Schneeschuh Wandern

Zurich, Switzerland - Spring is coming to Switzerland in fits and spurts. The arrival of spring is more dramatic here compared to our native California, at least with respect to daylight and temperature. At this latitude (47.3769 degrees North), we get a mere 8.5 hours of sunlight in December. Now that we're in March, we can expect close to 12 hours a day, and in April, we'll get 13.67 hours. The temperatures have increased haltingly. We're in the period now where we oscillate rapidly in the course of a week from a pleasant 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit to a less-than-ideal 35-40 degrees Fahrenheit (usually coupled with rain). Though the deciduous trees remain barren, small flowers - like snowdrops - have begun to sprout up here and there. 

Thus our time for snowshoeing is drawing to a close and so H and I have been venturing into the Alps each weekend to make the most of our few remaining opportunities.

Stoos

Stoos is a resort village / mountain in the canton Schwyz (neither of these places is pronounced the way you might think). You arrive at Stoos via a steep alpine funicular railway (it is apparently the world's steepest funicular). The cars of the tram are actually circles that that rotate as the slope of the track changes. This allows the passenger to always be seated upright rather than at an angle. I'm sure I'm explaining this poorly, so I've included a video of it below.

Initially, our hike got off to a poor start because H's sunglasses were not in the backpack. The precise reason why the sunglasses failed to make their way from the central console of the rental car and into the backpack are unclear. What is clear is that it was and still is my fault. Anyway, the initial part of the hike involved several instances of one or the other of us trying to hike off in a huff in big floppy snow shoes to show our dissatisfaction with the other. 

Once we got over that, we decided Stoos was lovely. The hike was a gentle descent in the beginning, followed by a solid climb in the middle, followed by an aggressive descent in which ended up tumbling or butt-sliding most of our way down a ~50m slope. The slope took it's toll: H ended up with a modestly sprained ankle, I cut up my hand, and my dignity suffered grievously as a Swiss woman laughed uproariously when I tumbled down the hill.  

Engelberg

Engelberg is a village in Obwalden at the base of the Mt. Titlis (a name that provided much fodder for my puerile sense of humor). We visited Engelberg with good friends Ben and Laura to do a short 4km hike around the Truebsee, a high alpine lake.

The day was particularly warm and sunny and so we ended up shedding layers as we hiked over rolling the rolling hills. At the end of the hike we were parched and so we planted ourselves in a sunny patch of snow and enjoyed a few beers we had bought at mountain hut.

Flums

This weekend, we hiked the Madems trail, which is near Flums in the canton of St. Gallen. To get to the Madems trail, you take a rickety old gondola up 1000m to a small mountain hotel. There are only two sets of gondola cars on the cable, so it takes about 20-30 minutes from one to the next. The doors are manually operated and must be opened when you arrive at the station at the top and bottom. When we arrived at the top, a portly gentleman attendant opened the door for us. However, when we returned to the bottom at the end of the day there was no attendant, or he had left for the day. Of course, the larger gentleman at the top had given us careful instructions about how to open the door when we reached the bottom. Unfortunately, he provided these instructions in Swiss German and we understood approximately nothing of what he said. So, when we reached the bottom, we made various attempts to open the door, first by pressing on it, then by banging on it, then - and I'm still not sure why this seemed like a good idea - by opening and closing the window on the door. Finally, our friend Ben (we were hiking with Ben and Laura again) realized there was handle outside the door which he was able to release by reaching through the window. For a brief period, we were all considering the possibility that we might have to ride the gondola back to the top to get another briefing about how to open the door.

But the Madems trail was lovely and overall, this was one of our favorite hikes. It was more remote and there were fewer people than some of the other resorts like Stoos and Engelberg. The views down into the valley were stunning. Plus, the weather was great - warm and sunny. It was 7km long with rolling hills. The altitude made it somewhat harder - we started at about 1500m and peaked at about 1800m.