Day 10: Continued...
Walking through a glacier is a pretty awesome experience.
Coming across ice wine barrels. My dad stops and catches some melting glacier water as it drips from the ceiling onto his tongue, cleverly suggesting that it's the oldest water he's ever drank.
Heading out and walking back up the trail. The smooth rocks revealing the original path of the glacier… now melted away to a fraction of its original size.
Pulled this from Google - You can see how the Rhone Glacier has retreated up the mountain in just over 100 years.
Arriving back at the gift shop where Megan is waiting for us.
She's borrowed some dry gloves in the gift shop to warm up while we're out.
It's been one heck of a cold day of riding.
Having rode the Furka the year before, we switch up the route and head the short way back down the Furka and arrive at the Nufenen pass on our way to Andermatt.
About to disappear into the clouds as we climb towards the summit.
As we reach the summit, our hands are in a lot of pain… intense pins and needles all around. Megans having it the worst as her fingers begin to swell up and she starts to lose feeling in them! We find a pocket between the clouds on our way down Nufenen, and stop by the roadside to warm our hands off the heat of the engine.
Our waterproof, thickly lines gloves are completely drenched, and the plastic gloves were wearing underneath them (to stay dry) seem to be insulating the cold!
From here we'd continue East and then North on the Gottard pass.
Aiming to take Tremola, we accidentally end up taking Rt 2 instead. As we climb the floating bridge (detached from the mountain side) towards the clouds, it's almost surreal - the highway to heaven I call it.
We stop one last time to capture the view from where we came. From here, it's too wet and cold to stop for more pictures. We'll leave it to the video for the rest of the coverage!
We'd arrive in Andermatt to a ghost town pretty much (motorcycle wise). There isn't one motorcycle in view, completely contrasting our experience from last year. As we stop by the first hotel, the front desk clerk tells us there's snow coming overnight, and that since we're on motorcycles, we need to get to lower ground! Just great...
It's getting late, and we're all exhausted and in need of the warmth of the indoors. Just as we're trying to figure out what to do, a fellow rider who's visiting the Swiss Alps (this time for a hiking trip), mentions he's staying at a hotel up the street - the cheapest rate in Andermatt and that it has underground parking for the bikes.
Conflicted, we take his suggestion and head to the Alpenhotel Schlüssel, where we get our two rooms for the night. Here the hotel owner also warns us about snow… Fearful for my fathers situation (the last thing he needs is riding through snow with a broken leg), I've got strong mixed feelings about our decision to stay in Andermatt with the potential heavy snow fall overnight.
Watching as the sun sets over Andermatt. Later, I'd wake up in the middle of the night and look out the window to see snow beginning to fall. Only time would tell, the morning sun the next day would reveal what we'd be up against. Fingers crossed!
Day 10 riding video:
[video=vimeo;98346775]http://vimeo.com/98346775[/video]