Friday August 22nd
Talk about waking up excited for the day! Also waking up more rested and refreshed than usual, Russ and I shared the bottom bunk and it was so comfy!
We got up early enough for breakfast and a quick workout for me before driving back to Interlaken. We had to be there by 10:20.
The morning drive was great!
First siting of the lake today:
We waited for a car to pick us up at the little stand where we had made our reservation. Meanwhile we couldn't help but notice the people already up in the sky! Eeeee!! So excited!
A nice guy picked us up and took us to the outdoor "office" of Twin Paragliding. There we met the pilots and got the gear we needed. Once again we had to wear their special hiking boot shoes haha I swear these Swiss and their shoes! (Even though the pilots we were wearing shoes a lot like the running shoes I had on. . . ) We were a group of six; the two of us, a young guy from Canada & 3 Chinese men who spoke basically zero english. It was fun to watch the pilots try and communicate with them, haha so tough!
We all got in the van, as well as the pilots & drove up the mountain for about 15 minutes. Just the drive to a higher point was beautiful! We each selected our pilots on the drive. Russ was with Patrick, a really cool guy. I was with Nicole, the only girl pilot and the lightest, making it easy for the two of us to catch the up draft winds. Higher the better for me!
Each pilot has all the stuff packed into a huge backpack. You fly tandem, so they have the harness/seat for both people, helmets and the parachute. We got to or take off point, not a bad view.
Now I was really getting excited seeing people up above us!
Here's the take off point:
Suited up and ready to fly!
They check each parachute before hand (don't worry to both our moms - safety first!)
Time to FLY! (Any "Hook" fans out there?)
Later I'll add the pictures/videos we have from this, but for now I dot have much.
Basically they get the parachute all laid out, you and the pilot attach to each other and then you start running. Wind fills the chute and that slows you down for a second and then you start sprinting again. Before you know it your legs are still trying to run but you're up in the air!! Awesome! It's like you're wearing a big backpack with a little seat hanging off the bottom. It's actually really comfortable! The pilot is behind you.
For the last week or so it has been cloudy every day. But today was perfectly clear and gorgeous! We lucked out! Plus all the pilots were talking about how there were really good winds today.
It was SO fun being up there! Literally breath taking. The mountains and the lakes just make it so your head is constantly on a swivel trying to take it all in. I really loved how you could see the city tucked in perfectly between the mountains and the two lakes what a place!
At first we kept going in big circles as we caught the updraft wind. At some point Russ' pilot estimate we were rising at about 3 meters per second! Higher and higher we climbed, the view just got better and better!
Later Nicole let me control it a little bit. So cool! It would be really fun to learn how to fly those! She was really fun to talk to. She used to do paragliding competitions. There are either distance or acrobatics. She did distance, the furthest flight she ever did was 113 kilometers and it was 7 hours! Crazy! She also told me about a marathon that they do in Interlaken and end near the Jungfrau . . . That would be amazing!
The view was gorgeous the entire time, so fun to be up in the air! My favorite was when she would do tricks and spins, butterflies in the stomach! Ah!! So awesome. I would do it again in a heartbeat!
All in all we were in the air just over 29 minutes, and every second was awesome! I had taken off before Russ did so once we landed (which was super smooth) Nicole pointed out to me which parachute was Patrick & Russ. There he is up in the sky!
Patrick is apparently really good at the acrobatics, it was so fun to watch him do one last set of those before they landed. Lots of spinning! From the ground I could hear Russ yelling like a little kid having the time of his life! So cool!
Preparing for landing.
This was such a wonderful experience. My only complaint was that my face really hurt . . . Because I had been smiling so big the entire time! Absolutely loved it. We had a blast.
We stuck around in Interlaken for a while, haha about an hour later we drove past the field where we landed and saw that both our pilots were right there and had just landed. Nicole said that I was her third flight that day and she would do 7 or 8 more, that's a ton! So many times I was like "you have a pretty awesome job!"
Unfortunately we weren't able to get in touch with the others in time to meet up with them (we had such a hard time finding wifi!) we weren't sure if they would be doing something in Adelboden or going to Interlaken. Turns out they stayed in Adelboden and did these awesome scooter trails! You ride the tram up the mountain and then they have these heavy duty bike type scooters with tons of trails you ride down! It sounded so fun! I was wishing we had made it in time to go with them . . . Buuut it was probably god that we didn't spend more money! Seriously if I had endless time & money there are so many things I want to do in Switzerland! Skydiving, canyonering, river rafting, helicopters, getting to the peaks of those mountains, the list goes on and on! We headed back to Adelboden, once again enjoying the beautiful drive, made lunch and rested a bit. But how much can you just sit in such a beautiful place?! Just 10 minutes away there is an amazing waterfall so we decided to check it out!
Seriously do these pictures not look fake?!
These falls we're super old even from far away.
You can pay like 30 francs to take a gondola up to the top, but we opted to just hike a little bit.
There was a lady just sitting on a bench at the bottom eating an apple, I figured she would be there a minute so I wanted to ask her to take a picture of us once we went up higher/closer to the falls. Well of course right when we turn around to ask her she is getting up to leave. We asked her anyway and took off running up the rocks for her to take a picture. She was a good sport to do it. I'll have to load those pictures later.
Here you can see (if you look close) Russ down below me on his way up.
Did you find him?
We had a lot of fun at these falls.
Also check out the beard this man has going. It is crazy how multicolored it is. Lots of reds and browns and even a few white hairs, it's the craziest thing. Who knows maybe we will have red head kids!
Once we hiked right up to the base of the falls the view was even better! I always feel like the views look fake. I mean "is this real life?!" This picture is a good example; it looks like the first layer is real but that the second layer is just a painting. I feel like I'm looking at the set of an old movie or something, but it's real! Absolutely amazing.
We're not rock climbers, but climbing up this boulder was fun!
Here's the outside of our place; with my acrobatic husband haha
That view though! How about those misty mountains? When we got back I seriously just sat on the grass and stared at it for a few minutes.
A few minutes later the others got back from their scooter adventures for the afternoon. It sounded super fun! We watched some videos they took and those scooters really got going fast!
The only down side was Tom took a little spill. He just scuffed up his hands a bit, no fun! Luckily (really thanks to Robbie & Angie) we had brought a first aid kit and put it to good use on Tom's wounds.
The 6 of us decided to head into "town" of Adelboden and find some dinner.
We did some walking as we looked at different restaurants, which of course included some pictures.
I love this place!!
Everything in Switzerland is so expensive! It was hard to find a place where every option wasn't at least $20 a plate. Luckily we found this little place in the town square that wasn't too expensive. Food was good, most people had these pizzas:
Then just when I thought it couldn't get better this whole brass band in uniforms and everything came to this other stage right by us. Icing on the cake was the dancers in traditional clothing and everything!
It was great!
The rest of the night we just hung out, haha we played "would you rather" for a whole and I have never seen Logan laugh so hard in my whole life! His laughing so hard got all of us going, Russ was even crying! Good times with great friends.
We're all bummed that tomorrow is the beginning of making our trek home :( it's been an amazing time!
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