Monday 31st August: Cool morning warm midday, hot afternoon, with clear skies all day: 18°C to 27ºC.
Braunwald to Elm: Jan and Ian 22K: 8.00am to 4.30pm: 8hrs 30 mins - PLUS Train (30min) to Linthal and cable car down: Jenny and Graham 15k: 5hrs General Suworow train Schwanden to Elm
Early start Adrenalin backpackers
Braunwald cog train to Linthal
Perfect hiking day with blue skies
Tunnel on the way up to Richetli
Steep climb with Martin and Terri
Coffee looking over to Braunwald
Retrieving bottle from cow muck
Steep climb through meadows
Pine Forrests, alps and meadows
Still climbing!
Wildflowers still in bloom
A spectacular day in the alps
Snack at the Richetli Pass with Martin and Terri
Richettli Pass 2661m
View over the Pass
Highlight of our day was doing a 1600 metre climb to Rechetli Pass, then getting into Elm late in the day to find Graham and Jenny had already completed their 15k Valley Walk of General Suworow and were waiting for us with cold beers from the local supermarket.
Our day starts early - we're all having breakfast at 7am - pretty ordinary - bread and jam with tea/coffee. Ian and I have decided to do the high route to Elm via Richetli Pass at 2261m, a climb of 1600metres from Linthal. Jenny has opted to do catch a bus to Schwanden and do the General Suworow valley walk into Elm. Graham has elected to keep Jenny company! Ian and I are away at 7.30am, buying a loaf of fresh bread before heading to the station to catch the Braunwald cog train down to Linthal. Five minutes later we're on the train descending steeply into Linthal, and ten minutes later we reach the bottom ready for the day's walk.
The day is a cool 18ºC with blue skies, and there's another couple, Martin and Terri, who have caught the same train down and are also hiking up to the Richetli Pass. We all cross the train line and follow the signs up the gravel road, playing tag as we walk at different paces up and up. The sign at the bottom in Linthal said 5 and 1/2 hours to Richetli Pass, but the morning is cool and the walk is mostly in the shade of pine forests or the shadow of the valley and we move fairly quickly up the mountain hoping to get there sooner, so we're in time for the Ampachli cable car down to Elm at the end of the day.
After 2 hrs of mostly forrest hiking, time for a 10min coffee stop by the stream, and to buy a small piece of Alpine cheese from an old timber chalet serving as a cheese factory, complete with all quarantine and hygiene requirements - coats, hats, sealed doors etc . Then the path crosses the stream and goes up through a very steep gap towards the top. It's mostly meadows and cows as we climb relentlessly, but at least it's still cool. At 12.30pm after 4 hrs 15 minutes, we reach Richetli Pass at 2261m on a perfect summers day. For the past hour we've seen no clean water, only dried up streams, symptomatic of the dry summer in Switzerland, and our water bottles are quite low. If we have lunch of salty cheese and bread here we'll be so thirsty for the afternoon, and besides there's still one more high pass to cross.
So after a quick snack of apple, it's down a steep path to a huge basin surrounded by high alps, a few kilometres wide, with meadows and cows and dirty water streams - until I find a bubble of water from an under ground stream that's icy cold, and free from cow plops - a great place to fill up our water bottles. In the centre of this weird basin, we hear blasting and think it could be thunder, but there's no storms, and the noise reverberates around the basin's walls. It's constant - perhaps it's a quarry or they're digging a tunnel somewhere? We later find out that the Swiss army has a base in Elm down in the valley and they're always practice shooting or bombing. Across the meadow to the other side of teh basin where there's another 200 metre climb to the basin lip. it's time for our cheese and bread.
Down and down again and after 2hrs of more down hill, we reach Oberobs, where there's supposed to be a bus - and there is. But we also see a sign for 1 and 1/2 hrs walk to Ampachli, along the Erbs to Ampachli cable car, and this is supposed to be a really nice balcony walk above ELM, and since it's only 2.30pm, we (make that I) decide to keep on walking to the cable car. The afternoon gets warmer, and there's whole families out reaping grass and hauling it down the hill to a waiting tractor.
At 4.30pm we arrive at the privately run cable car and pay and expensive CHF10 to hop in the gondola and be whisked down the mountain side to Elm. Another 10 minute walk to our Gasthaus Segnes, and Jenny and Graham had already arrived from their 15k hot walk up the valley. Graham's shopping for dinner and arrives back soon after with a bag of cold beers. Ian's so thirsty he can't wait and has a beer in the shower!
Thanks Graham for a nice cold beer, and thanks for the lovely dinner of salmon, ham, lettuce tomatoes and mayo with an Austrian Pinot Noir
Lunch at the Second high point
On top of the world again
Cows, green meadows and alps
Be careful which mountain stream you drink from!
Hot day, icy cold water
Cutting grass Swiss style
Beer in the shower
Salad and Salmon a la Graham!