Eggen-Höhenweg Trail in Eastern Switzerland, from Vögelinsegg to Lustmühle

(This post created and published on April 15, 2026)

Wednesday January 29, 2014 -- On this sunny winter day, we took the train to eastern Switzerland near St. Gallen to do an 8-km panorama hike called the "Eggen High Trail" with lovely sunshine and great views of the Alpstein Massif and Mt. Säntis. (The reason it is called "Eggen Weg" is because you pass through or very near several locations which have the word "Egg" in their names, which is actually a dialect word for "Ecke", which means "Corner"). Most of the trail follows the border between Appenzell Ausserrhoden and St.Gallen. 

The "official" Eggen Trail starts above the city of Speicher at the train station of Vögelinsegg (which is where we started) but ends with a descent to the city of Teufen, just before you reach the 7th (or 8th?) "Egg" which is the summit of a small hill called Fröhlichsegg. We decided to continue over the Fröhlichsegg summit and descend to another train station along the Appenzellerbahn line, i.e. Lustmühle.

Much of the walk was along wide forest roads, and even though it is not actually a winter trail, the forest roads had less snow and walking was not difficult. 

The “Eggs” we passed, (starting in the East) are: Vögelinsegg, Waldegg and Äussere Egg, Kunzenegg, Häuslersegg, Schäflisegg, Fröhlingsegg. 

Shortly after starting on our walk in Vögelinsegg (at about 12:30), this was the view over the snow-covered landscape of the rolling hills of Appenzell.

Directly below us is the large church in the city of Speicher, and further in the back is the town of Trogen. 

Panorama view over the city of Speicher. In this direction we are looking south across the hills of Appenzell Ausserrhoden (on the north side of the trail is Canton St.Gallen, but not a lot of views in that direction). 

We often pass by cute wooden sculptures. This one looks like it was carved out of a tree trunk from a tree that had to be cut down. 

More lovely views of the Appenzell Landscape as we continue along the Eggen Panorama Trail. 

And now we get the first view of the west end of the Alpstein Massif with Mt.Säntis. 

At a busy junction road called Oberer Horst, we found a little bench, just the right thing for our picnic lunch as it was now 1:00 p.m.!

At about the half-way point along the trail is a popular mountain restaurant called Waldegg. We had a quick look inside, but did not stop for something to drink, as we had just had our picnic lunch. 

Cute gingerbread playhouse on the side of the Waldegg restaurant. 

Looking behind us as we walk past the Waldegg Mountain Restaurant. 

Much of the trail is snow-free from other people walking along here. 

At this point near the final "Egg", the trail descends to the city of Teufen. We continued along the high trail through the forest and over the hill called Fröhlichsegg, from where we did our descent to Lustmühle. 

On the far right is the summit of Mt.Säntis

This is a beautiful house in Schäflisegg, just before heading over the Fröhlichsegg hill and ultimately our descent to Lustmühle, a 50-minute walk from here. (Unfortunately no more photos....)

We started the hike along the panorama high trail on the east side in Vögelisegg, and opted to walk to Lustmühle instead of descending to Teufen at "Egg". The first half of the hike is right along the border between Canton St.Gallen in the north, and Appenzell Ausserrhoden in the south. After the hill called Kunzenegg, the rest of the hike is in Canton Appenzell Ausserrhoden. This was a 2¼-hour walk, less if you descend to Teufen.