Km today : 27
Km remaining : 35
Nice breakfast and nice day of sleep. I was ready to hit the trail and this time again with some company. My sister and dad will hike with me to l’Etivaz. Me met at the train station and after a little flat the trail went uphill to the Eggli mountain. At least it wasn’t too hot because everything was wet and the sun blocked by some clouds. We reached the mountain station of the cable car and had a short break there. Then we hiked another kilometer to an alp hut where I drank a fresh grass of milk. The farmer and cheese maker showed us the inside of the 18th century hut and how he was making cheese. He makes cheese every day in a large copper cauldron above a firewood. We were even able to try the local made cheese. After this second break we went to our today’s pass called “Col de Jable”. The trail was nice but it does then a small detour on a ridge which wasn’t easy to hike on. But it had fun calcaire stone formations to hike through. We eventually reached the pass who serve also as a symbolic language border between swiss german and french. It was also the border were I left the Canton of Bern and entered the Canton of Vaud. A few minutes later as we were starting our hike down the valley, we were hit by a rain and hail storm. We took protection und an unused barn and waited for the hail to pass and the rain quantity to get lower. We also had our lunch break there. Then we hiked through the slippery forest down to l’Etivaz. We saw a lot of black salamander on the way. The rain then stopped and we had an ice cream and beer break at the small village. I bought another beer a the cheese store and as dad and sister to the bus to get back home I continued the trail to Château-d’Oex. It was nice and almost warm on the way down. I saw a cowboy competition on the way and instead of country music they were playing Metallica. O finally reached the train station of Chateaux-d’oex at around 19:00. It was a long but nice day. I won’t hike tomorrow because of the bad weather and so will try to end the Via Alpina on day 20 together with my mom.
Day 19: I was I’ll today but hopefully it will be over tomorrow.
Via Alpina Day 18 : Gstaad to Château-d’Oex
