Barbequeue in Grindelwald

"Grindelwald" is a political community of the Berner Oberland, and for my taste it is very high up in the famous mountains. The little town of Grindelwald, which you reach after going uphill for around 20 minutes or so, lives mainly off Tourism, and it is quite strange, finally arriving there, being greeted by mostly Indians and Japanese ususally. (And guests from the Arabic countries recently, the women mainly in their veils, chadors and full-body coats.) But we usually do not stop at the town of Grindelwald, we usually proceed up as close as possible to the Grindelwald Glacier by car, one of our favorite little trips in the Spiez area.

This is the view you get from the parking area, the end of our journey by car. From here you have to walk.

But this does not really matter. The area is great! You can do long tours or just small walks, whereever you go you have a chance to catch a view of the great mountain scenery around you. For me in this area the mountains are so close and impressive! I was here in Winter also and you could hear and see avalanches coming down the steep mountains - believe me, the roar of an avalange thundering down so close in that really peaceful silence is frightening and so special!

One of the nice things about Switzerland is, that there are little "barbeque stations" everywhere in the touristic areas, which means you can go there and put your sausage on the griddle in the middle of nowhere, enjoy it and walk on. Sometimes you just find something like a little grill in a meadow, sometimes you get real houses with restrooms and huge grills where you can rest for hours without any charge and all the luxury of a modern home. Something like this is what you get up at Grindelwald after decent walk. The community does not advertise it very openly, you have to know that it is there, but it is great! This time we decided to barbequeue here.

Stefan and the kiddos on our way up! A while ago the area was still a mountain forest but an avalange last Winter killed it all off. You have an even better view of the mountains now, but it is weird.....

Behind me is the barbequeue station that fullfills all your barbequeuing needs. A little house that protects you from the rain (if there is any), a little wooden restroom, a huge fireplace - and a ranger that brings timber and even little firestarter cubes up to help you with starting a fire.  (Check in the little room on the right hand side of the cabin, you find everything there.)

The place is really cool! We ourselves where the only problem, because we had brought a "Wegwerfgrill" (inflamed easily, but you can just use it once and then throw it away) which had been stored in the cellar for almost a year so it did not work and just produced a lot of smoke. After a while we decided to call it a day and produce some real fire on the REAL barbequeue.

Of course it is a mountainous area and from time to time you see groundhogs and other animals perfectly adapted to their environment. ("Munkies" they are called in Swiss German.)

After we finally had succeded in starting a proper fire some fellow hikers came up to glance at our food, but we were too hungry to be willing to share. And then food at last!!!

This mountain bird was the only one that was allowed to keep us company when we finally got hold of our lunch. He was lovingly decent, happy with tons of breadcrumbs we provided.

And this is what we left carved in wood! Usually we do not do such things, but obviously here it was obviously wanted. So many other fellow hikers and barbequeuers had carved there intitials or names and dates when there were there into the walls of the little house that we did not hesitate to do the same on a very small spot on the left hand side right when you enter. A sign of immortality? I doubt it, it probably will be gone in a years time, because the weather conditions are quite heavy on the place, a lot of fog, storm and humidity will do its share to clear it away. But for the moment all of you that go up to Grindelwald will find a sign there that the Moor family was there! And will come again!

And because it is a rafting area on the way back down we met some rafters who had a great time on the "Zweilütschinen". They were waving and grinning - and probably they thought we were from the agency that led them down on the smashing river. They had a great time - and we sure had a super time too!