On our second weekend in the new flat, we headed back to Braunwald again to try out my birthday present – climbing gear – and went to do some via ferrata climbing.

Below is the start of the short hike from the Braunwald station up to the start of the via ferrata.

I was having some trouble at the start… my newish climbing sticks were having trouble staying open and my point and shoot wasn’t taking pictures on my SD card, so I ended up using the iphone, which was a bit of a pain while climbing.

And while we started without a cloud in the sky, I joked to Kay that when we got to the top we’d be covered in fog/clouds. Well lookie here!

*Shakes fist at mountain* Why?? Every time! Sigh.

At least these clouds were coming and going, but you could see as the day warmed up that air was pressing up from the valley and wrapping around the mountains.

It actually made for nice climbing though. When the sun was out it got a bit too hot, but when a cloud would encompass you, you would be covered in a nice cool mist. It was very refreshing!

Mind you, I was only taking pictures with the iPhone during the non-scary, stable-footing areas. So if you think any of these are scary, imagine what I was doing when I was too nervous to take the phone out for fear of dropping it!

It was actually right before this shot below when we started the red-line (intermediate) trail that there was a part Kay said was a bit “tricky”. Well, apparently tricky to Swiss = freaky to non-Swiss. It was just a little overhang wraparound that had some “tricky” footing and nothing really below it besides a huge drop, so I had some panic moments as I struggled to overcome my fear and find the footing around it.

Of course with via ferrata, you are hooked in the whole time with your two clips, but still… I didn’t necessarily want to fall 10m and hang by some rope and wire with no real footing to recover. That would have freaked me the eff out.

Actually we took a look at the start of the black trail (expert) and I decided that it would be too difficult for me that day, but on the descent we started hearing screams from the black trail. It sounded like a woman screaming for her life, but Kay thought it was a little boy who was climbing with an older man we saw.

Still, it is very disconcerting to hear shrieking echoing around the mountains! It really sounded like whoever it was, they were having a hysterical breakdown.

“Are you OK?” asked my sweet husband intermittently. Usually he asked during times when I was in fact pretty scared and trying to keep going.

Or maybe I was just taking a picture break. 🙂

Those white patches in the back are actually snow. Normally I think the snow is all gone at this level, but we had a really terrible spring and late start to summer, so there was still a fair amount of snow around the top, but not on the trails.

By the way, can you tell that I totally picked out the same helmet as Kay? Matchy matchy. He hates it. 🙂

Panorama view at the top of the red trail, where we decided to have lunch in a nice grassy area.

The way down was fairly steep and there was not so much to grab on to… we actually had to hold onto the wire a fair amount which made Kay nervous. At the very end there was something like a a 30m/100ft ladder to climb down, also suspended over basically nothing, where at the end you would climb to the left and further down. Descending that was also pretty freaky, although less so than the other area because at least on a ladder I know where to put my feet!

Then we hiked back to the cable lift and rode down with these beautiful views.

I love the mountains! Why don’t we visit them more often?

There was also a magical waterfall on the way down. I could almost get used to living up here if it wasn’t so far away from reality.

For now I think we’ve agreed that we should try out some more red lines before I attempt a black line. I’m sure Kay would be fine, but the look of the start of the trail made me nervous. Another day!