This past weekend we made a last-minute decision, based on good weather, to head to Switzerland for some hiking. I'd been meaning to get to the Aescher Hut, in eastern Switzerland, for at least a few years now. I didn't know it existed when I lived in Switzerland but I learned about it after moving to Germany and just had to get there.
This is why - it's famous!:
Anyway, we stayed at the Gade Lodge which is a friendly hotel located in Unterwasser (or, on the hill just above it). Below is the view from our room!
The hotel and adjoining restaurant are owned and run by two guys who basically had a great idea to live someplace beautiful and run a little B&B and restaurant. The restaurant (also called the Gade Lodge) was my ideal restaurant - they served käsespätzli, rösti, fondu! and we found this really amazing white wine, a Riesling-Silvaner, from Schaffhausen (in Switzerland) called Aagne. It was one of the best white wines I've ever had. Since we were going to be hiking all weekend, we splurged and ordered some comfort food. Below Martin is about to dig into his rösti with speck and overeasy egg and the dish that looks like mac and cheese is my käsespätzli. YUM. The picture of the table is our cozy little corner table. The restaurant is like an old converted barn and it's really atmospheric.
On Saturday, we drove to Wasserauen and hiked up to the Aescher hut from there, then continued on up to the top of the Ebenalp cable car and the hut just above it. We covered almost 800 meters in 4 miles, then we had planned to take the cable car down but we still had energy so we walked all the way back down instead, which made for a long but good day. Below is a picture of the view on the way up to the hut (once we got close to the hut and were high enough up for good views):
And here's the hut itself! It was absolutely packed; everybody had the same idea to go to it apparently. We managed to find some space at a table to enjoy a beer, which was nice. I didn't do this hike just to take a picture of the hut and continue walking by!
We continued upward to the Ebenalp cable car station, then went a little higher than that before we sat and ate lunch. There were a lot of paragliders taking off from up there, and circling high above us. I was surprised none of them ran into each other.
Here I am at our lunch spot, with my fat and vigilant raven friend:
After lunch, we continued down past the Aescher hut and finally into Wasserauen. The hike down was pretty steep at times, and the fourth picture below includes a crazy guy climbing some seriously vertical rocks!
On Sunday, we were a little tired from Saturday's hike, plus we had to drive 5 hours back to Germany in the late afternoon so we decided to simply wander around the alpine meadows above Unterwasser and the neighboring town of Wildhaus. We were able to start this hike from our hotel; we walked to the Oberdorf ski lift and rode that to the top (Gamsalp), then started on what we thought was an 8-mile all-downhill hike. Nope! There was some uphill to get higher than the top of the lift, which was fine, but after that the hike kind of went up and down through overgrown, nearly-trail-less, rocky areas. Gorgeous day though, so we enjoyed just being outdoors. We ended up cutting the hike short and skipping the lake we had planned to get to because it was just too far away. This hike was probably a little more than the advertised 8 miles. The incomplete part we did was a little over 8 miles on its own.
Anyway, look at the views! And the wildflowers! Love the Swiss countryside.
For your viewing pleasure, a video with the sounds of hiking in Switzerland - cow bells!
