hiking to Harder Kulm

this is the result of my fall along the harder kulm train...glasses are all broken.
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Shoots I forgot to write about July 22 so I’m just going to go off of memory a day old.

On the night of the 21^st I hung out with a German guy named Seriocha (like serious but with a sha at the end…seriosha) and another guy from Finland named Jussi (pronounced Yushi). We just talked and had a couple of beers in the hostel’s bar. I really like meeting random people like that. It was getting late and I hoped to get up early for the first train to Schynige Platte at 0720.

Korean guys I met while at the hostel
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I said goodnight and then went to my room where I found four Korean guys and ended up staying up and talking to them. There are tons of Koreans here for some reason. They are the majority of tourists. The four guys are from Jeju island and are on an informal mission to tell people about Jeju’s history! Apparently some people were at a protest trying to keep Korea from being separated during the Cold War. During the protest, some 50,000 people were killed. The South Korean government has since apologized and Jeju is nicknamed “Peace Island”. They gave me a keychain showing atypical house in Jeju (very village-like) and a card with a water painting done by some North Korean students in the Tumen River area. Man they were really nice! Not only that, they also gave me ac oupon for discounted prices on Interlaken trains to trailheads! I couldn’t use the coupon because it is for roundtrip rides and I need only one-way rides. But it was still an amazing gesture!

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Okay, now for the 22^nd.

I woke up at 0630 as planned but the weather was still terrible from last night. I decided to just go back to sleep. I woke up again at 0830 to bad weather so I didn’t wake up until 0900. The Korean guys were going to rent bicycles and ride to Lauterbrunnen. I wanted to hike so I decided to hit Harder Kulm. it is a small part of the northern mountains. I didn’t have a particular trail in mind so I just followed trail markers and it worked out fine. I had to cross a couple of small waterfalls and rivers because of the rain. I picked up two sticks to help me along the way. They really took a lot of weight off of my legs. The trail was nice and had a couple of great lookout points. It took me 2.5 hrs to get up. At the top there was a restaurant and many tourists who decided to take the train up instead of the trail. My lunch at the top was a banana, an apple, and a loaf of bread. It sounds crappy now but I was so hungry (no dinner or breakfast) that it tasted like gourmet! I started to make my way back down in a huge looping manner. I went down to Riggenberg on the Brienzersee Lake. From there I slowly took a path along the lake back to my hostel in Interlaken. I was really tired so I jus tenjoyed the rest of the afternoon at the nearby river which flows between the two lakes. Oh yeah, the weather really cleared up at around 1200 so the rest of the day was great!

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I found two of the four Koreans and talked with them for most of the afternoon. Another Korean guy joined the room so the four of us went out to dinner at a Korean restaurant. The food was sooooo good. And these guys insisted on paying for me even though it was almost 12 euros/person! They said that it was a Korean tradition to take out a new friend to dinner! Man they were so nice. I felt really bad so I bought some beer and we all hung out for the rest of the night at the hostel. They’re really cool and I hope to keep in touch.

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I hope the weather stays good so I can do my intended hike tomorrow!