hut hiking engelberg

My friend Matt and I decided to go hiking one weekend in October. It had already started snowing in the mountains, so we knew we could only go as high as 2000m. We found a "hut" where you can stay overnight and decided it sounded like a fun thing to try so took the train Saturday to Engelberg and started our hike to the hut from there.

 

 

The weather was perfect - very sunny. The snow at the tops of the mountains made for beautiful views throughout the hike.

 

 

When Matt called to make our reservation at the "hut", she said it was a "snowless" hike. This was not completely accurate. Since I still haven't bought hiking boots and usually hike in my trail running shoes, the last stretch of the trail covered in snow was a little tricky, but I managed!

 

Here is our "hut". It is basically a mountain cabin that they've turned into a hostel. There are huts located throughout Switzerland. This one had recently been renovated and was really nice. They served us a three course dinner too! The hut has food and supplies helicoptered in approximately once a month. There were 3 employees that live there and run the hut. It was an interesting experience. I would definitely do it again.

 

My cold beer on the deck after our hike:

 

Watching the beautiful sunset:

 

The next morning we woke up early and hiked back a slightly different trail.

 

beautiful sunday in zurich

October is a very busy month for me at work, so there wasn't a lot of time for travel or other fun activities. One Sunday, the weather was beautiful (but quite cold!), so I decided to walk to the office to enjoy the little bit of sunshine. The view at Lake Zurich was so amazing that I had to stop and take a few pictures. Makes me realize how lucky I am to be here!

 

hornussen

As the winners of the previous team event, me and Paul ("the Americans") were responsible for planning the next team event and we planned to play hornussen. Hornussen (which I had never heard of before) is the sport of Swiss farmers. There is really no way to describe this sport, so just watch the youtube video if you are interested.

 

Me & Claudia - Enjoying some beers on the train there

 

 

Matthias being anti-social on the train ride there

 

This is our adorable old instructor telling Adrian how its done

 



 

Just happy to hit the dang hornuss

It was a cold, cloudy, and somewhat rainy day, but we managed to stay dry and the sun actually came out by the end of the day!



 

The whole team

 

After hornussen, we went back to Burgdorf for dinner in the cellar of a brewery there. After beers and wine, we headed back to Zurich and ended up at Paddy's.