When thinking about the "must do" activities of Switzerland a few things come to mind; eating milk chocolate for one, or Alpine cheese and melted cheese fondue. Water sports is another, including swimming in the many crystal clear blue lakes scattered throughout the country. There is also skiing the Alps in the Winter, which I understand is quite the experience. The biggest "must do" activity for me though and what I would consider to be a quintessential activity when visiting Switzerland, is hiking, or at the very least going up a mountain and taking in some amazing views. There are so many mountains in the country and so many trails that it's just one of those things that you simply have to do. Nearly every major mountain range has a cable car or a train as well making even the highest and most remote peaks completely accessible.
I think that Switzerland in general does a really great job at making the higher reaches of their country accessible and it seems that there is a trail or mountain activity for just about any skill level.
To me the notion stands, if you visit Switzerland, at least once, you must hike!
For day three of our trip we went hiking in the Appenzell District on the Ebenalp mountain. We took the cable car in Wasserauen and then hiked up to the Schäfler Hut and out along the ridge. Later in the day we hiked back down to the Wildkirchli cliff restaurant and then down into the valley back to our vehicle. This post will outline that hike and our experience along the way. I hope you enjoy.
The hike starts in the small town of Wasserauen at a large parking lot just in front of the Ebenalp cable car. The lot is large but the site is very popular among hikers so I recommend getting there early in the morning to ensure that you can find a spot to park. We arrived at 9:00am and the lot was already filling up fast.
From Wasserauen you have a few options for getting up the mountain. The easiest and most direct route would be to do what we did and take the Ebenalp cable car up to a midway point on the mountain. It costs about 30 CHF/person round trip and drops you off a short distance above the Wildkirchli restaurant. If you prefer to hike up the mountain then there are several trails which you can follow including one that brings you passed a pictuesque mountain lake called Lake Seealpsee. For more information on that hike I recommend checking out a post written by a fellow Hive blogger and Swiss local, @delishtreats. You can check it out by clicking the link Seealpsee Adventure.
The cable car comes every 20 or 30 minutes and takes about 10 minutes to reach the top. From there you get some pretty amazing views of the Swiss landscape, the characteristic rolling hills of green pastures dotted by small villages and Alpine huts and farms.
Heading up the mountain towards the Schafler Hut you'll follow a trail that brings you alongside a steep cliff face. Here you'll see some amazing views looking down into the valley below.
If you look closely you can even see lake Seealpsee off in the distance.
At one point along the way we saw a helicopter coming up over the cliff which I assumed was some sort of tour that you could pay for, a "Take a helicopter through the Alps" sort of thing.
But then the helicopter landed and the co-pilot ran over to one of the local farms and I realized that they were actually there for a completely different purpose.
I guess one of the cows was sick or injured and needed transport down the mountain, which is apparently a fairly common occurrence. The Swiss really treat their Alpine cows well, which may be why they produce such good cheese!
Anyway, seeing a cow airlifted off the side of a mountain by a helicopter is certainly not something that you see everyday.
I've noticed that Switzerland does a really good job with their trail markers on most of their hikes. You'll find signs posted along the way pointing you in the direction you wish to travel, tyoically with a length or time distance as well to give you an idea of how far you need to go to reach your destination.
In our case we were heading toward the Schafler Hut, which you can just make out in the photo above. It's the tiny building located at the top of the mountain.
The path was well worn and easy to follow and begins with a fairly gentle incline. It follows the cliff side and offers several nice lookouts points along the way.
Something kind of neat is that the landscape changes pretty dramatically as you go higher up any mountain. The trees start to shrink with the harsher conditions becoming more shrub-like the higher you ascend. Eventually they stop growing altogether and only grass and flowers remain. If you keep going up on some of the higher mountains, even they stop growing and everything just becomes various forms of rock.
After about 20 minutes along the trail you come to a small farm and from there the path goes much more vertical. It turns into a series of switchbacks that basically take you all the way to the Schäfler Hut.
The weather seems to change constantly this high on the mountain as well, as clouds roll in over top of you. One minute you're standing in the sunshine and the next minute you're walking through the fog.
When the clouds part and give way you can see the Schäfler Hut a little more clearly. There it is again at the top of the mountain.
The land changes again at this point becoming much more rocky.
But there are still quite a bit of wild flowers growing in the grass and also a ton of these little pink blossoms that grow in clusters. They stand out against the grey and green backdrop making for something really quite beautiful.
The switchbacks continue up the remainder of the mountain and its here that you gain the most elevation. If you're like us then you may need to take a few quick breaks along the way. Catching your breath becomes a good excuse to take photos.
We had left the cows down in the hilltop valley at the little farm before the path decided to go vertical. But getting closer to Schäfler we started to hear bells again, this time around the necks of goats munching on the Alpine grass.
There were quite a few goats up there actually and one had decided to block our path for a solid minute or so. It didn't move on its own and eventually I had to work up the courage to approach it. I'm pretty sure that goats are friendly but still,
"Please don't head butt me down this mountain."
We eventually came to the Schäfler Hut which is not only a restaurant but also a mountain hotel. There are tables and chairs outside on the patio in case you want to stop for some food or maybe a drink in the clouds.
We ended up sitting on a bench off to the side of the Hut, just for a few minutes to catch our breath. The view from this location was spectacular once the clouds gave way.
A lot of people stop their hike here but I recommend at least going just a bit further. There are some really cool features just around the corner.
For instance, if you go passed the lodge and climb up a small hill then you come to a high spot on the mountain where you can get an awesome view of the ridge. There are actually two different peaks here and you can also get some cool photos if you and your hiking partner each take a side to photograph each other.
My wife took a photo of me standing on one peak and then I turned back and took a photo of her on the other. You get the idea.
On the furthest peak from the Schäfler Hut (on the one that I'm standing on) you can look down and see where the path continues up and over the Schäfler ridge and down along the mountain. This is where we are going next.
The path of the ridge gets very narrow with only room to walk single file. There are a few places where bottle necks can form and you may have to wait for others ahead of you. It's just one of those things.
The dog couldn't walk the path without getting in the way, but luckily we had his trusty backpack! To me his face in the photo is like,
"ummm, are you aware that we are on the edge of a mountain!?"
Around this point you can start to see a mountain lake in the valley below, which I now know to be Lake Seealpsee. I didn't know it prior to our hike that day but if you continue along the path you will eventually walk down beside the lake and if you go further you will eventually even make your way back to Wasserauen. Again, I didn't know it at the time but you can actually do the entire hike, including the Wildkirchli restaurant as one really long circuit if you have the will and the endurance to do so.
We hummed and hawd here for a while, unsure of what we wanted to do - go to the lake and risk not being able to find our way back to our car or turning back around the way we came and heading to the Wildkirchli restaurant. After some deliberation we decided on the latter. We both really wanted to see the restaurant and we were just too uncertain about the unknown path ahead.
I took one last look down into the valley and then we headed back over the ridge and back down the way we had just come.
