Rorschach to Lauterbrunnen - Day 10 - Alp Grat to Engelberg

Monday July 7, Alp Grat to Engelberg

We woke to pouring rain, and the outlook was for continuing pouring rain all day. Given that we were the only guests at the hut--had we misunderstood when hiking season begins in Switzerland?--we assumed if we fell off a cliff in the rain, it could take until the next weekend for someone to happen upon us. We decided the smartest thing to do would be to hike back down to Brüsti, take the lift down to Attinghaus, and then take buses from there to Engelberg, our destination for the evening.

But first, breakfast! Over the next several days, we learned that one of the joys of hiking in Switzerland is sampling hyperlocal cheeses and homemade butter at breakfast. Every cheese was different. The jam in the glass bowl in the photo below was also homemade. Our host explained that it was Tannengellee, jelly made from fir-tree buds.  

After breakfast, we put on our rain pants and rain jackets and backpack rain covers and admired the view from Alp Grat one last time:

Just as we were setting off back down the hill, S shouted, "look! The sun is out! We should hike up to Surenen Pass!"

I remained skeptical, not quite seeing as sunshine what he was seeing as sunshine, and thought we should still head downhill. We started heading down, and at the very first trail intersection, ran into a young couple heading up. S asked if they were heading up to the pass, and they said they were. We figured that meant we could fall off a cliff in the rain and someone would pass by within a day rather than a week. Then another person heading up to the pass passed the four of us, and we decided to head up instead of down. 

What a good decision that turned out to be! The hike exceeded all expectations and was one of the most enjoyable of the entire trip. That said, I don't think we were equipped for hiking in a downpour without other people around; had we not encountered anyone else that morning, we would have relied on bus transportation.

Cold rainy weather brings out salamanders. We saw several early on.

Despite S's confidence that the sun was out, we didn't see much at first. Given that we were apparently walking along a ridge with a steep descent on both sides, this was probably helpful for the acrophobe.

We passed a large puddle (too small to call a pond)...

...and some possibly tall ridges with maybe some snow on the side or on top (hard to tell)...

...and had to cross several creeks (mostly easy, and certainly none of which were anywhere near as fast or steep as last year's unexpected snow-melt waterfall crossing).

We appreciated the effort that Switzerland puts into trail blazes...

We couldn't see where we were going, but we could see which way to go.

Visibility continued to be limited all the way...

...up to the cold, windy pass.

The steady drizzle promptly turned into rain. We pulled our hoods up, tucked our chins down, and started our descent.

We had heard there was an emergency hut shortly below the pass, and were delighted to see it ahead, and then to step inside to warm up. A pair of underdressed hikers in shorts were warming themselves up with hut-equipped blankets when we arrived.

We pulled out our fleece jackets and layered up for extra warmth

Hut housekeeping poetry for guests passing through 

Room with a rainy view

After drying off a bit and fleecing up, we headed back outside, at which moment, unexpectedly, the clouds began to disperse, and we could see glaciers on the mountain Titlis (10,623' elevation) in the distance.

As we started downhill, blue skies peeked through the mists.

Multiple waterfalls flowed down through the meadows...

Zoom in to see the raindrop clinging to the butterfly's lower antenna

Bashful

Our destination for the evening was Engelberg in the valley below us. We had built a Seilbahn into our descent plans; the Seilbahn station was a few miles out of sight to the right in the photo below. 

Patch of gold-colored rock amidst the granite. Note the waterfall to the right.

In Usser Äbnet, we passed a cooperative cheese factory and saw our first evidence of the possibility of Grüessäch mitenand, the you-plural greeting of western (vs. eastern) Schwiizerdütsch. 

Die Henne über und unter dem Nebelmeer:

It was sometimes a little hard to tell what we were looking at, but whatever it was sure was beautiful.

Blue skies

When we reached Fürenalp, the Seilbahn station, I saw my first ever live-in-person Edelweiss. I would see it twice more on this trip, always planted decoratively outside businesses popular with tourists. I've never seen it in the wild. 

We warmed up with bowls of cauliflower soup...  

...then took the Seilbahn down to Engelsberg. The dense fog made it less anxiety-inducing for me to ride the lift, but the non-acrophobe found it disconcerting. The ride shaved about 2,450' off our descent.

At the bottom of the lift, bright orange plastic spheres were attached to the Seilbahn cables to reduce the chances of airplanes flying into them. The catenary reminded me of the ball arches in Mathemalchemy.

Catenary

Catenary with context

Not quite the Restaurant at the End of the Universe... 

We walked from the Talstation to Engelberg. Heavy rain started up again as we neared the Benedictine Monastery, so we ducked inside the church, where musicians were rehearsing for a concert:

The monastery is home to the largest organ in Switzerland, although the organist was accompanying the rehearsal on an organ at the front of the church.

Largest organ in Switzerland

We spent the night at the Engelberg Youth Hostel, which offered friendly service, comfortable accommodations, and a great breakfast for a relatively affordable price in a relatively pricey ski-resort town. S, who had been so enthusiastic about the "sunshine" at the beginning of the day's hike, was concerned about the next day's prospect of constant snow and sleet, so during dinner, we figured out an optional backup plan for the next day, involving buses, trains, and lifts. 

Ta da! 11.5 miles, 2,700' ascent, 2,850' descent.

The straight shot down is the Seilbahn...

Rorschach to Lauterbrunnen - Day 6 - Obersee to Richisau

Thursday July 3, Obersee to Richisau

As we had come to expect from the previous few days, rain was in the forecast for the afternoon--but now anticipated earlier and in larger quantities. We rose at 6am, and instead of waiting an hour and a half for breakfast, we left a note and our key at the front desk and skedaddled on our way, hoping to beat the downpour.

In exchange for that early start, we were rewarded with beautiful early morning light...

Given how un-Swiss hypotenuses seemed to be, the trail often aimed straight upward, then continued more-or-less flatly along a constant elevation. In the photo below, we've just emerged from a steep rocky uphill climb into a meadow, about to enjoy some less-steep to flat hiking. We had also just emerged from a drizzle into sunlight, with more clouds building up ahead...  

Wild orchid

That little shiny spot bottom center is the
Obersee. The Churfirtsen are top right.

Our pass for the day was the Längeneggpass. Much of the hike navigated around cows and involved hiking up and through a rocky creek.

The view from the pass was expansive--what a vast, green, wildflower-rich place.

From there, we hiked steadily downhill...

Sorta Nebelmeer? Clouds rounding the bend from the unseen Klöntalersee

...and downhill some more. Note the switchbacks in the gravel road.

Eventually, we arrived in Richisau, where either natural horns are not allowed, or Postbuses are not supposed to toot their horns: 

Hitchhiking is formalized here:

We stayed at the Gasthaus Richisau, our first hotel splurge. I'm usually pretty good at finding cheap hotels, but this was the only place in town; indeed, the Gasthaus and the bus stop were the town. The Rules of Walking would have permitted hopping on a bus here and staying in e.g. Glarus, in the valley below, but that thought hadn't crossed my mind when we were arranging accommodations.

Certainly by Swiss standards (and comparable to chain hotels in big cities in the U.S.), this wasn't actually all that expensive: if you want to shell out a really exorbitant amount of money for a single overnight stay, Switzerland is more than happy to oblige (as is, I suppose, the U.S.). But the general lesson is that point-to-point hiking in Switzerland is noticeably more expensive than in Germany. As in Germany, in theory you aren't supposed to camp along the trails, except in too-few-and-far-between campgrounds, although some hikers do carry tents and sleeping bags. But the real money sink is in food. Affordable if purchased in stores, it can be as or more expensive than hotel rooms if you eat in restaurants. We knew this going in, but sticker prices were still routinely shocking.

Nonetheless, after 6 days of hiking, Richisau was a delightful indulgence. They were hosting a group of school kids from Zürich, and we surprised them by arriving early to beat that rain, a confluence that somehow ended up in us receiving an unrequested room upgrade.

Daily laundry

At lunch, they teased us for being vegetarians: "See that meadow full of grass and flowers? Those are vegetables. The cows eat that, so when you eat cows, you are eating vegetables." Nonetheless, they offered off-menu (did they even have a menu? we never saw one) vegetarian concoctions for both lunch and dinner that were among the best meals of our trip.

The Gasthaus was built by a foundation whose founder was an art collector, so rooms and hallways offered visual interest.

Rain arrived during lunch and threatened to continue through the afternoon, so we availed ourselves of the bus stop across the road and visited Glarus. Note the natural horn adorning the side of the Postbus.

Post buses are famous for their "Dü-Da-Do" Dreiklanghorns horns, which you can listen to on their website. These were helpful for us the following week as our route overlapped with roads approaching more popular trails near Grindelwald.  

The bus route took us down past the Klöntalersee...

...and into Glarus, where we wandered around for a couple hours. 

We felt a certain obligation to take advantage of the proximity, as alums of the University of Wisconsin. Madison is a mere 28 miles northeast of New Glarus, WI. Every summer since 1941, New Glarus has hosted a Wilhelm Tell Festival that includes outdoor performances based on Schiller's play, complete with live horses and cows in grassy meadows. 30 years ago, when we were grad students, some performances were in English, and some in German. Ca. 1996, S and I attended a performance in German, and it was clear that some of the lines had been memorized by rote rather than by understanding. We have joked about this ever since, thrusting a lackadaisical fist in the air and muttering in monotone, "Das Land ist frei, das Land ist frei." And now, 29 years later, here we were in old Glarus, where das Land was indeed frei.   

Obligatory organ photo. Due to the heat wave, the church
was offering visitors free bottled water and a space to cool off.  

We hopped back on a bus and rode past the Klöntalersee again, this time in sunshine...

...and back up to Richisau. Our host had recommended a side hike to see "the most beautiful view south of Norway," looking from Richisau down to the lake.

Ta da! 9.9 out of 12 miles, 3,000' ascent, 2,500' descent.