The wooden barn

Today was sunny and hot. After breakfast and after a few work phone calls were completed, we left to go up the mountain on one of my favourite hikes. We took the gondola to the top of the mountain - the village lies at 1200m above sea level and the top of the lift is at 2297m. We then walked all the way down back to the village along a very scenic route. It is my favourite hike as the wild flowers are always so lovely up there, and today we saw so many different types including gentians and the martagon lily.

It was incredibly hot so we stopped off at a mountain kiosk for a cold drink and a bratwurst for lunch. Soon as we set off again after lunch we noticed clouds rolling in and so we tried to descend as quickly as we could, to out run the approaching storm but we were not so lucky! We got absolutely soaked, we were dripping wet! At first the rain was pleasantly cooling as we were so hot, but then the thunder and lightning were not very pleasant, especially when walking through areas of tall trees when the lightning was above us. Xena was quite spooked by the storm and hated getting wet in the rain. Of course I had taken my rain jacket out my backpack as I have been carrying it around for a few days now and never needed it, and today it was so hot I thought I would not need it. I should know better, these mountains always catch me out - plus the farmers cutting their hay yesterday should have been a warning sign of rain today! Soon after we got home the rain stopped and the sunshine came out again!

This image is of one of the wooden barns up the mountain. The view is of Silvretta glacier, which has sadly shrunk so much since we first started coming to this area. The disappearing Swiss glaciers are proof of global warming, it is very sad to see.

We had planned to play golf in the afternoon but with the storm we gave up that idea. At the moment it is sunny and people are out still playing golf at 7.45pm.

If you are interested I have added some more photos here.