Valley Hike down the Riemenstaldner Valley, and a special Cable Car Ride

Wednesday July 24, 2019 -- Another heat wave here in Switzerland and we figured a valley hike with forest shade might be cooler (as it turns out it was slightly warmer in the shade because there was no air moving near the cliff walls where we were walking and lots of bugs and horseflies...). The hike we did was down a side valley near Flüelen, called the Riemenstalden Valley (a hidden valley East of Sisikon). We have been here several times, mainly to go up with a private cable car to a lovely lake called Spilauersee. A small Post Bus picks you up at the train station in Sisikon, along with mail and baked goods that the driver, Mr. Gisler, takes to the villagers in the tiny town of Riemenstalden, where, by the way, is a very lovely restaurant that serves the best ice cream sundaes for a very reasonable price.

We started early, got to the end of the line with the bus at 8:20 and to the restaurant 30 minutes' walk later. Urs had a breakfast ice cream, he figured an iced coffee ice cream sundae was a good breakfast alternative...

The main reason for this hike though, besides being able to connect lines on my map, was to ride another private cable car, to check another one off our list. Canton Uri also has a large inventory of cable cars, private and public, and we have ridden more than half of them. To get to this particular one required a detour of 30 minutes each way, and what we basically did was ride up, buy cheese from and chat with the farmer who spends the summers up at Buggi Alp, walk a tiny way to a breezy place to eat the cheese and wonder at how few people surely have seen what we get to see (there is no real hiking trail up here, only advanced mountain climbers use the cable car to access the blue-white trail to the Rophaien Cliffs here).  It was lovely and cool up there, making us think a mountain hike might have been better after all....

**See further down for interesting facts about the cable car....
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One of my favourite views: The "harbour" at Sisikon on Lake Uri, with Mount Gitschenen on the left at the back. Here we get off the train and head into the valley by Van-Bus. This is also where we are walking back to.

Eight of us are going up the valley at this time, as well as all kinds of packages, as this is the POST BUS

At the back of the valley is Riemenstalden Käppeliberg. Here is a popular small private cable car to a beautiful upper alp from where you can walk to the very pretty Lake Spilauersee. This time, we walked out of the valley from here

At the back of the Riemenstalden Valley, early in the morning.

We passed through several forest sections like this one, with some pretty impressive cliffs. But the air was stagnant and there were lots of bugs

This is the restaurant Kaiserstock in the tiny village of Riemenstalden. Lots of beautiful flowers, and very nice ice cream sundaes!

It was only 9 a.m., but hey, they are the best ice cream sundaes, so why not?

Some small details of the restaurant and village

Looking back on Riemenstalden as we continue down the valley on the other side

Looking West down the Valley. Lake Uri is at the foot of the cliffs up ahead

Some more impressive cliffs in the forest

 

Well here is a cable car we are NOT allowed to ride! There are dozens of these transport cable cars all over

To walk straight out of the valley would take 2 hours. But after about 80 minutes we took a 30-minute detour around the hill to the end of the road, where there is nothing more than the farmer's cable car. (On this map you can just see a handful of the cable cars in this area, that are open to the public)

The cable car was "gone" when we got there, and we could see it way way up the mountain, just a tiny speck making its way down. If it had just left the bottom station as we got there, we would have had to wait over 15 minutes. 

Turns out the farmer was taking his son on an outing down at the lake, in "this infernal heat" as he put it, when he got out of the box

The farmer called his wife on the phone, told her we were waiting. But we said, "Give us 10 minutes, we want to take some photos first"! So when we were done, we used the old phone on the wall to call up. 

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Fun facts about this cool cable car: Built in 1995, the cable car is their lifeline when the family is up here on the alp in the summer.  Sometimes they even transport their cows with this custom-built cable car; it can carry 600 kg. It runs on two cables, which means it barely swings in high winds.  At some points the cable car is over 100m from the ground and travels over a ravine. It's only been open to the public since 2017. And as there is only one car and each leg takes 8 minutes and only two people may ride it at a time, it would not be very practical for a large group to go up there at once!  Oh, and someone always has to be up at the house to operate the cable car, so when they come up in the early summer, one person has to walk up, to start the car for the rest of the family. And during the summer, they cannot do any outings as a family...

The cable car passes over a ravine over 100 meters below

A lovely, serene, 8-minute ride to Buggi Alp, one of Switzerland's few privately-owned alpine meadows. 

The cable car is custom made, with all the mechanics in a shed across from the farm-house. The special construction along two cables means it is more stable when strong winds are blowing. 

The family spends the entire summer up here, making cheese, much of which gets exported to England. We bought a kilo and sat in a lovely cool spot on the steep meadow eating bread and cheese and basking in the view

View from our picnic spot, down to Lake Uri

It was surprisingly "cool" up here, making us think a mountain hike might not have been a bad idea

After an hour, we headed down again. There is a steep trail down to the clearing below, but it's 450 altitude meters, and we rather wanted to ride the little box again. Plus we still had another 500 altitude meters left to descend back down to Sisikon (down at the boats below)

Some more nice views of Bauen and Isenthal Valley, where we walked most recently, on another such very hot day. 

Another photo of the little Buggi Alp Cable Car in its garage. Now it is at the bottom when Mr. Furrer and his son (or grandson?) come back from their outing. 

Some time recently a large tree crashed down at this spot in the forest and quite destroyed the steps and the banisters. You can see parts of it on the trail further below

After a long steep descent through the muggy forest, we finally got back to Sisikon. The whole hike took us about 3 hours 15 minutes walking time. 

The Buggi Alp that we rode up to is a neat little crater shape. "Buggi" comes from a word that means "mouth".  This alp is one of the few privately-owned mountain alps in Switzerland

We have done many hikes in this area and ridden many cable cars. We needed to walk down this valley to connect to other trails which we have already walked.