Finding Lost

In travel and in life it is important to leave time for whimsy. One week after our engagement, my fiancee and I were walking to our hotel in Bellinzona, Switzerland when we saw a waterfall in the distance. After a brief discussion of how far away it was, our conversation ended with "Yup. First thing in the morning."

We asked our hotel receptionist about it and were told that if we "walk 20 minutes in that direction you'll run right into it" and so off we went.

Sure enough, 20 minutes later we were at the foot of a mountain, staring at a 10 meter wide river. As our side was a mess of thorns and brush, we took off our shoes and crossed the river for the first time.

Over the next 90 minutes we crossed the river three more times, stomped past a handful of "verboten" signs imploring us to turn back, and followed the ever-shrinking traces of the path we were told we couldn't miss by the woman at the hotel. We slid down wet rocks, we stomped through brush, we scampered over logs. We found a hunter's nest six feet off the ground and a calm, round pool of water.

Skinny dip in a stream in the Swiss Alps? Check.

As we neared the two hour mark of our climb, we squeezed through a section of rock about 12 inches wide and stood atop a steep slope back down to the river. In front of us was the purest look at the waterfall we could possibly get. We were high up, providing an unobstructed view of the full 200 feet of ever-spraying water coming off the mountain.

We clambered down, crossed the river again, climbed a wet rock formation and lost all semblance of a trail. We were effectively inside the splash zone and would never get a better look than from the previous peak. The feeling of accomplishment, however, was stronger than the crushing weight of water.

Sixty minutes later we were back down at the mouth of the trail, on the opposite side that we started on. In fact, we came out right next to the state-sponsored trail-head that leads directly up to the waterfall.

Oops.

Alas, there was no time to dwell on our wrong-route: We saw a hanging bridge about 1500 feet above the waterfall and needed to find a way to see it before sunset. If only there were a funicular nearby...