Winter Walk and Tobogganing at Melchsee Frutt

Wednesday February 13 -- We have been having some very nice winter weather, lots of sunshine lately which looks great when the landscape is covered in an expansive blanket of snow.

This Wednesday we went for a winter walk in the large vehicle-free upper plateau of the Obwalden Alps between the Melchtal Valley and the Engelberg Valley. Namely between Melchsee Frutt and Tannalp, There are no trees up here, just snow as far as the eye can see. 

The walk itself was not particularly interesting though, a 10 km roundtrip with a nice lunch at the halfway point at the Tannalp Gasthaus which is open all winter. You walk on a typical wide prepared trail, but the lack of trees and the frozen-over lakes makes the landscape somewhat monotonous after all. Or maybe it was because I forgot my sunglasses, so the glare was hard on the eyes. But it was tranquil and the sun was warm.

To get up here, you take a gondola cable-car from Stöckalp in the Melchtal Valley. Getting back down becomes more interesting, as there is an 8-km toboggan run, the longest in central Switzerland (in summer you can rent a trottinette for the descent). We brought our sleds along and saved on rentals (we locked them up near the cable-way station so didn't take them on our walk) and the 35-minute descent at the fastest possible speed was the best part of the day! Also, we made it back to the bus stop with just two minutes to spare, which was a good thing, because we were wet and cold and wouldn't have appreciated having to wait another hour for the next bus....

The bus from Sarnen brings you into the Melchtal Valley, to the cable-car station at Stöckalp. After our three-hour walk, we rode our sleds back down to the station.

At Melchsee-Frutt, the first amazing views

 

From the top of the elevator, looking across this high plateau. The landscape is covered in walking trails, cross-country trails, and ski pistes

At the bottom of the elevator is where the loop trail starts and ends

We started the loop on the South side, passing the chapel first

 

URS

 

 

Up ahead is the dam from Lake Tannensee. For me, the landscape was maybe TOO MUCH white

And the half-way mark and furthest East we can go: Tannalp. At the very back slightly to the right is Mount Titlis, whose glacier offers skiing all year round

 

Gasthaus Tannalp open all winter, served very good food.

I found an empty chair and had a nap in the sun before heading back to Melchsee-Frutt

One last look at Tannalp (we did a summer hike through here in 2016 and purchased some Tannalp cheese, hand-made up here in the summer time)

Heading back on the northern side of the loop.

 

Back at the summit station we collected our sleds and did the 35-minute run back down to the Melchtal Valley

VIDEO: We played "Leap-Frog" with the two kids on the sled for most of the way down. Sometimes they passed us, sometimes we passed them.

We still have a long way to go from here down to the valley bottom!

Sharing the toboggan run with the skiers.

VIDEO:  The toboggan run back down to the valley was the best part of the day.

The red line is the gondola cable car, the purple line shows the approx. 10 km we walked, and the yellow is the toboggan trail back down to Stöckalp