Yesterday was a fantastic day out on the winterwanderweg (winter hiking trail).  They have a mind-boggling system of cross-country skiing, winter hiking, and sledging trails in this town, all machine cut, marked, and beautifully maintained.  Yesterday, we walked up one of these trails to the gondelbahn (love these words!), where we rode up to the top of the mountain and hiked down to Lake Oeschinensee.  It felt a little odd walking through the downhill ski runs on our way out to the lake, but that's how the wanderweg took us, and we soon realized that we were not the only ones.  As we descended to the lake, it got colder and colder, to the point that our fingers, toes, noses, and hair were all frozen.  At the bottom, it was about -20 degrees.  (Sounds so much more dramatic in Celcius, doesn't it?).  Once we began the climb back up from the lake, our extremities began to thaw and I no longer worried about returning home without a big toe on my left foot.

The sights and scenery on our walk back up to the ski lift were magnificent.  At one point, we heard a cracking sound and looked up to witness a large and powerful avalanche on the mountain above us (fortunately, not directly above).  The photo doesn't quite do it justice, but the fact that it stopped every hiker, skier, and sledger in their tracks attested to its magnitude.
It will be hard to top the beauty we witnessed on this hike, possibly my favorite day of the trip so far.