The Stockhorn Is a Peak in Switzerland with Clouds and Closed Trails

This is back in May.

Went on a two-week trip to Switzerland (to see Thomas and Christine) and Germany (forthcoming). The flight to get there was kind of ricidulous, but I should probably let that sink down the memory hole and instead remember the trip up to the Stockhorn.

So this is what I did the first day I was in Switzerland. This wasn’t too far from Bern, where Thomas and Christine live (for now). We took the train out to… some town. Erlenbach apparently. Then headed up to the tram with the idea that we’d head up to the top of the mountain, then hike down probably to the middle station, then tram it back down. But then it turned out that the guy at the station said that all the upper trails were closed for some reason, even though it was difficult, once we were up there, to see what this immediate danger was (avalanches supposedly). Whatever. I didn’t take photos to capture “the experience” per se. My bad. Was living in the moment.

It was pretty and the clouds broke for a bit, which was — different for Switzerland. I dunno. I’ve been there twice in five years and still am not sure where the mountains actually are what with all the clouds.

There are actually two trams, though. One goes to the middle station, then the other goes from the middle station to the peak. Both were crammed full of people in a way that seems like wouldn’t happen in Europe, but apparently totally does, at least at the higher altitudes. The second tram was particularly high off the ground.

During the journey, Thomas and I had compared our experiences of having a kid and dog respectively. In particular, we’d noted that, when you have your kid/dog around, random people constantly come up to you wanting to share their experiences with their own kid/dog. As I always say, having a dog is exactly the same as having a kid and I reject all comments to the contrary. Anyway — we took the top tram back down to the mid-station after enjoying the partially cloudy (but pretty awesome anyway) views and took a hike around that area. We stopped for lunch somewhere, at which point a Swiss woman, whom I’d noted as having a foreign guest with her, came up to Thomas and said, Oh, I have an American with me too!. The two of them seemed to connect on a deep level.

So: Americans are apparently the kid-dogs of Switzerland. I guess we could do worse.

bkd