I left the hotel at 7.30 and walked out into a cloud. After saying goodbye to the murmeltiere I had some trouble finding the path - it's hard to look for markings further on if all the further on is covered in cloud. But I found it, and the path quickly starting zigzagging down the mountain. Within 30 minutes I was below the cloud. I saw two chamois and a wild murmeltier on the way down. It took me an hour and a half of steep descent to get down to Gletsch, which is nothing but a train station, an empty hotel, a closed museum, a tiny church, an Alpkäserei and for some reason a sort of food truck that sells hotdogs and drinks. The only building whose purpose was unclear was empty and had broken windows and I didn't see a single house. It's like a ghost town. I did find a spot somewhat more out of the wind than most places and took a short break before starting the climb up to Furkapass. And I saw a steam locomotive moving to that train station.
I was very tired while climbing, really felt like dropping off to sleep right then and there. As I climbed it got colder again, and the wind didn't help, nor did the fact that where I was going was hidden in clouds. I kept reminding myself that every climbing step I took brought me closer to my highest point for today, and every meter climbed was one I didn't have to climb again. But when I came to the bottom of the steep climbing, an hour before the pass, where there was a lot of horizontal space (holding old bits of railroad) I decided to take a break, make myself some tea and just rest for a while. And then a steam train came up and stopped before the tunnel. I watched as a sort of pushing cart was attached to the back of the train and the train waited until another steam train came out of the tunnel, at quite some speed, and then the first train went into the tunnel.
In the meantime, the sun had been coming through and the clouds were breaking exactly where I was going.
When I started climbing again, I felt much better. Maybe I just hadn't drunk enough, the half a liter of tea really helped. Quite impractical that not drinking enough makes me feel sleepy instead of thirsty. I saw around 6 murmeltiere on the way up from 2120 (trains) to 2431, Furkapass. One even did its warning whistle, and that's a lot of volume for its size. I also met a bunch of sheep. Sheep are funny. They're curious and when you stand still they come closer to about 3m, but when you take and extra step they all scatter away.
On the Furkapass I got stubborn, wanted to get higher than 2431 and climbed a bit extra up to 2465. All the while looking at the motorcyclists and tourists in cars and wondering why they were taking pictures of each other as though it was an achievement to be on the top. I was clearly the only one who had walked there.

When I went on the path went up to 2457, so maybe I hadn't needed to be stubborn. But it got me a great view.
Down was a bit boring. The first 300m were very steep and sometimes demanding; then another steam train station (the other side of the tunnel). After that it was at least an hour of gradually downsloping meadow, not much to see (except two small lizards), the same mountains on either side of me that were blocking any view on anything else. Beautiful, but as nothing changed I got pretty bored with it. But then the last hour the path went up and down again, was more demanding, had plenty of streams I had to wade through, and suddenly a beautiful waterfall that I completely forgot to take a photo of.
Again, there were the steam trains, and then I finally got to the normal train station in Realp. While I waited there I watched cars going off and on the car train. Then I took the train to Andermatt, where there's a campsite. Finally I'm sleeping in my tent again. All those hotels are kind of necessary at the moment (I don't have winter camping gear with me, way too heavy), but also weird, I prefer camping.

Geschreven door Jewaontheroad