June 11th 2017 with Carley
This hike will always stay memorable for me because of the incredible views that only the Appenzell region of Switzerland can offer, whether it’s tall cliffs, green pastures filled with roaming cows, or fresh alpine lakes. And also because the weather that day was truly perfect, probably too perfect with too much sunshine as both me and Carley, who was visiting Switzerland for the first time and definitely wasn’t expecting this much sunshine, we both managed to get so sunburned that it was a struggle to even move the next day. But let’s go back to the beginning first …
We began by taking the gondola lift up the mountain side to Staubern, where you have one of the many mountain huts in the area, but we started off our hike down the trail. The trail had its ups and downs, with some narrow parts even on the ledge, but by far the worst were the snow patches that Carley and my brother decided to use in order to “cool me down”. Anyways we continued up and after various views of the lakes in the valley, the Rhine river in the other valley, and many flowers in the middle of bloom, we reached the Saxer Lücke cliffs! I had seen photos beforehand, but to see it in person was even more impressive, because it’s rare to see such a long and narrow stretch of cliffs that are tall on two different sides!
Afterwards we continued down to Fälensee, a lake surrounded by more cliffs where we were able to cool off by going for a short dip in the refreshingly cold water. The sun was truly shining intensively, so we certainly weren’t the only ones with the idea to enjoy the lake. Eventually, we set off to explore the other side of the lake, where we found some goats, some of which were enjoying the lush green grass, while the majority were huddled together in the tiny shadows by the rocks, hiding from the sun. Of course we also found some cool cows, who were spread out across the valley, including one we surprisingly saw in the forest.
There came times where my route choice was being questioned, because some were starting to grow tired of walking for so long, but I knew exactly where we going, because I wanted to see the perfect view of the Sämtisersee, a lake right in front of the almost pyramid-like cliffs. So after a one more series of intense photo-taking, we walked along the lake and started what was probably the most difficult part of the hike - a very very steep walk down, where at times I was worried that I might stumble and start rolling all the way down the hill.
Thankfully, besides the sunburns, we all returned safely to the car, and drove home, but not before a little detour to Schwägalp, where we took one last look at the impressive cliffs of Appenzell.