The Murgsee Lakes Round Trail in the Unesco World Heritage Tectonic Arena Sardona

July 16, 2019 -- Vacation Week 2, Day 2:  While our guest Rachael went off to discover the largest glacier in the Alps, Urs and I did a very long hike which we have been humming and hawing about doing for a long time: The Murgsee Round Tour in the Unesco World Heritage Tectonic Arena Sardona.

For people like us who use only public transport, it is difficult to get up there, but there is a private taxi service that we can arrange to get us to the starting point of the hike, or in our case slightly higher so that we could shave off 40 minutes of walking on this altogether 6-hour hike. As there is no cell phone reception whatsoever in this area, we had to order the pick-up ahead of time. Starting at 9 a.m., we arranged pick-up for 17:00, which at first I thought was way too much time but as it turns out, our final descent was steep and slippery and we otherwise didn't take too many long breaks, and yet we still made it back to the pick-up point with only 10 minutes to spare! 

This text I found on the unesco-sardona.ch website describes the area: 

"Ancient Swiss stone pine forests and moors in a terrassed landscape shaped by glaciers. The blood-red Verrucano rock makes the soil impermeable to water. The result is a unique marsh landscape with streams, lakes and waterfalls. Copper and silver were mined here mainly in the second half of the 19th century. The lower Murg lake with its ancient Swiss stone pine forest has been included in the Federal Inventory of Landscapes and Natural Monuments."

It indeed was a very special landscape. The soil underfoot and in the stream beds was red, and the very clear water had a slight turquoise tint, possibly from glacial minerals. Hiking weather was absolutely perfect, and I didn't even have pain in my feet after 5:30 of walking. And of course, we really enjoyed the cows!

At 9 a.m. the taxi driver dropped us off here at this parking spot (pick-up was going to be lower down) and that saved us 40 minutes of uphill. People who come by car have to do the entire round trip and walk back up to their cars. From here, it was a 2-hour uphill walk to the main lake, in the sunny green spot in the middle of the photo.

This is the special Alpine Taxi that you can request to bring you the 7 or 8.5-km up into the mountains, to start your long hike. We thought the 40 SFr. price was reasonable (or 10 SFr. each if more than 4 people book at the same time). Although we had to pay a tiny bit more to go further than the regular starting point.

Most people who do this tour start at the little lake and walk the steep portion to Gspon first. But that means about 3.5 hours to the highest point, instead of 2.5 hours the way we did it. The last 40-minute descent was steep and slippery though (recent rains) and we barely made it back to the meeting point on time. 

Even the way we did the round-tour hike was steep. This was like an indoor climbing wall

We were glad it was early morning and shady on the 2-hour climb to Lake Murgsee

Finally a bit of a level section. 

This is the lower Murgsee Lake with its ancient stone pines and is one of Switzerland's natural monuments

The Lower Murgsee Lake. You pass high above it. They don't want campers or picnickers down there as it is a protected area

Finally reached the Middle Murgsee Lake, and behind it the official Murgsee Lake.

We had a bit of a break here (lake is behind the waterfall) but everywhere off-track was soft ground and wet

Imagine how far these cows have to come up from the valley bottom (following the trail we took)  to graze at higher alpine levels. But here they have the run of the mountain.

Our first stop was a detour to a small hill from where we had hoped to get a better view of the valley we had just ascended. It was hard getting up here because of the soft, boggy ground, totally furrowed and trampled up by the cows.

A good spot for our lunch break 

Looking down on the Lower Murgsee Lake and the valley we just came up (2 hours)

All of a sudden all the cows moved in on us. Not sure what they were looking for!

VIDEO:

Urs isn't taking any chances with all those horns so close by....

The cows took over our lunch spot on the top of the small rise

From our lunch spot, a view down to Lake Murgsee. On the left is a restaurant and hostel for people hiking the "Sardona World Heritage Trail" which passes through here

Below you can see the red silt deposited by the stream as it enters the lake. Next part of our hike: 30 minutes up to the saddle called Murgseefurggel. 

These small mountain children have to help mow the meadows, by hand, with scythes.

View of the middle and upper Murgsee Lakes

We took a good long break up here at the highest point of our hike. The clouds had moved in and we waited for an opening for a nice bright photo.

The highest point of the hike: Murgseefurggel. The sign reads "2 hours 15 minutes" to Merlen, the lake where the taxi was picking us up at 17:00. It was 13:50 when we left here, and we made it to the taxi at 16:50..... with only one small rest stop along the way.

The landscape on this stretch was stunning, and the lighting kept changing. Lots of shrubs, alpine roses, rivulets, marshes. We took our time and enjoyed it tremendously

The red soil was evident everywhere, and the clear water had a light turquoise tint where it moved rapidly

Looking backwards where we had come down from the saddle on the left. Lots of alpine roses and ferns here, very lush.

All kinds of variety in the landscape made the time pass quickly and kept me from thinking about my feet.

In the mountains South of us you can see how at some point millions of years ago, the layers of earth buckled. The nearness to this phenomenon is the reason this is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Mürtschen Valley (236 Hectares of Nature Reserve with old stone pines, some hundreds of years old, also spruce and pine), so comfortable to walk. 

Here is the only 10-minute break we took on the way down. (This spot is called "The Forest on the Red Blocks"

Descending into the Lower Mürtschen, also very marshy here.

Not long now and the steep descent begins!

But first an introductory waterfall.

Then another long flat stretch suitably prepared for hikers to be able to cross the marshy soft ground. (This is looking backwards to where we came down from. The steep descent starts now, on the left).

The final section, a steep 40-minute descent to the back of the lake (Merlen, where the taxi will pick us up). It was very strenuous, the rocks and steps on the trail were slippery as well as steep. In the very back is Lake Walensee and the Churfirsten mountains. The alpine taxi will take us down to Murg on Lake Walensee

Finally at the meeting point with our taxi. We got here with 10 minutes to spare. Looking back to the area where we spent the day, we can see exactly where we descended from the high place on the right. Most people start the hike by walking UPHILL here, it takes about an hour to get to that place.

Heading down the narrow valley in the Alpine Taxi on winding roads to Murg on Lake Walensee.

Back down at lake level on Lake Walensee, we got here just minutes before the train pulled in.

The full round tour doing the steep uphill first, is supposed to take 6 hours. We chose the steeper portion as a descent, and started higher on the hill, and it took us about 5 hours 30 minutes.

An Easy walk through the "Gorges du Gottéron" (Galteren Gorge) to Fribourg

July 15, 2019 -- Vacation Week 2, Day 1: Another week of hiking, and we had a visitor from Canada staying with us. We had a very lovely hike planned with her, in the central part of Switzerland near Lake Lucerne (where we have been doing a lot of hiking recently), with cable cars, grazing cows and cowbells, meadows thick with flowers, lunch at a mountain hostel, 360 degree views and so on, but as luck would have it, this was one of the worst days for weather lately. In fact, we had a hard time finding ANYWHERE in the country where we might find some nice weather. 

Forecast was best for the West, so we decided on a hike through a gorge (Gorges du Gottéron) into the city of Fribourg (near Bern), which lies right along the language line between German- and French-speaking Switzerland. Since we had no view, there was no point going into the mountains. And if it rained, we'd be a bit sheltered in the forest. And we also didn't want to spend 8 hours on the train for a 2-3 hour walk, and Fribourg was only about a 2-hour ride from home.

For us it was a so-so outing. We would have done something like this anyway, but wanted something more spectacular for our guest. At least the countryside was very green and fresh and sparkling-looking and smelled nice. And we had a walk through the very pretty town of Fribourg, and a very nice Turkish lunch in the Marionette Museum Café, a place we loved last time we were in Fribourg. And our day ended with an "exciting" ride on a historical monument: The last funicular in Europe which still operates on city waste water (no motor). Fascinating, but rather stinky! That's the way to impress your out-of-country guests!

(As a side note, she had two beautiful days after that with some very memorable excursions and fantastic views to make up for it).

We started our hike in the small village of St.Ursen, Urs' namesake (it was not intentional). Highlight was this little chapel called the Ursus Chapel, first mentioned in literature in 1424. 

The interior of the chapel was interesting in that it had a very low wooden ceiling. I had never seen one like this before

Heading down the trail to the creek which we will follow northwards to the entrance of the ravine

Behind Urs, the Ursus Chapel (1424)

At least everything was fresh and green and smelled good

We found a place for a coffee break but the bench was wet so we had to first cover it with plastic and a blanket

At the entrance to the gorge was a warning sign: If there was an orange flag on this pole, then you could only pass if you had an important reason to go through. If the red flag was flying, you were not at all permitted to pass. Luckily, there was no flag flying, or it would have been a totally failed excursion for us.

Once in the gorge we passed along many interesting cliffs. The stone here is sandstone and used to build most of the structures in the city of Fribourg.

There were also lots of stairs and bridges, so it made the hike interesting.

Looks like some kind of calcium deposits (like stalagmites or stalagtites in caves)

And every once in a while we were surprised by carvings in the sandstone! (Actually I had missed this, walked right by. My walking companions brought it to my attention!)

Some lovely old buildings in the gorge, with sandstone details (gargoyles and such)

And then suddenly you come right upon Fribourg's City Wall

 

As an extension of the city wall is this beautiful sandstone divider. In the archway we spied something special...

... this addition to the sandstone divider looked very realistic

Crossing the Sarine/Saane River into the lower part of Fribourg. The large bridge is the renowned Zaehringen bridge (named in reference to the Zähringen family who founded the city in 1157)

Wooden bridge across the Sarine/Saane River

Part of the old city wall

We had a very tasty meal at the Marionette Museum Café next to the river

This visitor liked the look of the curry-chicken kebabs

The beautiful medieval city of Fribourg

And this fellow followed us from the café!

St. Nikolaus Cathedral in Fribourg

And the last attraction before heading to the train station: Riding the little funicular that runs on city waste water! (2 minutes down, then 2 minutes up again!)

The funicular, opened in 1899, links the town center with the lower city (basse-ville). This is a historical monument and the last funicular in Europe to be operated on city wastewater.

Altogether this was about a 10-km hike and we walked for a good three hours. But there was no difficulty at all in the walk.

Hike into the Riedertal Valley from Haldi (to Bürglen) in Canton Uri

Sunday July 14th:  We had a very lovely round-trip hike planned in a ravine (Gruontal near Flüelen) not far from home which started with a ride in one of those farmer's cable cars (another one to check off our list) but we had seen the warning on the website: "In summer, best to call ahead, as the phone may not be manned". We DID NOT call ahead. And no one answered the phone when we go there. Maybe in Church? Maybe out in the fields?

We didn't do the hike, because the idea was actually to RIDE the cable car, not to hike up the 40 minutes of walking time we would save by riding the cable car. So this hike will be postponed....

So we walked back to Flüelen, and got on another bus to a place not that far off called Schattdorf, from where we took a regular cable car to the sunny upper plateau called Haldi. From here you can descend into a hidden valley called Riedertal, something we also had wanted to do for a while. There is a popular pilgrim's church in this valley (mid 16th Century), and a very pretty one at that. The interior was wall-to-wall Italian Gothic Frescoes, which is something I really like. The hike was a bit rough though, with a steep descent into the valley. But the weather was good, not too hot, and the hike not too long, so we got home early for a change, which was actually intentional as the weather forecast predicted thunderstorms in the afternoon.

Interesting side note: Urs' mother was born in Bürglen, and he remembers coming up this valley with his grandmother when he was small, but he remembers it as much more level....

In Flüelen, waiting for the bus to take us to the entrance of the Gruonbach valley, from where we first had to walk 20 minutes to the cable car, which would take us up to the cleared space on the hillside to save some of the uphill hike into the valley.

We even took a self-timed shot of us in the cable car, in expectation of the 1-minute ride. But no one answered the telephone at the number we were supposed to call. So we had to give up and think of something else to do.

After walking 20 minutes to the cable car station, then another 30 minutes back to Flüelen, we decided on a short hike nearby, starting on the plateau called Haldi, then walking into the Riedertal Valley and out to Bürglen.

At Schattdorf this is the cable car you take up to Haldi. We were lucky with bus connections, so we didn't have too much of a delay to start with our NEW PLAN

Up on this plateau you get a nice view over Altdorf and Lake Uri (Urnersee). You can actually do a very nice 7-km round tour up here, which I have done a few times already. 

Right behind my left shoulder on this photo is the Surenen Pass to Engelberg, a crossing we did on Aug.23, 2017. Right now there would still be too much snow for that. 

 

After an hour from leaving the cable car station (and 20 minutes steep downhil) we reached the bottom of the Riedertal Valley

Great set-up for the goats!

According to information boards along the way, this was the summer home of a Swiss expressionist painter named Eduard Gubler (early 1900's), whose father apparently restored the chapel we were going to visit

The Riedertaler Chapel

The Riedertaler Chapel (16th Century), filled wall-to-wall and ceiling-to-floor with gothic frescoes.

This was a serene and comfortable place for our lunch break

And then we had this visitor who would not go away. I think he even followed us when we continued on the hike later. 

Cute butterfly, totally interested in us, or the salt on our hands... 

You can actually feel the tongue, it tickles

Heading on to Bürglen, walking North out of the valley

 

Another look back up the valley

Arriving in Bürglen, alledgedly the birth place of Wilhelm Tell, although no one is sure if he really even existed. But definitely the birthplace of Urs' mother. 

Pretty church in Bürglen

Gasthaus Adler (1574), recently renovated

Our 7 km hike from Haldi to Bürglen, turned out to be a decent substitute for the other, 3-hour hike we had planned

The hike actually took about 2 hours 20 minutes because of the rather steep section into the valley