What do you do when you are in a picturesque Swiss mountain town which sits on a ledge 2000 feet above the Lauterbrunnen Valley, prepared for a day of hiking, when it starts to rain? If you are Tom, you go for a walkabout – it takes about 10 minutes to walk from one end of town to the other.
If you are me, you write – and hope the weather clears so we can explore this amazing place.
We are so high up fluffy, gray clouds are floating past me as I sit on the front steps of our hotel, 5,361 feet high. The clouds obscure the snow covered peaks of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau mountains. If the Eiger sounds familiar, perhaps you remember the Clint Eastwood movie The Eiger Sanction.
Murren is a peaceful town: traffic-free and filled with bakeries, cafes, para-gliders and base jumpers who basically jump off the side of the mountain with a parachute and pray that it works. There’s no full-time doctor, not one police officer. The “Milch Express” delivers fresh milk and eggs from a cart to hotels and homes in the town.
I met a young guy from Christchurch, New Zealand, on the gondola coming up who was on his way with three other friends to jump again. He said they free fall for about 20 seconds then pull the ripcord of their parachute and float for another 20 seconds to the bottom, then ride up to do it again. Our waitress last night told us that an average of one person a week dies after jumping from here. I’m very glad my adventurous sons never caught the urge to try this. YOLO!!
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