A sunny Friday
morning dawned in Reckingen, after our unexpected epic hike to theGrathorn the previous day, and both our legs and the weather forecast
suggested we take things a little easier. We did briefly consider
relocating once again and pushing on towards Interlaken over the
Grimselpass, however, we still had hopes of exploring the northern
flanks of the Goms Valley, and possibly even seeing the Aletsch
Glacier once again, before making that journey. Also, after a
whistlestop tour of Zermatt and Saas Fee, the prospect of staying in
one place for more than one or two nights appealed to us. However,
with heavy rain predicted to arrive at some point in the afternoon,
we decided to rest our hiking boots for the day and instead take a
bike ride along the banks of the Rhone.
The Rhone river
runs all the way from the Rhone Glacier, threading it's way through
Switzerland before meandering all the way to meet the sea at the
Mediterranean after flowing for more than 800km. For intrepid
cyclists seeking an adventure it is possible to follow the river all
the way from the spring at the Rhone Glacier itself right to the sea,
an epic cycle path which just happened to pass within 10 metres of
our very own motorhome (right through the campsite). With the morning
sun lighting up the valley we decided we would head upstream the 10
miles or so to Oberwald right at the head of the Goms and maybe even
cycle uphill a little way towards the village of Gletsch which
nestles in the hills at the point where the tongue of the Rhone
Glacier reached to several hundred years ago (it has now retreated a
few hundred metres uphill and out of sight, but remains one of the
largest in Switzerland).
The going was easy
along the river, snaking away from the banks occasionally with the
odd short climb to wake us up, but nothing too strenuous and we rode
side by side in the sunshine enjoying giving our legs a relative
break. Reaching Oberwald in under an hour and with the sun still
holding we opted to push onwards and upwards, joining the road to
climb from 1368m to 1757m over the next 6km. After our exploits in
the French Alps, we thought this should be a doddle.
In reality several
weeks of not cycling coupled with some very long recent hikes had
maybe eroded our cycling muscles more than we expected, however, we
enjoyed the climb. With gentle switchbacks up the wooded hillside,
with the gradient rarely exceeding 5-6% we kept a steady rhythm and
arrived in Gletsch within the hour to find a very small, historic
collection of buildings, a large hotel and a museum. However, the
view is entirely dominated by the cascade of rocks where the glacier
used to sit, their smooth, rolling contours mimicking a glacial flow
so well it almost hides the fact the glacier has retreated. Also
revealed from Gletsch are two highly impressive Swiss feats of road
construction, the Grimselpass which climbs away towards Interlaken
topping 2164m and the even higher Furkapass towards Andermatt which
reaches 2429m. It was the former we planned to take in just a day or
so and the view left us a little nervous for our small motorhome.
Sadly, before we
could contemplate cycling even higher (now that we were warmed up
after all) the forecast rain began, initially a light drizzle but
soon persistent spitting and the clouds hid the passes from view. It
was time to head back. Whipping down the chilly descent to Oberwald
we did escape the rain momentarily, but on the flatter path by the
Rhone it soon caught us again and after a solid hour of pushing hard
we arrived back at the camping soaking wet.
However, every
cloud has a silver lining and this one came in the form of a very hot
welcome shower before we whiled away a rainy afternoon planning our
next hike with better weather predicted for the morning.
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