Gaulihütte to Bächlitalhütte

It's not raining any more when we get up, but the clouds are very low (including a layer below us). We opt to stick with the new plan: hike down to Innertkirchen, grab a bus from there for Rätterichsbodensee, and then hike up to the Bächlitalhütte. The route down is a really nice one, well it would be if the we weren't hiking through a cloud with the path itself wet from the night's rain. It's certainly a ton cooler than when we hiked up it before! ;-) 

Most of the way down we come out of the clouds and have a great view of the Urbachtal and the awesome wall of stone that defines one side.

The Urbachtal is really nice, but unfortunately the "trail" through it is just the road. This does start to wear on the nerves pretty quickly when wearing the big boots. We eventually do get down to Innertkirchen, grab a quick lunch, and then get on the bus up towards the Grimsel pass.

The path to the Bächlitalhütte is almost certainly very nice (as well as being very well maintained: almost a staircase), but we are once again doing it in a cloud, so we really don't see much. By the time we hit the level of the step under the hut we are between two layers of cloud, so we do get a nice view of the hut perched on the side of the valley: it's really a great location. 

The hike is a short one, so we are at the hut in less than 2 hours. We get settled in, eat some cake, enjoy watching the cloud play, discover that there are a lot of kids and teenagers staying at the hut (oh no! We are the only adult guests that aren't associated with the kids!), have dinner (schnitzel in a hut? Wow!), and head out for a short reconnaissance walk before bed. Surprisingly there are three or four groups starting the route Büchelplatten at 8 pm. Given that the first two pairs seem pretty slow and that it's a seven-pitch route, it's a good thing that most of them seem to be wearing headlamps. Night climbing, what an idea!

Track (both parts):

Stats: ~16km, ~700m up, ~1650m down.