A month with farm working, vacation in the Walliser and Berner Oberland mountains, and working in a mountain hut.

View from my "house" towards
Weisshorn

And now I am back in «low land». I have had almost two months of my «nomade»-life (and start getting used to it quite well) by now. Mid september I started working in my second farm this autumn, in a tiny city called Embd, lying vertical in the mountain side in Mattertal. And the strangest place I have ever lived....but very nice :-) The farm was lying quite far away from the road, with a steep trail leading down to the farm buidings. (The boy living in the house told he usully used «Steigeisen / Stegjern» to get to the school in the winter, except when the school was closed due to risk of avalanches.....)

The house and the farm in the middle
of the photo, just above the rocks..:-)

The living house was from ca year 1800, and although it had electricity now, wood was used for cooking and heating, and everything was done by hand power... so quite a lot of time was needed doing realtively small things...., not very effeicient, but a nice life without stress.... :-)

The farmer had goats, and made goat cheese (but unfortunately the goats where at the alp at this time, so I couldn´t learn and help doing that), and a big garden, all ecologic of course, quite a bush, but a lot of beautiful tasting fruit and vegetables:-) So the main part of my time in this farm I harvested berries, fruits and vegetables from the garden, and prepared jam and cakes and so forth. And go in the garden to find and harvest lunch and dinner is quite nice :-)

Some more pictures from the farm and the work here: Embd   

Phantastic veiw from Gornergrat

At the end of the week of the farm working in Embd, my mother and grand mother came to visit me for 6 days. We had a great week! Sun and summer weather all days long. We fully enjoyed the Swiss mountains, visiting Moosalp and Törbel, Zermatt, Gornergrat and the Matterhorn region, Grimentz with all the old wood houses and red flowers, Schynige Platte, Grimselpass, Furkapass and Andermatt, and also the wine region near Lausanne where we also went to a small wine degustation, and visited Lars. We had some great hiking tours in the mountains, and my mother and grandmother also had some great «mountain-train-tours».

Resting in the sun and enjoying the
view of Jungfra, Eiger and Mönch

 

Two very good thing; Chocolate and mountains :-D

   

Some pictures from the fabolous week are here: Familiy vacation trip

Anenhütte, 2853 m

Next on the program was two weeks of volunteering working in the mountain hut Anenhütte, siting in Lötschental, at 2358 metres altitude, close to the biggest glacier in the Alps, with Langgletscher just some minutes behind the hut, and also a nice view to Bitchihorn, Breithorn and Mount Blanc... :-)

View from Anenhütte,
towards Lötschenlücke and Hollandiahütte

The hut is quite new, and very nice, having a modern and «exclusive» design, but at the same time very «koselig / gemütlich» :-) It wasn´t a lot of guests at this time of the year, but we had some guests, so the day typically started about 7.30 o´clock, ending at 22 o´clock, but no stress. Afternoons we always had a pause, where we could relax, hike and run in the nice regions here, going to a small sea, to the glacier, to a «morene», or just sitting on the terrace enjoying the nice view:-) I love being in the mountains! I went swimming in the small «Anen lake» one time.... And one afternoon/evening we also went outdoor rock climbing, super cool :-) The last two days I went hiking in 30 cm snow :-) Often, we also had time for a small morning hike, starting in the dark and then seeing the sun rising in the mountains... (If it wasn´t raining...) :-)

The weather was nice and various; sun, some rain, and very often, fog and clouds down in the valley, below us, while we were in the sun above the fog – super nice! :-) And at the end, snow! :-) When I was leaving, there was really a winter wonderland up there!!

Sshneeräumen :-)

Else, there was quite a lot of cleaning work, and I have really learned how to clean 100% clean!!! No trace of finger marks or water drops....:-) I also learned the tric how to make a big Rösti that didn´t fall apart, like a pancake. And else, the important ingredients in all swiss recepts; cheese, cream, wine, and onion. And that the Schnaps Genepi, which by the way taste very good, is made of the alp plant «Edelraube». I also think that these 2 weeks I ate more cheese than I have done in my whole life until now... :-) When the snow came, there was somw "digging work", by the terrace, and the hut´s hydro power station.
And I got to know a lot of super nice people also working at the hut!!

Some more pictures from Anenhütte and the region are here: Bilder Anenhütte

The glacier

Magic evening mood from the hut...