Nice evening last night at Hotel Aescher. After dinner, which I had early by myself, I went up to the bunkroom for a fleece and found there a German couple from the Bodensee. We chatted a bit and later I sat with them at an outside table as the sun went down, the views got better and better (as the clouds thinned out), and a dessert of sinful appearance was brought and consumed (ahem, by me).
Before then, however, I went for a walk. Just a short one -- up to the Wildkirchli, an open-air altar with pews for a congregation of a hundred set into a cave in the same rock ridge that shelters the hotel, and beyond it 100m through another cave to the other side of the ridge for views to the north and east over the hills and dales of the Appenzeller land.
Around 9:30 I went up to bed, read for a while, and then went to sleep... sort of. Apparently this was one of the first nice evenings this summer, and the locals were out in force... and clearly enjoying themselves immensely. There were 70-80 outside... and around 100 inside... and the noise level was high. For some reason, however, people partying when I'm trying to fall asleep doesn't bother me... but the thunderous snoring of the otherwise charming German guy in the room, to which I awoke a couple of hours later, did. Ah well, that's bunkrooms for you. Earplugs in, pillow and blankets wrapped around my head, and eventually I went back to sleep.
The morning dawned bright and clear... not a cloud in the sky. And warm... I was outside at 7:30 with a light fleece and considered taking it off. Not bad for 1450m. At 8:15 Kristof and Corinna appeared and we ate breakfast together with the couple from the Bodensee. Around 9 we set off, hiking first about 500m up to the Schaefler mountain inn, where we left a large part of the contents of our packs (we are staying here tonight), and then up to the Säntis peak.
It was a beautiful hike... very varied and with great views much of the time (although fairly soon there were convection clouds caused by rising humid air). We walked along knife-edged ridges, traversed grassy slopes strewn with flowers (many of which were new to me), scrambled over stony scree, and increasingly, the higher we got, stomped across snow fields. The last hour or so we were on snow in sun almost all the time, culminating in an exhausting and hot slog up a steep nève and then a near vertical klettersteig up to the peak. We got there at 13:40, without having stopped for lunch... and I was running on fumes.
A bratwurst with rösti quickly solved the hunger problem, and we enjoyed the sun and views for a while before considering how to go back down. Kristof has a special relationship with snow... there's always snow when we hike together... so he wanted to boot-ski down, and after close inspection of the map and the slope (from above), I let myself be persuaded. I've boot-skied before, and it's a great way to shed altitude quickly and without much effort, but in the past I've done it only on slopes I know... and we'd be going down a different one from the one we had come up. But all went well and we dropped some 800m in about 45 minutes (punctuated by frequent stops to enjoy the stunning views and, once, for an espresso that Kristof prepared with his portable cooker :-).
One final climb of 400m or so and we were back at the Schaefler hut just after 6PM... a long day, but a very good one. We ate dinner outside until the sun went behind the mountain top, then went inside and played a game while listening to the kids of a local family "entertain" everyone with a sort of slow, doleful, and occasionally off-tune, multi-voiced yodel that is apparently typical for the region. Then this blog, and now... we are off to bed. Got a long hike ahead of us tomorrow!
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