Another Section of the Reuss River Trail in the Freiamt Region (Canton Aargau)

Friday February 27, 2026 -- Third day in a row of warm weather and lots of sunshine, and I didn't want to pass up the opportunity of another walk, especially as one should have had good views of the mountains again.

I had arranged for a walk with a hiking buddy, and we settled on a rather uneventful riverside walk along the Reuss River near where we both live. We had nice views of the river and some cool forest trails on small paths, but nothing exciting to see, really, which is OK as we used the opportunity to catch up on news since our last visit.

I chose this stretch of river because it was a "missing" piece of the riverside trail in my attempt to walk the whole length of the Reuss River (one of Switzerland's major rivers). Unfortunately, even though the day started quite cool, it soon got exceedingly hot and we were both overdressed. The final 20-minute section along a wide dam trail before the town of Mühlau near what is called the Maschwander Allmend (a marshy region with lots of birds and flowers in summer) was hot and exposed and the "hardest" part of the walk! 

Visibility is pretty good this day as my train heads up the Freiamt Region to Muri at 10:30 a.m. (I left home at about 9:50, for the 1-hour trip to Muri). 

I met my friend in Muri and we took the bus together to our starting point here in Althäusern, at about 11 a.m. This region of southern Canton Aargau is called the Freiamt. 

View south to the Alps as we make our way down to the Reuss River. 

On the way to the river, we pass through this lovely farm, which I had seen once before when Urs and I did a hike in October 2020 (starting in Muri) where we headed northwards from here. (Today we are headed southwards). 

View of the Alps to the south as we get close to the Reuss River. 

This is called the "Reuss Canal" (looking north), an "artificial" watercourse running parallel to the Reuss River. There is a walking trail here too, but it's on a wide road and too hot to walk today! So we continued on right to the riverside trail. 

This easy walk along the Reuss River to Mühlau was almost 12 km, which turned out to be a bit too long as the final stretch before Mühlau was exposed to the hot sun, and was on a wider trail. But this was a missing part of the Reuss Riverside Trail which I am trying to complete, and was one of the only ways I could complete it!

The first hour of our walk along the Reuss River heading south, was actually quite a comfortable walk. 

For the first half of our walk we had nice walking paths next to the river.

Looking behind us at the path next to the Reuss River. 

Features of the Reuss River. 

At 12:30 we found the perfect spot to stop for our picnic lunch. This is near a vehicle bridge which crosses the Reuss River at a community called Ottenbach. At this point we only had covered just over one-third of our planned walk!

A great place for our picnic lunch!

Searching for my visor, which I thought I might have lost along the way. Turns out it was lying in the leaves behind the bench!

After a 45-minute rest stop, we crossed underneath the bridge at 1:20 p.m. and continued on our southward walk. 

We are following what is called the "Reussuferweg", i.e. the "Reuss Riverside Trail". The sign does warn us, though, that if the water level is high, or if it has rained for a long time, one must use the alternate "dam" trail. 

The lovely Reuss Riverside Trail. Here walking was comfortable, and even though the afternoon temperatures now are expected up to 14 degrees (and it WAS warm), the shade of the trees makes it comfortable. 

We saw recent beaver activity! I wonder if the hard-working beaver was aware that there wasn't a lot of "tree" to be felled on the left! On the other tree (right photo), they'd have more luck. 

After another 30 minutes of walking, we got to the next bridge at the community of Rickenbach. From here we still have to walk over an hour to the Mühlau bridge, near the end of our hike. 

This bridge over the Reuss River was built in 1971

Looking south along the Reuss River from the bridge at Rickenbach. 

Now we are getting some nice views of the mountains again. 

Still enjoying some comfortable trails. 

Because we were chatting, we missed the place where the Lorze River flows into the Reuss River! It is just toward the back of this photo, and the trees on the other side from the triangle piece of land between the two rivers called the "Rüssspitz". Back in April 2020, Urs and I did the riverside walk on the other side from here, up to the junction of the rivers, and back again. 

Here there are fewer trees now on both sides of the river, and we have to walk on a dam trail on this side. On the other side is the large marsh area called "Maschwander Allmend", one of Europe's "Network of Most Valuable Wildlife Habitats". We also did a second hike through there in May 2021 when the lovely marsh flowers were blooming. 

The final 20 minutes of our walk were the hardest along this dam, as the afternoon (by now it's 3:15 p.m.) had gotten hot and there was no shade here! 

We got to the junction of Mühlau at 15:16, where we wanted to end our hike, but we would not have made it to the train station in time for the 15:25 train, and would have had to wait another hour due to construction on the railway line. Lucky for us there was an irregular-schedule bus running from Mühlau village at 15:40, so we headed there to wait. It worked out perfectly for us!

At the bus stop in the village of Mühlau, we still had time to have a quick look into the parish church. 

Details of the little parish church in Mühlau. The two-storey high organ was pretty impressive!

Along the main road in Mühlau, where there was an extra bus running this day right at this time (there isn't usually a bus here). 

This is what our 11-km walk along the Reuss River looks like on Google Satellite Maps. 

My bus now heads south along the Reuss River toward the train station at Oberrüti. (There is construction going on, on the regular train line at this time). In the back are the Glarus and Uri Alps, past Lake Zug. 

Cute little farm we passed along the way. 

The bus dropped us off at the Oberrüti train station at 15:55, from where we transferred to the train for just a few minutes to the next station at Rotkreuz. 

Beautiful view of the Schwyzer (?) or Glarus Alps from the Oberrüti train station. 

This is an inconvenient little train station, as you have to walk a long way to the passage to Platform 2. There was barely enough time to get to the train. From here it was another 35 minutes to get home. (In all, a one-hour trip home). 

These are all the sections of the Reuss Riverside trail which we have walked, between Mellingen and Root (nearer to Luzern) which we have walked so far. (To the north past Mellingen, there is still a 12-km piece that I have to walk to the place where the Reuss River enters the Aare River. But I'm not sure I can do that all in one stretch!)

Riverside Walk along the Reuss River from Rotkreuz toward Luzern

Sunday March 30, 2025 -- We weren't expecting nice weather locally, and were debating heading south again to Ticino, when the fog lifted, and the skies turned blue here, so we made a quick decision to head to the Reuss River nearby, for a 10-km riverside walk. We have done several walks on the stretch of the Reuss River between Luzern and where the river joins the Aar and Limmat Rivers in Brugg on the way to the Rhine River to the north. When weather permits and we don't want to travel far, we head out to where we might have started or ended another short stretch.

Almost exactly to the day five years ago (those photos HERE), we did a seven-kilometer stretch along the river ending in the nearby city of Rotkreuz, so our choice for this day was to return to Rotkreuz (20 minutes from home) to start where we ended last time. We continued in the southward (upriver) direction for 10 kilometers, parallel to the low mountain range called Rooterberg. The little foot-path was pleasant enough to walk along, although riverbank walks tend to get tedious after a few kilometers. So after the first 6½ kilometers (90 minutes of our 2½-hour walk), we left the riverbank and crossed the freeway to visit a small chapel called St.Katharina, and then continued via some farms to the bus stop on the road back to the railway line between Luzern and Rotkreuz.

We learned something interesting about the St.Katharina Chapel: The church was built in the mid-14th Century on the property of a farm called Hof Emerdingen, on the site of the original Eschenbach Abbey located there until 1309. This was of particular interest, because barely two weeks earlier we had done a hike nearby which passed through the current Eschenbach Abbey. (Photos HERE)

We lucked out with blue skies and mostly sunshine right till the end of our walk at about 2:30 p.m. 

Starting in Rotkreuz at about 11 a.m. (heading westward), we first pass a small pond. 

Small pond west of the city of Rotkreuz

This used to be an old mill, now converted into apartments. We also passed by here on the walk we did five years ago (photos HERE)

It took us 20 minutes to get to the riverbank at the Reuss River, near where we ended the walk in 2020. 

This turned out to be a 10-kilometer walk for us. We started at about 11 a.m. in Rotkreuz, and got to the bus stop on the road from Inwil at 2:20 p.m. The two hours walking to St.Katharina church was enough of the riverside walk! We ended up walking for a little over three hours and mostly had sunshine. 

Lots of mistletoe in the trees across the river. 

Reuss River in early spring. 

I spotted a cormorant perched in a tree across the river. 

It looks like beavers were busy here! That was actually a very big tree, so the ambition is admirable!

First blossoms!

Just to the east of the footpath is a borderstone: Rotkreuz is in Canton Zug, and here we are crossing into Canton Luzern. 

This is the trainline between Luzern and Zug, a train we have traveled on quite often. In fact, at the end of this hike we took a bus to the train station in Ebikon near Luzern (10 minutes by bus), for the 20-minute train ride back to Zug from there.

Lots of small flowers along the riverbank

For the first hour, we had this nice little footpath to walk along. It was mild weather, not too hot. 

Near the Gisikon-Root train station, we crossed the bridge to the other side of the river. 

Heading toward the bridge

Crossing the bridge over the Reuss River, we can see the canal on the left, entering the river at the eastern tip of what is essentially an island in the river. On this island is a paper factory, and the canal was drawn away from the river to pass via the paper factory, and then returned to the river. 

On this side of the river, we had to walk about 20 minutes on a wide dike here until we crossed over the freeway. This path was popular with bikers and horse riders. 

We could see the tower of the St.Katharina Chapel, which was one of our goals of this walk. 

Crossing over the Autobahn on our way to St.Katharina Chapel. 

The chapel is right next to a very lovely old farmhouse. The chapel was built in the mid-14th Century on the site of the original Eschenbach Abbey, which is now located in the city of Eschenbach nearby. (We visited the site a couple of weeks earlier, photos HERE). 

A small path leads down to the chapel, next to the large old farmhouse. We got here shortly after noon. 

(After checking out the church, we stopped here to sit on the edge of this former well, for a small break. Later, having already continued on our walk, I realized I had left my sunhat here, and went back to retrieve it, adding ¾ of a kilometer to our full walk!) 

Details of the St.Katharina Chapel. Originally built here in the 14th Century, it was restored in 1988-89 and was placed under Cantonal and Federal protection. 

The beautiful old farmhouse next to the chapel. 

We continued on to the Emmendingen Farm. It was here that I realized that I had left my sun-hat at the well next to the chapel! So I ran back to get it, adding another 750 meters to the otherwise almost 10 kilometers we walked this day!

A second building at the Emmendingen Farm. 

A look back to the farmhouse and St.Katharina Chapel 

More blossoming trees, with lots of bees!

Past the Rooterberg mountain we get a view of the summit of Mt.Rigi to the east. 

This was the last stretch with a small footpath next to some marshes and the Rotbach stream, which we could not see. A short stretch through the forest on the left and we got to the road and bus stop with at least 10 minutes to spare for the bus. (We had passed by here on another walk back in April 2020, photos are HERE)

This beautiful Japanese cherry tree on the grounds near the bus stop (we got here at 14:20, and had about 10 minutes to wait), was BUZZING with bees!

If there had been less clouds today, we would have seen Mt.Pilatus before us on the second half of our walk. But this was the best look at it, from the bus on the way back to the train station in Ebikon, a 10-minute ride from where we had caught the bus. 

It is the season of Magnolias!

Starting in Rotkreuz, we walked 10 kilometers along the Reuss River with a detour to St.Katharina Chapel. 

These are all the walks we have done along the Reuss River between Luzern and Brugg