The Charburner Trail between Bramboden and Romoos in the Napf Region

Saturday August 15th -- Two other times in the past couple of months we have headed out with the intention of doing a 4-hour hike in the Entlebuch region of Switzerland near Luzern, a special themed trail showcasing the ancient art (dates back to ancient Egypt) of char burning (creating charcoal from wood), practiced now only by about 11 farmers in the area between Bramboden and Romoos in the Napf region, producing a total of 100 TONS of charcoal every year, used mainly for barbeques. There used to be 200 of these charburners in the area, particularly during the two world wars. At that time and previously, the main use for the charcoal was for iron forging.

The past two times we had to abandon this plan were because of 1) a defect on the train line which caused us to miss the bus connection, which runs only every couple of hours, and 2) fog in the area, and I don't like to do long hikes without SOME view.

We were very lucky to not have to abandon the plans a third time, as there was an unusual number of people who showed up for the bus connection this morning, possibly because a group of hikers neglected to make a reservation -- which they did not then admit to -- and other folks had to be turned away. But we were not giving up our seat this time! (This small van-bus runs only weekends and only every couple of hours, so of course everyone wants the first course of the day, the one that gets you to the last stop of Bramboden at 10 a.m.! Most people who take this course will walk up to the popular look-out point called Napf).

We had expected an interesting variation of forest trails that led into two ravines, but as it turns out, much of the trail was overgrown and soaking wet from recent rains, and otherwise not tended to, which is very unusual for officially-themed trails in Switzerland.

Nevertheless, we did find two of the wood-coal set-ups, one in its "set-up" stage, and one at full operation, black and sooty and acrid-smelling and stinking up the air for a couple of kilometers (or maybe the smell was in my hair). Also, in one of the ravines we discovered the remains of an original charburner's hut, tucked away under a massive overhang under which they had previously also done this coal-making process. And loads and loads of cut wood along the trail....

After several blessed weeks of little foot pain in earlier months this year, this hike left me with hours of pain, though. Maybe we have to go back to high-alpine tours....

The village of Bramboden, where we started our 4-hour hike along the Charcoal Trail, is the final bus stop on the infrequent run from Schüpfheim train station. First order of the day is to check out the local church, to see if there are any interesting details.

The interior of the church was very light and simple, with lovely wood details, especially the ceiling.

The cemetery was also of interest with its uniform wooden carved grave markers

From the village of Bramboden, this is the view to the South. On clear days you should be able to see the Bernese Alps from here, but there was low cloud in that area.

The suggested direction for this 11- to 12-km hike is to start in Romoos. We did it the other way around, as there is less total ascent that way.

From Bramboden we descend into the first "ravine" and encounter our first charcoal-burning operation.

Here the stack is still in the preparation stage.

The bundled wood will be covered by a special soot product which will be tamped into a hard covering, so the wood burns INSIDE. Holes in this covering will allow steam and gases to escape.

The trail further into the bottom of the ravine was wet and slippery and very overgrown!

We thought this would be an easy "walk through the forest" but due to recent rains, we had to be extra careful!

Trail no. 530 is the "Charcoal-Manufacturing Trail". Here we found a kiln in operation, and additional information about the manufacture of charcoal.

This kiln is complete with the tamped outer wall, and in full operation. Very interesting, but very dirty, and extremely acrid smelling, tough on my sensitive nose! (I don't even like the smell of regular wood burning).

VIDEO:

Completed wood stack currently in operation to produce charcoal.

Temperatures reach 800 Deg. inside the stack.

One cubic meter of wood produces 100 kg of charcoal after burning for 14-18 days

At 800 degrees, the wood is converted into its constituent parts, i.e. water and other gases escape through the holes and what remains is 100% carbon.

The heat after the rain made this quite a humid hike. Almost like being in the tropical jungle!

A large part of our hike was on trails such as this one.

From a bench here we admired the hilly landscape. In the section of hills between here and Bramboden, there are 8 of the 11 charburners. And one behind us on the other side of the hill!

Heading uphill, and far behind is the village of Bramboden

A zoomed view of the church in Bramboden (which is, by the way, a pilgrim church, dedicated to St. Antonius of Padua). At the bottom left the next bus run is arriving at its destination!

The noon bus arriving in Bramboden!

Below to the left is another charburning site, called Finsteregg

We always make detours around cows that use the hiking trails!

This region is called the Centovalli of Luzern because of the many hills and valleys

An unusual sight, a grove of dead trees

We got down to the bottom of a second ravine, this one was interesting, because we walked along the river a bit and came unexpectedly at this section where large chunks of molasse rock had fallen from the cliffs. Interesting also was that the riverbed was composed of molasse

This information placard tells us that the perfectly rounded rocks were sanded by the river Aare many millions of years ago, and then mortared together under lots of pressure to form the molasse