Getting there …
I really feel blessed having made such good relationships with so many colleagues during my career. It is always nice to keep in touch – even if it is not on a regular basis.
I spent quite some time working for an account located in Switzerland, this is where I met the colleagues that I spent the weekend with at Riederalp end of September 2018.
The idea and planning was accomplished by my former manager who owns a very nice flat in Riederalp that is also available for rent, Chalet Abendrot on the ground floor.
I decided to travel one day ahead by car to Basel and sleepover at my friend’s house which is like staying at a zoo 🙂 – you’ll find horses, cats, dogs, rabbits, fish, birds, turtles.
His wife and him are so welcoming and warm-hearted that I really enjoy to stay there.
So the next morning my former boss’s boss picked us up and we started the route towards Riederalp. I was really excited as I’ve never been to that area of Switzerland before.
We took a route via the car transfer train at Kandersteg to Lötschental. This was my first car train ride in Switzerland, feels still quite strange to sit in the car on a train in the dark :-).
We parked the car in a garage in Mörel and took the cableway to Riederalp – I forgot to mention that this area on the mountain is car-free – only electric vehicles can be found up there (including E-MTBs). There is one crazy thing about this cableway – changing at the middle station happens “in the air”, there is a concrete tower with a lift, the cableway stops there, ladders are extended and people enter or leave the cableway in some meters of height – never seen something like that before.
Three of us arrived in the afternoon, another colleague joined a bit later.
The evening was spent with exchanging what everyone was up to in the last 3 years, eating Raclette, and playing a super funny parlor game called Brändi dog.
For Saturday a hike was on the schedule.
A hike to Gletscherblick
We left around 10 AM, the air was fresh and some fog didn’t want us to enjoy the mountain view at the start of our route.
After having heard so much about the Aletsch glacier, I was nervous if the fog would be kind enough to go away and let me and my camera have a closer look on it.
The fog turned the landscape into a mystical natural spectacle.
The colors of nature on that day were amazing, thanks to the mist the green and red shades presented themselves stunningly and gave the view a surreal momentum.
The hike was partially quite steep but the trails were fantastic. I took tons of photos of the glacier while we were moving on.
Finally, I also got a nice view on the famous Matterhorn.
The day before my friends where just pointing to the direction were the Matterhorn normally pitches out of the mountain range – and I was very disappointed as it was covered in clouds.
We some when arrived at the restaurant and decided to have a lunch break.
Above the restaurant we saw the summit cross of the Bettmerhorn and quite a bunch of people taking the hiking trail up there.
I was not able to convince my friends to join me for the hike but I decided that a hike with a summit cross is going to be the icing of the cake for the day. While the gentlemen enjoyed coffee and cake, I climbed 30 minutes up on an adventurous path with small climbing sections and ladders.
We took the cable way from Bettmeralp to go down and walked the rest back to the apartment in Riederalp.
Stoneman Glaciara
When we were hiking, we met quite some people on (e-)mountainbikes riding the trail downwards.
I found out that part of the Stoneman Glaciara route is up on the Bettmeralp, so next time I’ll come here, I’ll make sure to bring my enduro!
A Sunday with mountain cart fun
For Sunday, we decided to start going back home around lunch time.
To finish with an event to remember, we went for a mountain cart ride.
Since I know these three gentlemen it was always fun time when we spent time together during e.g. team events – I recall skiing weekends, crazy tobogganing, curling, city fox hunts, lunch in a tram, swimming in the river Rhine … so it was really never boring.
I had to laugh a lot and loud ’cause these carts are really fun to ride but if you go too fast they are also not so easy to control.
We all came down the hill safely and everyone enjoyed the ride.
Afterwards we called it a weekend – it was decided to repeat the event – and there’s not much more left to say than THANKS Bernard, Clement, Dani – it was a blast – and I had fun again remembering the weekend while writing this post!!!
jelisu 
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