Hiking - Blausee, Switzerland

 We were disappointed to wake up to a sky full of fog and clouds. We decided to make it an easy day and hike down to the Blausee. The hick went through the village of Kandersteg which is very charming with lots of typical Swiss homes and cows everywhere. The hike went up a path onto the Hohweg (high path). As we hiked we really enjoyed watching an unusual event. We saw a helicopter drop a package in front of a Swiss chalet high top the mountain where a man picked up the package and took it into his home as a helicopter flew away. Then the helicopter came back And picked up but looked to be a box near a tower on the mountain. We watched as he flew away with the box hanging from the helicopter to a short distance up the valley. He dropped off the box and flew back for another pick up and this went on for about three hours. We had all kinds of guesses as to what he was doing, but said they will probably never know. we got to the Blausee where admission was now half price, five francs instead of 10 because the Blausee was no longer Blau (blue). apparently there has been a drought the lake is low and it’s affecting the limestone. So today it was the Grunsee (green lake). It was still pretty with the backdrop of the mountain. What surprised us was how long it took us to get down to the lake, 5 1/2 miles rather than the three we had expected. So after walking around the lake, we headed back to Kandersteg. We looked at the map to see if there was perhaps a shorter route but no we had taken the direct route down to the lake. About halfway back, my right knee really started to hurt. It was an extremely long hike back to our lodge. Along the way we did stop at a bakery to buy some pastries and we stopped at the grocery store to buy meat and cheese for dinner. Once we were in our room, we took showers, rested our legs and ate our dinner. Our easy day turned out to be not so easy.