This year, we have tried some new walks and sought to avoid the same old paths. Sometimes though the familiar routes are the best. This morning, for the second time in the last few weeks, I went to the Murren side of the valley and took the Allmendhubel path.
There was a queue at the cable car in Lauterbrunnen, so it was quite late in the morning and already pretty warm by the time I made it to the start of the walk. The first half an hour or so doesn’t get any easier. In the trees, the path is a tangle of knotted roots. Above the tree line, the sun pins walkers to the mountain side. Still, it was as quiet and as beautiful as always, with wonderful views across the valley towards the Eiger.
The long hot, dry period has changed the view though, with the mountain tops shorn of snow and looking bare and brown. There is thunder in the weather forecast for the next week, and some rain of course, but the autumn needs to be much wetter and colder.
In a few days, the Idle Skiers are heading for London, where just at the moment it is hotter and drier still.
Idle thoughts from a mountain 