7/6 Hiking makes your butt muscles hurt!

We all met downstairs for breakfast at 8. It was included in the price of the hotel (thank you baby Jesus!) and was actually pretty decent. The waitress was super sweet and brought me some really good hot chocolate. We then all went back to our rooms to pack our backpacks for the day.

We made our way down to the tourist office where we got some info on the gondolas and trains that go up the mountain. Everyone but Combes and I decided to take a 78 franc train up to one of the really high peaks. There was no way I was gonna drop that much cash flow on a train ride (it was the equivalent of about $95...) so I decided to do a different and less expensive train ride the next day to a different lower mountain.

Everyone else took off on their excursion and Combes and I asked a lady at the info desk about some hiking trails. We decided to do one called Trift which was a 2 Hr 10 min hike up and 1 Hr 5 min hike back. It sounded reasonable. Ha.

We started up the trail. It was pretty level with only a little incline. But then the incline started to get steeper. And steeper. And steeper. And it never seemed to level off! Along the way we ran into a group of goats. They had pretty crazy looking horns and us city slickers weren't sure if they were aggressive. A lady we met along the way said they weren't aggressive and that we can basically push our way pass them, which we did. We continued up the hill, but every turn kept getting harder and harder. We took many breaks along the way to rest in the shade. We then discussed the reasons we might be ill equipped to finish our hike to the top that never seemed to end: we didn't have the right shoes, we didn't have water, we didn't have sunscreen, we didn't have the right clothing, and we didn't have cool Nordic walking sticks that everyone seems to have here.

After hiking for about an hour and a half, we decided to throw in the towel; we ate our snacks and then headed back down the mountain.

We were relieved when we got back into town and then back to our hotel. A while later we went back to the pub we had eaten dinner and got sandwiches and stopped by a market to get cheap cans of off-brand soda. After scarfing my food, I took a nap.

Everyone else returned from the hike a few hours later. They had great pics of ice glaciers because they were so high up in the alps. They had done some hiking and really enjoyed their day.

We had dinner around 7 in Bruce and Renee's room: cheese fondue, salad, sausage, bread, olives and watermelon. The cheese was stinky but tasted great! Plus, it's fun to eat dinner with a fondue fork! We finished the night by playing the game of things and bananagrams. At about 10 pm I took my sore butt and legs to bed.