Rorschach to Lauterbrunnen - Day 11 - Engelberg to Tannalp

Tuesday July 8, Alp Grat to Engelberg

By the morning, I figured if we could handle a 7,520' pass in the pouring rain, we could handle a 7,485' pass in the snow. As S nudged me uphill on Saturday, I nudged him uphill on Sunday.

We did begin with a compromise to reduce the discomfort: immersion therapy from Engelberg 2,350' up to the Trübsee at the foot of the Titlis. 

Can't remember if I had my eyes mostly closed or open for this one,
but given that I could see out the windows, I'm guessing closed.

We were greeted with misty mists and obscured views. What lay behind the clouds?

It was a remarkably consistent grade up to the Jochpass, where, given the weather, we paused at the middle lift station not for Apfelschorle but a cup of peppermint tea. The lift from Jochpass takes visitors all the way up to the glaciers on Titlis. 

A decorated mirror in the restaurant said "Hallo, Sommer 2025"... 

...while outside, snow was now dusting the snow that had fallen overnight.

To reach our destination for the evening, Berggasthaus Tannalp, we needed to hike partway up and around the Schafberg. The trail led up hill, but tilted disorientingly sideways, toward the steep drop off to the Engstlensee below, a degree of exposure that unnerved the acrophobe and was not improved by the falling snow.  

Water avens or pasque flower keeping on keeping on...

This photo is meant to show the steepness of the drop off to the left, as well as the upward steepness of the trail itself, but my cellphone camera flattens things out.

By this time, we were being pelted by Graupel (in English, also "graupel"), snow pellets distinct from hail and ice pellets. My prior experience with graupel was limited to Germany and Utah.

The Engstlensee, come to think of it, is in the canton Bern, the seventh canton of our hike. No, make that the eighth canton: Engelberg is in Obwalden. No, wait, the ninth: the Trübsee is in canton Nidwalden. We would spend the next day hiking along the ridge dividing Obwalden and Bern, but at this point we were done adding new cantons to our list.

Engstlensee

Once we reached our highest elevation for the day, the exposed section of trail yielded to less anxiety-inducing terrain and curved away from the Engstlensee. Slush and puddles filled the trail in places, but once we headed downward, it became easier to keep our boots dry. It was interesting to experience the abruptness of the snow line: above it, graupel; below, drizzle.

The clouds were starting to clear when we reached these trail makers. They must be hard to see when they're under snow...

Look at that, it's sunny! 

View back at the Engstlensee

Viola biflora in its native habitat 

The horizontal strip of blue in the middle of the photograph below is the Tannensee, just beyond our destination for the day.

We took off layers and put on layers and took off layers repeatedly.

Taking photos before the jackets came off...

The odd-looking succulent below is a "houseleek," genus Sempervivum (meaning "always living"), better known in the U.S. as hens and chicks. Don't know about you, but my cultivated hens and chicks never looked like that, and I'd never seen one before in the wild. Wikipedia says the name houseleek comes from Anglo-Saxon laec, meaning plant--i.e. these plants grow on houses--and Romans thought they warded off fire and lightning strikes. 

White hellebore

The rocks emerging from behind the clouds looked like pastries dusted with powdered sugar: 

More houseleeks! I had a hard time getting photographs that were in focus. Note the bits of graupel on the flower petals. By this point, our jackets were back on, graupel was falling hard and fast, and the wind was making sure to blow the pellets into our faces. Whap whap whap whap whap.

As we approached Berggasthaus Tannalp, dozens of cows who had had enough of getting pummeled by snow pellets decided to call it a day. They headed down the road with us, seeking shelter under stable eaves and generally looking piqued. (No photos, because we were getting pummeled too.)

By the time we arrived at Berggasthaus Tannalp, the precipitation had stopped. I was impressed by how well the wildflowers withstood the weather.

Look, sunshine! The spots in the meadow are cows, no longer consternated.

Look, graupel! The weather changed in the blink of an eye, but the forecast for the rest of the week was for mostly sun. We looked forward to Wednesday, expecting to finally be able to see some of what we had been missing in the misty mists.

Ta da! A mere 6.2 miles, since we cut off a chunk by taking the Seilbahn up to the Trübsee, plus 2,150' ascent, 1,550' descent.

I finally figured out that if I pause my Garmin on Seilbahnen,
Strava will draw the connection without counting the miles

Rorschach to Lauterbrunnen - Day 8 - Muotathal to Biel

Saturday July 5, Muotathal to Biel

We had one flub in Muotathal: on the edge of town, a couple blocks from our hotel, was the entrance to the Hölloch ("Hell Hole"), the third longest known cave in Europe and the 11th longest in the world. It's 131 miles long and nearly 3,400 feet deep, and we missed it. We had 11 miles to hike, almost 5,000' to climb, and rain in the afternoon forecast, so couldn't spare most of the morning for a cave tour. Oh well.

We headed downhill and across the Muota river, then started up the next ridge. Our pass of the day was Chinzig Chulm ("Kinzig Pass") at 6,801'. The trail briefly paralleled a small gorge with water coursing through it--a slot canyon in the making--then emerged into steep sunny meadows. 

Some local history helped fill the gap left by skipping the Hölloch. When we descended toward Muotathal on Friday, we found ourselves on the Via Suworow, a route we continued to follow uphill on Saturday. The route is named for and follows the path of Russian Field Marshall Alexander Vasilyevich Suworow, who, in September 1799 during the War of the Second Coalition, led some 20,000 Russian troops up and over Chinzig Chulm down to Muotathal. After a fierce battle in the valley, he led his remaining troops over the Pragelpass to Glarus. 15,000 survived.

S regaled me with military history as we hiked uphill.

After feeding the horse flies breakfast, we decided to stick to the switch-backing road instead of cutting across the switchbacks on the trails. There was only so much blood we were willing to share with the local fauna.

Once the road leveled out, S, who is always keen for an Apfelschorle at the end of a steep climb, aimed us toward a small Chäserei (cheese-making farm). While he was setting down his backpack outside, I zipped inside and ordered a Schorle for him--and spotted a Fruchtwähe resting on the counter. Fruchtwähe is a Swiss custard tarte studded with fruit (apricots in this case), sometimes with ground nuts (hazelnuts in this case). I seized the moment: holding up a birthday candle, I explained to the proprietor my failed effort to find cake the day before. She took it from there.

Best "cake" of the entire hike, still warm from the oven

Here's Carly sitting on the decor. The wooden heart is engraved with the word Grüezi, Schwiizerdütsch for Gott gruesse euch ("may God greet you"--equivalent to Bayerisch Grüss Gott). The greeting becomes Grüezi mitenand ("may God greet y'all") in situations with more than one greetee. It wasn't until we got closer to Grindelwald that we started hearing anything approximating Grüss euch ("greetings, you-plural"). Until typing this blog post, we mistook Grüezi for a contraction of Grüss dich, "greetings, you-singular," and heard Grüezi mitenand as "greetings you-singular et al."

I spent a lot of time on this trip listening to how people said Grüezi, trying to figure out the progression of diphthongs. Some folks could make the -üe- stretch on forever, before following it with a short, clipped -zi. Grüüüüeeezi!

After birthday tarte, we followed the goats down and then up the road, with a few switchbacks here and there...

...until we met back up with our trail. We were pretty sure there were fantastic things to see just behind the clouds, but we did not see them.

Swiss cows are pretty laid back critters...

There were probably interesting things to see here too:

We ate lunch near the Seenalper Seeli ("wee lake in the Alps-lakes region"). The suffix -li is a frequent diminutive in Schwiizedeutsch. 

Let this photo of fly-sustaining cow poop serve as a synecdoche, a small representative standing in for the massive total accumulation of cow poop that we hiked through and around during our 15-day adventure. We congratulate ourselves on never slipping. The Swiss compensate for the cow poop everywhere with some of the finest small-farm locally produced mountain cheeses in the world.

Our lunch spot:

We continued hiking upward after lunch. The upslope fog morphed repeatedly between clear and obscuring:

As we hiked upward, the meadow widened, and we felt like small specks in an expansive space, even when crowded in by the clouds. We could occasionally hear rocks tumbling down the high ridge to our right. 

Lo--blue skies behind S!

The trail to the pass involved climbing up to the ridge...

...then continuing along a long, flat (relatively) expanse before finally reaching the pass. Summering in the alpine meadow were dozens of grazing sheep. Sheep are kinda dumb, and these sheep were no exception. The ones closest to the trail clearly wanted to have nothing to do with us, but chose the trail as their escape route, and were consternated that we kept following them. This, despite all the free space around them and the role-modeling of off-trail sheep who didn't understand what the lengthy hubbub was about. 

Almost at the pass--go west and up a bit more, young man.

Whence we came:

Passes are fantastic places for wildflowers, presumably because of rain and local fog and cloud formation. Flowers are bigger here, and denser and more varied. 

I'm particularly a fan of pasque flowers. They're in the buttercup family, and look the part when they first bloom; eventually they get bored and shove their leaves into alpine electrical sockets, and--pfffzzzt--their hair stands on end for the rest of the season.

At last, the pass! The blue signs point to climbing routes requiring technical gear; the yellow signs, to hiking trails. It took Suwarow and 20,000 soldiers with multiple cannons two days to cross over here from west to east.

Suwarow was here

Whence we came

View from the top:

Fairy thimbles growing in a protected spot at the top of the pass

As we began our descent to Biel, a glider silently passed by overhead.

Can you see the glider?

We saw three Murmeltiere--marmots--including this bold, scruffy one.

The trail down was steep and rocky, passing a few scree fields.

Almost at the end of the day's hike. This field was full of eriophorum, a.k.a. cotton grass, a type of sedge. 

We overnighted at Hotel Biel-Kinzig, a relatively newly built ski hotel with an adjacent gondola lift. We had meant to stay at a cheaper hotel in the Schächental valley below, but it permanently shuttered three weeks before we began our hike. We considered ourselves lucky to find other accommodations on relatively short notice--and we certainly didn't mind the views...  

Ta da! 10.7 miles, 5,000' ascent, 1,800' descent--a beautiful hike.