Hike through the Grossschlierental Valley in Central Switzerland

October 6, 2018 -- Sometimes everything seems to work against us, and yet we still try to have something good to remember after the pain is gone.

The trail we studied on the map had a very nice-looking little stretch of moor landscape along a winding creek (Glaubenberg Moor, total 125 km2), that's something we like, and an interesting possibly adventurous trail into a ravine... It was a valley not far from home (just South of Lucerne near Lake Sarnensee), but the drawback was we had to walk the full 15 km to get out of the valley, i.e. no places to catch trains or buses in between. AND from the map it was clear that half of that was on asphalt or forest roads, which I try to avoid in most cases, but it was all downhill, and if the landscape is interesting the other parts make up for it.

Negative:
As we got out of the bus at the pass road at 9:a.m., it was very cold and uncomfortable and way more cloud cover than forecast.

Positive:
After 10 minutes' walk we got to the lovely Schwendi-Kaltbad restaurant, which was warm and cosy and we spent an hour there with hot-chocolates and our first chestnut-paste dessert of the season. Also, we found out there is quite a history here. Iron mineral springs were discovered in 1642, a bath house built in 1672, a health resort in 1860 which burned down in 1970, and one of the original outbuildings converted to the current restaurant in 1983.

The piece of wood above is too small to carve an Alphorn, but this is the kind of branch they try to find for this instrument. The dessert is called Vermicelle

Negative:
I got into an altercation with a man about an off-leash dog (he unleashed it RIGHT BESIDE the sign that reads "Dogs must be on leash in this nature conservation area) who told me to "go back where I came from" (by which he meant Germany... I get that a lot).

Positive:
The moor-land was very very pretty, but unfortunately was only 25 minutes of what turned out to be a 5-hour hike. But we read later that this is apparently the largest moor area in Switzerland (125 km2). We also got to witness the eerie bellowing of Red Deer Stags, echoing across the valley. Highlight of the day.

This is called the MoorBear Trail and is 25 minutes of lovely trails along this winding stream. This is a conservation area because these moor biotopes are becoming rare in Switzerland.

Negative:
This was followed by 3 km of road, still no sun...

Positive:
.... followed by 15 minutes' walk through a forest filled with all kinds of funghi, and a big sign with rules on how much you were allowed to pick. I'll bet the man with the dog would not have followed those rules either. I wouldn't want to eat the ones we saw, though.

1) No picking of mushrooms on the first 7 days of every month. 2) Max.2 kg per day per person, and max 500 gm of Morel Mushrooms. 3) Only permitted to pick in daylight. 4) Children under 12 may only pick mushrooms if accompanied by an adult. 5) No collection for commercial purposes.

We weren't sure why the rocks were laid out so haphazardly for this trail. It was not very comfortable to walk, and most likely also not for mules in the pre-automobile days...

Negative:
Another 3 km of paved road, so looking forward to the detour into the ravine... but look, what's new?

On our map there should have been a trail into the forest here, but we could find nothing.

We asked a couple of local farmers picnicking nearby, they said that trail hadn't been used for about 10 years now, was totally overgrown because the river had washed too much of it away, so the official trail was now along the road, i.e. an additional 3 km of paved road...

We wanted to walk this green-marked trail into the ravine, but it did not exist any more. Big disappointment, especially as the alternative was another 3 km of paved road.

Positive:
Absolutely nothing.

No, not really. We had a couple of views across the Sarnen Valley to Mount Stanserhorn, and to the summit of Mount Titlis.

Mount Stanserhorn on the left. The one with the world's only open air double-decker cable car.

This is the forest and ravine that we would have like to walk out of. The trail would have exited the ravine here at this spot.

This is the trail that used to go through the ravine. Actually, it used to be the only access to the upper valley before the road was built during WWII by Polish refugees

But wouldn't you know it, when we FINALLY got to the village with the bus stop (Schonried) after 4.5 hours of walking, the bus wasn't running that hour, which meant another 30 minutes to the next train station in Alpnach Dorf, BUT at least 10 minutes of that was through a pretty alley of trees.... small consolation for my very sore feet, which required two full days to recover....

There was another small pretty forest section before reaching the village of Schoried, where we had planned to catch the bus. Here we catch a glimpse of the Alpnachersee to the North.

Since the bus wasn't running this hour, we walked another 30 mintues to the train station in Alpnach Dorf, below (Alpnachersee in the background, and Mount Rigi which you can see from a lot of places in Switzerland)