over some steep rocks. One of the annoying American couples was gaining on us, and we were determined that they would not pass us and beat us up to the top of the pass, so we huffed it. We hiked as hard and as fast as we could to the top of that pass and we beat them to the top. Suck it young, fit American couple with no kids!
The top of the Augstbordpass was very misty and we headed quickly down the other side into an avalanche of rocks. The hike down was ridiculously hard and crazy. I imagine the views on a clear day are spectacular, but hiking through these impossible rock paths in the mist was somewhat awesome. The trail was really quite amazing. Definitely don't want to fall off the side of this mountain. Eventually, after quite a long hike on the rocks, we made it to a little town up in the mountains. We came into a courtyard area with fountains and a pond. It reminded me of a scene from Legend of Zelda. We looked for treasure chests, but there were none that we found. It was starting to rain and we headed over to the cable car….which was closed. We deciphered the timetable and it seemed that at 1:00 PM it would open back up. Since everything in Europe closes during lunch, this seemed like a safe bet. Some other hikers passed through and were inpatient and started the 1.5-hour steep hike down to St Niklaus. We waited and were rewarded with an easy ride down the mountain to St Niklaus. The guy from Portland was in the cable car with us. It was so great not to have to hike down the steep trail (and it was ridiculously steep). We figured that one of the girls in the group that didn’t wait probably pushed the guy off the mountain during the hike down because he didn’t want to wait. Wrong move for sure. Plus, we got to see the drunken fat French guy running the gondola. He was one drink away from death. Good to know we were in his tender care as we moved down the mountain over impossibly steep cliffs. In St Niklaus, we looked around the town for a few minutes and then caught the train up to Zermatt. The train ride up to Zermatt is so amazing. The German conductor guy wouldn't accept our transfer tickets, so we had to pay, but it was just so great to be on a train. We arrived in Zermatt and it was rainy. Zermatt is a big tourist town, so it was full of people from all over the world with their luggage and stuff. We were back in civilization. Just a few hours earlier, we were in one of the quietest places on the planet and now we were back in civilization with credit card machines, trinkets, and train schedules. Although it is great to be pampered, there is something wonderful about being alone in the mountains. We hiked over to the Hotel Ginabelle and plopped down onto our luxurious beds. It was definitely nice to be back in comfy beds compared to the Hotel Schwarzhorn. Dinner was phenomenal and over the top. The Swiss take food seriously, and it was wonderful to have a great meal after hiking in the mist and the rain. Every hike we did on this trip was fairly strenuous. Wonderful food is a great reward for hiking over the steep passes between the valleys. Breakfast was wonderful and we sat out on the veranda taking in the majestic views we were starting to take for granted. We left the Hotel Bella Tolla and headed up to the Funicular where dozens of hikers were eagerly awaiting the quick trip up the mountain. We were very glad to not have to hike up from St Luc. We hopped off the Funicular and started our ascent to the Cabana Bella Tolla. We decided to take a slightly longer route to the Medipass by going to the lakes and around. The thing that struck us about this part of the trip was that it was almost completely silent. As we got closer to the Medipass, there was absolutely no sound. No birds, no cowbells, no wind, no cars, no people. It was as quiet as any place we had ever been in our whole lives. You could spend all day here just being quiet out in the grandeur of the world. It’s amazing that something so big can be so quiet. The hiking was rather easy and a pleasant change from the immensely steep climbs of prior days. We made it to the Medipass and clouds were moving in so we ate some lunch at the top and then headed down the trail to Gruben. We had made it into the German speaking part of the Swiss Alps. No more pleasant French conversation, just harsh German that neither of us could understand. The hike down into Gruben was fairly steep and we were thinking that Gruben was going to be this horrible place but it turns out that Gruben was quite a delightful town sitting on a little river. At the hotel, we had ice cream sundaes on the veranda looking out to the mountains and the river. It was SO good. We both got our own. The hotel Schwarzhorn where we stayed was more like a hostel, then a proper hotel, but it was great to have a place to stay and the showers were warm. How people do this trip staying in huts is beside me. Hotels are definitely the way to go. The mailbox where we mailed our daily postcard noted that August 31st would be the last day for pick-up this season. Winter is coming!
Dinner was in stark contrast to prior dinners. We were grateful for dinner, but we missed the delicious food of days past. There were lots of hikers here because there were no huts so all the hut hikers and hotel hikers converged into one space here. We quickly determined that Americans are loud and mostly annoying. There was an investment banker from Portland that we said hi to….we would see him randomly for the next 3 days in different places. A rest day! What a marvelous idea. Breakfast was not in the dining room, but rather in the 2nd floor salon. It was as decadent and over the top as the dinner the night before. All the usual assortment of goodies was found in abundance with the addition of crepes! The best part was the stacks of oranges that you could cut and then juice. There is nothing better than truly fresh orange juice in the morning. Why can’t store bought juice taste like this?! After breakfast, we headed out into St Luc, grabbed some food for lunch at the Boulangerie, and made our way up to the Funicular. No one puts the fun in funicular like the Swiss! The Funicular takes you straight up the mountain in just a few minutes. It's hard to imagine a train going up something so steep, but it does, and it does it quickly. We hiked up to the Cabana Bella Tolla and took in the ridiculous views. Is beauty of this magnitude even legal? Form there, we came back down and went to the observatory where there was a large nerdy man in a Space Invaders T-shirt who just happened to speak perfect English. We were able to look through some special telescopes directly at the sun and see the corona as well as the solar flares erupting off the sides. We also learned what causes sunspots and could look at the sun through the use of other special telescopes. It was pretty fun to see. A little science can be fun, but not too much. We headed back down the Funnicular and to the hotel and spent the rest of the day in and around the Spa. We spent time lounging around the spa, got massages, and bought some souvenirs in town. In Europe, you have to be careful, because like Japan there are swimsuit parts and naked parts to every spa. Overall, the water pressure, the relaxation, and the food were welcomed changes from spending all day on our feet hiking over steep mountains. Dinner was again a delight of service and cuisine (although the mustard dish was a little much), and it was hard to believe that we had to leave this beautiful place for more hiking. Why can’t life just be like a perfect day at the Hotel Bella Tolla?
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