North Face trail 3

Wandering through the meadows and by streams in the Alps...amazing!  The next part of the hike was down through a mountain forest to Sprutz waterfall.  Many groves of tall fir trees are planted as an avalanche protection for the villages.  This little forest protects the hamlet of Gimmelwald from danger in the winter.  We went from grassy meadows to thick trees and shady, rooted paths that were quite steep and slippery.  If it had been rainy it would have been a lot harder to get down.  Here are a few pictures of the path in different places.

This path wound down to the Sprutz waterfall.  Very cool experience--literally!

As you can see by these pictures...Marc is very cool!

And so am I!

Here's a better picture of what we saw.

We then had to hike up the other side of the waterfall and continue along the path through the forest.  As we walked we came to a little hut that had benches in it for those needing a break.

Then we finally saw Gimmelwald.  It is such a cute little hamlet.  Both Gimmelwald and Murren are supposed to be car free, but small cars are allowed for some of the residents.

And the trail part of the hike was over once we got down into the village.  We still had to hike uphill for about 45 minutes to get back to Murren.