18/6/10

My day started off a bit chilly, I read the forecast and it predicted that the high today would be 13 degrees Celsius, which is about 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The program for today was a hike to Elsigbach. The hike took a total of 2 hours and 20 minutes, although normally it can be done in an hour and a half. But, as I have come to realize, hiking with guests takes a bit longer because many are not used to the hills and most leaders are out of shape. Walking slower than normal is not as enjoyable, but I still enjoyed the hike. It was not raining until we were practically done hiking =). We hiked to the very small village of Elsigbach and took the gondola up to Elsigenalp. We gave the guests three hours of free time. Renee and I enjoyed a quite and peaceful lunch right next to the lake. But after that we migrated to the restaurant to enjoy a warm cup of coffee. After we were chatting with the guests (they let me try their fries!!) we decided to hike to another lake about 30 minutes away. It was an uphill hike but the lake was quite beautiful, surrounded by rocky terrain and random pine trees all around. I really enjoyed the hike and all the scenery, although at times we were literally in a cloud and couldn’t see in front of us. After the hike to the lake, we met the guests and then we began our hike down the mountain. Normally, this hike would take 40-45 minutes, but a few leaders had ‘bad knees’ and it took an additional 30 minutes to hike downhill. Walking downhill at a slow pace is very strenuous to the knees and other parts of the body, so I am currently sore at the moment. Last time I went on this hike I was not as sore because we were going at a steady pace. I was the back marker with Renee, which is why we had to wait for the slower ones and walk so slow. But, we made it to the bus that was waiting for us at the bottom of the mountain. Elsigenalp is about 1800m, in case you were wondering. We road a very scary path in a coach bus down a windy road to the main road and the ride was frightening. I thought that the bus was not going to make some turns and the road was very narrow so I thought we were going to hit the guardrail at times. One leader closed her eyes the entire time because she did not want to look at what was going on.  But all in all, we made it back to the chalet! Evening program was games night and we had the guests recreate an Our Chalet Museum. Each station represented an exhibition, we had: an Our Chalet flag that was drawn, Falk’s (first guider in charge) snow shoes using twigs and string, a historic chalet mosaic using paper, a tea set from the first tea party in Baby Chalet (using playdoh) and an old girl guiding uniform using trash bags, party streamers and paper. We had each group display their exhibitions and we were the judges. The prize was Girl Scout cookies =). It was a very lovely game.