Hiking in Switzerland – Gabrielle and Urs: February 2025

Sunday February 2nd, 2025 -- The fog is back, but there was sunshine in the mountains, so we opted for another snow hike in the Uri Alps, near a lovely alpine lake called Arnisee, a place we have been many times in summer, as this is where Urs' father grew up. There are two cable-cars which access the upper plateau where the lake is located: A southern line (from Intschi) with an eight-man cabin directly to the mountain restaurant called Berggasthaus Alpenblick next to the lake, and a smaller four-man cabin from near Amsteg to the upper plateau, which is the one we prefer to take.

It's only a 90-minute trip for us to get here, so a nice place to spend a few hours in the sunshine above the fog. We knew of prepared walking and snow-shoe trails we could follow to get some walking done, a short "hike" of less than six kilometers for us. But we hadn't been up to the lake in a long time, although we have often taken our foreign visitors there, so it seemed like a good time to go again.

The little Amsteg-Arnisee cable-car is the preferred cable-car by locals, but on a Sunday there are usually many people who want to travel with this cute cable-car, so it runs constantly (7 minutes each run), and we only had to wait about twenty minutes till we got up into the sunshine.

After a 7-minute walk from the bus stop along the road to Amsteg, we reached the Amsteg-Arnisee cable-car station at 10:45. (Having left home shortly after 9 a.m. for the 90-minute trip). There were about a dozen people waiting here already (lots of cars in the parking lot), and we had to wait for a couple of runs of the cable-car (6 minutes each run).

Watching the cable-car run up to the Arni Plateau. The fog is very thick here!

This is the cute little Amsteg-Arni cable car which we have used many times already to get up to the Arni plateau. It carries four people at a time and each run takes 6-7 minutes.

We got up to the summit station at 11:10, above the fog, to wonderful sunshine!

Lake Arnisee is a 30-minute walk from the summit station, on a prepared winter walking trail. In the direction of Vorder Arni is a snow-shoe trail, and since it hadn't snowed for several days, we decided to follow the snow-shoe trail, as it was tramped down quite well.

To the east on the other side of the Reuss Valley is the fabulous Gross Windgällen mountain.

This wasn't a very long trail which we walked, about 6 kilometers. We started at the summit cable-car station at Mittelarni at 11:15, did the loop walk on the snow-shoe trail to Vorderarni and back, then did the winter walking trail which is also a loop to Lake Arnisee, and then back to the cablecar station. We spent about three hours in the sunshine up here, taking the cable car back down again at about 2:15 p.m.

Heading north toward VorderArni on the snow-shoe trail.

Looking behind us as we reach the northern-most point of the loop trail.

This is the look-out point and furthest north along the VorderArni loop, where we get a view down the Reuss Valley.... well, on this day, along the top of the blanket of fog!

We sat here for only about five minutes, as other people who had been walking behind us (talking very loudly) showed up, so we left again. (Unfortunately those people ended up catching up to us later as well, still talking loudly! So much for enjoying the peace and quiet of a winter mountain landscape).

The fog blanket is very high this day, but at least we can get above it!

After we left the look-out bench, many other walkers reached there! (The three people on the left were the ones who did all the talking! The two women had even ridden in the cable-car with us, already non-stop chatting there!)

A cute little house along the way as we head back toward the cable-car station.

We were following a nicely-tramped snow-shoe trail!

Another look to the east across from the Reuss Valley, into the Maderaner Valley, which is also full of fog!

As we get closer to the cable car station, we started looking for a place to sit to eat our sandwiches. Later we started on the second loop walk to the lake up the hill on the right, but ultimately walking up through the forested section from the left.

We could not find a snow-free bench, but this large boulder turned out to be a great place to sit and eat our sandwiches! This was shortly after noon-time.

The view from our Rock, of the beautiful Mount Bristen. Those two ladies are just starting up along the snow-shoe trail (using actual snow-shoes) where we had just descended from.

Ahead to the south is where we continued walking, heading into the forest and approaching the lake along the forest trail.

The second part of our walk was along an official walking trail, prepared for walkers.

Looking behind us as we continue south... just behind Urs (above his head) is the cable-car station, and that mountain is the Grosse Windgällen.

Another look behind us.

A lovely small trail through the forest.

From a look-out point on the most eastern side of the loop, we get a lovely view of Mt.Bristen and the very high blanket of fog in the Reuss Valley below.

Heading up through the forest toward Lake Arnisee from the East. This wasn't actually the officially walking trail, but parallel to the official trail which was lower down and more in the shade!

This is now up at the lake, which is almost all frozen over.

Making our way around the lake on the popular walking trail.

This is the popular view across Lake Arnisee!

At the south end of the lake is another cable car which comes up from the valley bottom to this restaurant. We decided we didn't want to stop here for something to drink, as it being a lovely Sunday afternoon, there were a lot of people here! (As a side note, the summit of the mountain on the right is called Sunnig Grat, a summit we ascended to in October 2022, those photos are HERE).

At 1:40 p.m. we headed back toward Mittel Arni to the cable car station.

Another look into the Maderaner Valley on the other side of the Reuss Valley. On the first part of our loop we had walked via that farm below.

A cool snowman!

Back at the cable-car station at 2 p.m. we had just missed the ride down to valley bottom which connected to our bus. Not wanting to wait too long in the fog below, we enjoyed the sun up here for a while longer. (We didn't want to stay too long because as time went on, more and more people would be wanting to descend, and only four people could travel on any one trip!)

At this point, at 2:15 p.m., it looked like the fog was moving onto the plateau anyway, so we decided to head back down, after enjoying three hours of sunshine up here!

Getting ready for the trip back down to valley bottom!

Crossing the bridge over the Reuss River on our way back to the bus station. We only had to wait about 10 minutes for the 14:44 bus for the 90-minute trip home.