For the second day of hiking I decided to hike up to Gornergrat and take the train back down to town. On paper this should have been an easier hike than the previous one, but that was before I decided to get a little too clever.
The first part of hike climbed up onto a bit of a plateau, after which it mostly levelled off for a while.
Again, I chose not to take the direct route, and instead went for a path with a view of the glaciers.
Once I was most of the way to the top, I stopped at a small lake for a while and then changed my trail plans.
The original path would have gradually climbed the last couple hundred meters following the railroad tracks. I decided that was boring and took a different path that started by going down 100m gradually and then stright up at the end. But, it had the advantage of getting up close to the glaciers.
When I reached the place where the trail started to go up, I met a woman coming down. She said she wished me courage for the climb. The thought that making the climb would require courage scared me a little and made me wonder if I was about to do something stupid. A litle while later I ran into a guy who told me it must be really hard going up, but that it's probably a great cardio work out. In other words, it was steep, really steep, really really steep. Little steps, frequent breaks, lots of time, and a lot of cursing myself for picking the trail, and I did make it to the top. It was hard, but worth it. It always is in the end. I found the highest rock I could to sit down, and sat and watched the glacier for a while. I didn't see anyone else trying that trail. So I sat on top of the rocks and relaxed on my mountain, it was mine,that day I owned it.
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