Jura Crest Trail between Aarau and Olten

(Note: This publication was made approx. 3 weeks after the hike)

Sunday April 8, 2018 -- Second nice day on this weekend in early April, but also hazy, so we did an easy woodsy walk this time, on the Jura Crest Trail in the Northern part of Switzerland. The Jura mountain range actually runs North/South in the Western part of the Switzerland, but this is the very tail end (West-East), and you can walk all along the ridge of this low range.

On a clear day (which this was not) you can see the entire range of Alps to the South, but we had sunshine and although most of the walk was through forested areas back and forth across the border between Cantons Solothurn and Basel Land, the lack of leaves meant we still got to enjoy the sunshine. Also, we had a coffee break at "the highest point in Canton Aargau": 908m!!

The Jura Crest Trail is one of seven Swiss long-distance trails (No.5), altogether 310 km long from Zurich to Geneva. The 13 km we did this day is one half of Stage 3... We started at the pass called Salhöhe and walked westward to Hauenstein near Olten. Last year in May we did the other half, starting at the same place but walking to the East, ending at another pass called Staffelegg, North of Aarau. The description of that tour can be found at this link:

https://swisstravelgirl.blogspot.de/2017/05/on-jura-crest-trail-from-salhohe-to.html

Start of our hike at Salhöhe, on Trail No.5: Jura Crest Trail. We walked 13 km across the ridge to Hauenstein.

After 2 km, we reached the highest point of Canton Aargau, which is only 908m! Had a coffee break here.

Coffee Break at the highest point in Canton Aargau

The trail crossed back and forth across three Canton borders (Aargau, Solothurn and Basel Land) so we often came across these border markers

Border markers between Cantons

At the top of the rise called Geissflue, this is the view North into Canton Basel Land

Much of our hike was through forested area, but as the leaves had not yet emerged, we had lots of sunshine

At the foot of Geissflue is this hostel, open mostly only Sundays, where we enjoyed a reasonably-priced grilled Bratwurst. (Naturfreundehaus Schafmatt)

Even though we had brought our own picnic along (no restaurants were marked on the map), we took advantage and treated ourselves to a grilled Bratwurst.

More of the early spring landscape in Canton Baselland. 

Some of the first indications that Spring is on its way

13 km from Salhöhe to Hauenstein on the Jura Crest Trail (took 3.5 hours). A year earlier, we did the other half of Stage 3: Salhöhe to Staffelegg