Little giants

After Nufenenpass and Gotthardpass, it was clear that Maciej and me should not leave waiting Furkapass for too long. Therefore, we (Maciej, Daniel and I) decided to use Swiss national day (1st of August) as an excuse to climb this very nice pass. And not only that -- because Furka is not big enough for one day, the plan was also to attack Grimselpass with a climb to Oberaarsee.

The start was at Realp where we arrived quite late (11am). As far as I can tell, Realp is one of the most train-time-distant places in Switzerland (at least as measured from Lausanne) -- the more time consuming travel is just to the south part of Switzerland (Locarno, Lugano). Although Furka is more than 2400m, climb from Realp is quite short because Realp itself is over 1500m. Moreover, the climb itself is not very steep -- after initial section of hairpins there is a long section with only 400m of ascent.

After Furka, our next stop was Belvedere with views to Rhonegletcher. There we even went inside an ice tunnel in the glacier. The result is that now I know why ice and glaciers in Ice Age movie are always blue. That is because they are blue!

Before we went all the way down to Gletch, we had another stop. This time not scheduled -- Maciej got a flat tire. And he did not have a backup one. Fortunately, we realized that it was compatible with my bike and I had a spare one (actually, I had two spares, just in case). Therefore, we were able to continue to the Grimselpass.

At the Grimselpass, Daniel decided to split from us and go ahead faster (generally, he was much faster than Maciej and me and was waiting for quite frequently). His plan was to go directly down to Meiringen and then "enjoy" a steep ascent to Grosse Scheidegg and down to Grindelwald. Maciej and I stayed at Grimselpass for a while -- I went to visit a crystal "cave" (a collection of crystals from different parts of Alps) and Maciej was having his late lunch. After a pause, we went for our final climb -- from Grimselpass to Oberarsee dam. We were half the way up when, surprise, we met Daniel.  He changed his mind after seeing a map at Grimselpass and realized that the way to Oberaarsee is quite uphill. We said farewell again to him.

Oberaarsee is the second highest (elevation) dam I visited. With surface elevation of a few meters over 2300m, it was beaten only by a Griessee dam near Nufenenpass. With views to the Oberaarchletscher, this was a good reward for finishing our climb. And while you can definitely sit there for a few hours, we did not have so much time and after a I did a short walk (Maciej was lazy), we returned back (with a short stop at Triebtenseeroli lake) back to Grimselpass.

From there, we really enjoyed a 30km long descent to Innertkirchen. To Maciej's horror, the road from Innertkirchen to Meiringen was hiding another climb. It was however a short trip and we quickly managed to get to Meiringen with the bonus that we arrived on time to quickly get into the train in the direction to Interlaken.

For thoso of you who did not climb Furka&Grimse, here are photos.