A Short Round Tour near Wald in the Zurich Oberland

Wednesday February 24, 2021 -- Spring is here, and with it the start of a new hiking year! 

After a pause of almost eight weeks, we are at it again, starting with a relatively easy 3-hour and 10-km hike in the Zurich Oberland near the Toggenburg Region: Lots of pastoral landscapes, pleasant forest trails and mirror-ponds. No leaves yet, and not a lot of flowers in the woods, but they're coming! And it's so lovely to see the lambs and calfs out and about.

This round tour near the town of Wald should have afforded us some pretty nice views of the Churfirsten mountains, but there seems to be Sahara desert sand in the air, and it was unfortunately a very hazy day. But WARM! At least 15 degrees, and at one point I wished I had brought shorts.

The main plus of this area is that it only takes us 90 minutes to get to. We're planning to come again when the air is clear!

Our relatively easy 10-km hike started and ended at the train station in Wald, and passed by a couple of ponds and through some forested sections.

The air was unfortunately rather hazy, so we didn't see the mountains. But a few such villages were visible.

Baby animals are always very cute

It was so warm, I wish I had brought shorts along!

Walking through forests in Switzerland is always pleasant, and there are always interesting waterfalls, streams and pools to discover

This pond was our main goal of the day, but there were many bushes around the edges, so not too much to see. Except this heron, it's always a thrill to see herons.

As we climbed higher, we saw another pond below, which was not on our planned trail.

You can just barely make out the mountains in the back. This would be in the direction of the Churfirsten mountain range of Eastern Switzerland.

Still a bit of snow, but we didn't encounter much of it along the actual trails.

And baby cows are also always fun!

What a fun name for a town: "Oh" !!! Although I could not find this place on the map, there was another place nearby called "Aa"

Lots of nice soft trails to follow, and relatively dry!

The pastoral landscape of Zurich Oberland (close to Lake Zurich)

More fun forest trails

We took a detour to find this little pond which we had seen on the map. It was so still and beautifully mirrored the forest!

The final part of the hike was a 2-km stretch through a little gully with a stream (Schmittenbach) and some nice water features!

The first spring flowers: Snowbells!