Sarah and Sophie headed up to ski camp with their school for a week, so I signed everyone else up for ski lessons at the same place in Engelberg that we went to last year. Again we just did it for three days, and every morning I would drive them down, wait around, and then drive them home again in the afternoon. After one day just walking around the town and reading in the car, I got bored. So the next day I decided to go for a little walk. There was a trail that led partway up the mountain and ended in the same general area as where the kids had their lunch break. I thought it would be fun to meet them.
The winter olympics were still taking place, and one of the local girls had just won a gold medal. The town had signs and banners plastered all over the place celebrating this. They were hanging from businesses, from balconies, and then there was this huge one on the mountain.
I thought that was pretty cool.
The trail first took me along the valley. It was relatively flat and very beautiful. I even passed this ski jump three times, once from the bottom, t his is the middle, and once from the top.
You can see that the snowfall was pretty abysmal this year. All the snow on the sunny side of the valley was pretty much gone. The year before there were piles of it everywhere, on both sides. Fortunately, Titlis (the mountain the kids have lessons on) was on the shady side, although I did call to confirm there was snow before driving all the way there! 🙂
After taking this picture, the trail got very interesting. There were a few steep spots. Nothing too long or bad, but they were covered in ice. And I was wearing my normal boots. Not hiking boots, just warmish winter boots with not much traction on the bottom. I slipped and fell a couple times, until I finally just abandoned all pretense of pride and crawled up, literally on my hands and knees. I finally got to where there was a little bench, slightly off the path, and I sat down and crawled Chris. I was very concerned, as I still had quite a ways of steep path in front of me as far as I could tell, but there was also all the steepness behind me. I didn’t want to go back down, for free of slipping and sliding the whole way and getting seriously hurt. But I also wasn’t sure how much longer I could go on crawling. He asked if he should send a helicopter out to rescue me and I honestly wasn’t sure what to tell him. As I was talking to him on the phone, two little old ladies, like seriously well over 70, come strolling up the path. I smiled at them, waited til they walked past, and then told Chris, “Okay, if those two old ladies can make it up this path, than I for sure can.” Ignoring the fact that they were both wearing hiking boots of course. 🙂
So I continued crawling up the path, and just a little past the bench, it leveled out and I was able to walk normally. Then I broke out from the trees into the sunshine and it was perfect walking conditions. I am so glad I didn’t give up and just continued on. The view alone was totally worth it.
That little building on the right is the restaurant where I was supposed to meet the kids. I got there before they did and was able to greet them as they came off the slopes. 
I am not sure how much of that Noah actually ate, especially the peas, but at least he was never starving at the end of the day. Alexandra’s helmet hair cracks me up every time I look at this photo.
I went outside on the patio and had my own lunch, which was delicious and was still out there when the kids came out to play. They have about an hour lunch break, so plenty of time for them to rest their legs, go to the bathroom, eat and then play. Who could resist this giant pile of snow? 
They didn’t even need sleds, they just slid right down on their bums! Climbing up in those bulky ski boots wasn’t easy, but they still managed.
After they put on their skis and took off with their teacher, I also took off. But I was still traumatized from my trip up, and knew it was way too dangerous to walk back down in my slippery shoes, so I headed over to the gondola and took a ride down. Of course, they couldn’t take my debit card up top, only down at the bottom. But they graciously allowed me to ride down anyway, and just pay at the bottom. I was escorted directly to the cashier just to make sure I really paid, which kind of cracked me up, but I guess they have been burned one too many times. Or maybe they thought I wasn’t good for it, since who doesn’t normally have 6 Franks in cash on them? Well me, for one! 🙂