Annabel and Dave's Awesome Adventures: Kandersteg

Dave over Oeschinensee

We spent a few days in Kandersteg, this was another very touristy town, almost as bad as Grindelwald, but they got extra points because there was a horse carnival the whole time we were there. So that felt more local and less touristy. I was glad for a few days rest in Kandersteg in the end. It had been a tough week of walking, and I was definitely feeling it in my legs. Our final real walk was up to an alpine hut and back, past Oeschinensee, which was an alpine lake that Kandersteg was famous for.

After all the walking we had done, this actually felt like quite an easy walk, though it was still 1000m up and down to the hut. There was another great cable car ride to the start of the walk. Almost from the centre of town to the lake, I was starting to see why Kandersteg is such a tourist town.

The shores of Oeschinensee and more mountains above

Approaching the lake

Walking up one side of Oeschinensee we could see the path we would have come down if we have gone over the pass on the previous day. Since the pass was still covered in cloud, it was hard to see how difficult that route would have been. I was almost tempted to try it to see whether we had made the correct decision in skipping that section, but then perhaps it's better not to know sometimes.

This was one of the better paths of the week, though it did get pretty scree-y up near the top. Hardly any snow either, even though the hut was at 2500m. It just goes to show what a difference the shape of the mountains and the direction they are facing make to how late the snow gathers. Once we reached the hut we saw that the other side was just snow and ice all around. But the side we had climbed up there was nothing, just bare rock.

A bull enjoying the views

Waterfall with snow

There were a lot of mountaineers we passed, going both up and down the mountain. You could always tell them, they had unusual boots, much bigger than just hiking ones, and they looked like real blister formers. There was also the permanent coils of rope and ice axes attached to their bags. One set who were heading down as we were going up had blood on their faces, so I think the mountain had one in that encounter.

There was a bit of snow heading up, not much, and there were hardly any patches where we were actually walking through it. But it was here that you really understood that you would want a good feel for snow before heading off. There were patches where it looked really rotten. The whole underside had melted away, but there was still a covering on top. And if you had walked on it without realising you would have been plunged into a ravine with added river.

More flowers and the lake in the distance

Bridge crossing with Oeschinensee in the distance

This was probably the most popular walk we went on in the week. There were quite a few people heading both up and down. And when we got to the top there were quite a few groups around. This was the first hut we had gone to that was actually properly open. It was unbelievably luxurious. Such a change from the huts in Australia and New Zealand. The hut had a proper kitchen, where there were a couple of people on hand to cook you what you wanted. Yes, there was a proper menu at 2500m. Unbelievable. So it was hot soup and rosti before the walk back down. I don't think we ever went into calorie deficit the whole week. You could even buy chocolate bars and iced tea. And the thing was they weren't even that expensive, for where the food was. You would think transport costs would have to be factored into the price, but it seems like that wasn't an issue.

The view from the hut. The tiny specks in the front left are people

A rough section here. There is a path somewhere in there

We sat out the back of the hut in the full sun watching the mountaineers come down off this massive mountain to the left. You can see our view in the photo above. The mountain everyone was coming down was the one on the left. And you have to remember we are already at 2500m where this photo was taken, and that mountain was a lot higher than where we were. The people were completely dwarfed by the landscape. It looked pretty full-on what they were attempting, but it seemed that's just a weekend's walking for the Swiss.

As we were walking down after stuffing ourselves with rosti, we realised how these huts were stocked with food. There was a helicopter buzzing around for the rest of the afternoon, it must have been visiting all the huts in the vicinity. You would want to be a good pilot, as I don't think they even land, there certainly didn't look like enough room for that. It looked like they would just lower a cable and the people on the ground would hook up the rubbish and get the new deliveries. That's got to be an inefficient way to stock the huts, but if it meant that I can eat chocolate bars at 2500m I'm not complaining. I wonder what a hut like that would have been like to sleep in, I didn't see the sleeping quarters, it looked a little snug, but then I trust the Swiss to be able to do mountain huts well.

The luxurious hut

Even the toilets were amazing, full on flushing toilets with electric lights. You wouldn't even know you were halfway up a mountain. There were no signs of composting toilets here. I wonder what Swiss campers think of the facilities made available to them in Australia, that's got to be a bit of a shock.

It was coolish at the hut, but as we dropped back down into the valley and the lake, things started to heat up again, all that bare, dark rock. Once down at the lake, Dave even braved the water. It looked a little too bracing for me. But the water was lovely and clear. You can't beat an alpine lake for clarity.