Alpine Ambles

Feather-sized flakes of snow floated down from a pewter sky as my two-car train hooked up to a cog engine at Interlaken, Switzerland. The rails, rising through the final mountain passes into the Bernese Alps, were too steep for a conventional train to climb. Snow muffled the clank of couplings and dampened the whir of steel wheels as we got underway again. The higher we climbed, the more the weather seemed to close in, and I wondered if it was snow or clouds that I saw outside the window.

My wife, Patricia, and I were among the few passengers who hadn’t checked skis or a snowboard when we boarded, so we were able to swing our luggage down from the overhead rack and head straight to the hotel when the Berner Oberland Bahn train (BOB, for short) pulled into the station at Grindelwald, 3,400 feet above sea level. As I stepped off the platform, I immediately sank into 8 inches of light fluff that was glistening in the sun. The colossal peaks of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau rose to the south, their summits naked white chunks of rock and ice. To the north were the peaks of First, Schwarzhorn and Faulhorn, only slightly less daunting. I was getting worried about spending the next day walking those ridges.

Grindelwald has long been the summer hiking capital of the Bernese Alps, but in the ‘80s it began to groom trails for winter hikers. Now this network exceeds 30 miles of snowy trails. We decided to begin with a five-mile trek, on a trail that opened in 1985 and stretches between the nearby villages of Bussalp and Bort. It was said to be an easy trail, but taking no chances I chose the direction where the elevation at the end was 700 feet lower than at the start.

My wife and I are both walkers and had heard about Grindelwald. At age 50 I don’t want to take up skiing, and have seen too many skier friends end up in casts. It was March, the low season, when prices fall in notoriously expensive Switzerland; we were also able to snag cheaper airline fares. So we flew to Zurich, spent a few days there, then took the train to Grindelwald.

The town, about 100 miles southwest of Zurich, is built along one small road, with quintessential Swiss storybook architecture: small in scale (nothing seems to be higher than three stories) with sharply pointed roofs, exposed timbers and gingerbread trim.

After reaching Grindelwald, we rode on a postal bus--part of the Swiss system that also operates as the local bus service--from the village center as the road took a corkscrew route to Bussalp. Then I spied a contraption that looked like a hybrid snowmobile and farm tractor plowing across the landscape. The English-speaking bus driver explained that it was a grooming machine for the hiking paths, and its operator had just finished packing the fresh snow, creating a 6-foot swath through trees and across broad pastures.

We took our first hike on that trail, which cut like a belt across three mountain bases, offering us a succession of stunning panoramic views, the highest alpine peaks lining up as if posing for a family portrait. We were a little apprehensive about snow-trekking on trails that went up and down at elevations of a mile or more, but were pleasantly surprised to discover how easy most of the walks seemed. We didn’t set any speed records as both preteen and elderly hikers passed us on the trails. The snow beside the trail was pocked with tracks--weasel, squirrel, birds--and the delicate undulate marks of the chamois, a small antelope common in the Alps.

About a third of Grindelwald’s winter visitors come to hike (the rest to ski), so we were never alone on the trails. Besides European tourists, there were lots of locals--out there every day walking their dogs--but we spotted only one other American on the trails during our five-day stay. People nodded greetings as they passed, or as we passed them seated at one of the overlook benches to enjoy a snack and the view.

Based on my experience snowshoeing in New England and Quebec, I expected bone-chilling cold in the Alps. As it turned out, daytime winter temperatures hover within a few degrees of the freezing mark, and my sheepskin coat was far too warm. We couldn’t keep up the city pace of our daily walks at home, but when we reached the gondola station at Bort, three hours had passed on what is supposed to be a 2 1/2-hour walk. I chalked the difference up to stopping for photographs, munching chocolate bars and shedding layers of clothing.

Grindelwald has more than 50 hotels, ranging from one luxury choice to guest houses and home stays. The nicest hotel in the village is the elegant Grand Hotel Regina, where many rooms feature whirlpool baths and double rooms begin at $375 during high season. But we didn’t want to spend the money, nor did I feel comfortable in a hotel where I would feel compelled to slip on a suit jacket to have coffee in the lobby.

We ended up in the Schweizerhof Hotel, a few hundred yards away from the village center. The posted rate during the high season--Christmas week through February--is about $285 for a double room with breakfast and dinner. We settled for a small, utilitarian room in the back, and to our delight discovered that the skylight above our twin bed revealed a view of the Eiger’s summit when we awoke. Our room was a budget offering by the Schweizerhof’s standards--$135 a night.

The Schweizerhof fairly defines gemutlichkeit (German for coziness) even though, at more than 100 rooms, it’s a large hotel by European-ski-village standards. The ground-level dining room and bar at the Schweizerhof were the most sedate in Grindelwald. While the Grand Hotel Regina had a string quartet entertaining the diners at its upscale Italian restaurant, the Schweizerhof guests dined and drank to the strains of a zither player strategically situated in the lobby so he could be heard in both the dining room and the bar. He had a far-reaching repertoire of classical and popular tunes, and after one evening at the bar, I found it hard to get “Edelweiss” out of my head.

After all that walking, each evening we easily polished off a hearty meal in one of the village’s restaurants. I didn’t anticipate the uncanny similarities in Grindelwald to ski areas in the U.S. and Canada. All up and down the main street were tiny places offering fajitas and tacos, “Chicago-style” pizza and English fish and chips. But we were determined to dine on some Swiss specialties.

On the advice of a woman at the tourist office, we went to the Memory Restaurant-Bar in the Hotel Eiger. The restaurant is long, deep and dimly lighted; we entered to the sounds of a crackling fireplace and boisterous, animated conversation. We tried the fondue, and besides the traditional bread cubes for dipping into the melted cheese, it also came with tiny boiled potatoes. Thanks to the food and relaxed atmosphere, the Memory became our favorite eatery. On another visit I enjoyed a creamy, slightly sour fondue into which I dunked small roasted potatoes, and for another occasion, when I ordered cheese raclette, the waitress brought the entire slab to the table and sliced a melted portion onto my plate.

We sampled other Swiss specialties at the Central Hotel Wolter. In the afternoons, its outdoor cafe swarms with young hikers and skiers enjoying coffee or beer, laughing and chain-smoking in the fashion rarely seen in the U.S. By evening, the crowd is more mature and better dressed. The hotel’s restaurant, with its kitschy electric candelabrum, appeared to be the only one in Grindelwald with fresh vegetables. After starting with a crisp salad with yogurt dressing, we dined on homemade sausage with rosti (a shredded potato dish) and onion sauce on one visit, and on another we enjoyed rosti with fried egg, bacon bits and melted cheese. Fortunately, snow hiking burns a lot of calories.

After the first day, we never had trouble planning our hikes because we met a trail bum who happened to be the bartender at the Schweizerhof. A fanatic all-seasons hiker and climber, Michael Fogels knew every trail on every mountain in the area. He was so pleased to find an American snow hiker--even a novice--that he explained the complex ski transport network of lifts, buses and trains that can also be used to reach the trail heads. It was a pleasure to learn that most trails begin and end at one of the mountain stations where Swiss, German and French skiers gather on outdoor terraces to soak up the winter sun and quaff beer at the end of the day.

The groomed snow trails offered very solid footing. At one point I stepped off the trail to get a closer look at some animal tracks in the woods and immediately sank in snow above my knees. After that I stayed on the trails. At a few spots I wished for snowshoes, if only to get around slightly glazed patches on south-facing hillsides. Later I bought a collapsible walking stick, an $80 investment that was worth every penny. Having such good footing let me concentrate on the surrounding scenery. The mountains seemed to change at every turn of the trail: a sudden outcrop of rock swept bare by the wind, a sharp crevasse on one side softened by a deep blanket of snow, an undulating bowl where a signpost told me a lake was hidden.

For our final hikes, we took the longest gondola ride in Europe--a terrifying 45 minutes with the car swaying 500 feet above ground--to reach Mannlichen, followed by a three-hour walk to the Kleine Scheidegg rail terminal near the base of the Eiger’s sheer north face (the one Clint Eastwood dangled off in “The Eiger Sanction”). Having devised my own standard of trail difficulty, I figured this translated into an entire “Choco Fitness” bar--a Swiss concoction of trail mix and milk chocolate that can be rationalized as a necessity for endurance.

If we were lucky, Fogels had told me, we might see a herd of Steinbock. These large-horned, sure-footed mountain sheep are particularly well adapted to the narrower portions of the trail, which becomes a ledge cut into the side of a mountain chain at 7,000 feet. I stuck to the inside edge of the trail, marveling at the Eiger (elevation 13,025 feet), which loomed larger with every step.

Kleine Scheidegg itself was a letdown, a typical ski village filled with neon-decked young athletes, a lot of bars and hostel-style lodgings, plus vendors hawking sunscreen, to which I succumbed. It’s also the railhead for the train to Jungfraujoch, the highest rail station in Europe at 11,332 feet.

Those cushy train seats looked terribly inviting after our three-hour trek, so we hopped aboard. The track burrows through the Eiger and the Monch. After an hour of slow travel, the train reached an observatory at the end of the line. While most of the tourists aboard stayed in the observatory gift shop, we walked through underground caverns to the opposite side of Jungfrau mountain and went outside to look down on the Aletsch glacier. The view was majestic, but the presence of fellow sightseers wearing street shoes and light jackets made it seem anticlimactic.

So we hurried to catch the next train back. We remembered that Fogels had said there was yet another trail from Kleine Scheidegg four miles down to Wengen that we could finish before nightfall. And then we would settle down to another warm, hearty meal.

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GUIDEBOOK

Alpine Footing

Getting there: You can fly from LAX to Zurich on Swissair, Delta, KLM, American and Lufthansa airlines. Round-trip fares start at $498. You can travel from Zurich to Grindelwald by train. First-class fare is about $100 one way; second class is about $63.

Where to stay: The most luxurious hotel in Grindelwald is the Grand Hotel Regina, telephone 011-4133-854-5455, where many rooms feature whirlpool baths. Room rates for doubles, with breakfast, are about $250-$500. The Hotel Eiger, tel. 011-4133-853-2121, is in the village center and has an excellent restaurant. Rates for doubles start at about $220. The Schweizerhof Hotel, tel. 011-4133-853-2202, is in a quieter location. Room rates for doubles, with breakfast and dinner, are about $240-$365. Another option is the Central Hotel Wolter, tel. 011-4133-853-2233, where double rooms start at about $150.

Information about lodgings can also be found on the Grindelwald Web site, https://www.grindelwald.ch. For more information: Switzerland Tourism, 222 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 1570, El Segundo, CA 90245; tel. (310) 640-8900, fax (310) 335-5982.