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Time: 4.25 hours
Grading: T1
Height gain: 785 metres
Height loss: 780 metres
Walenstadt – Oberterzen – Quarten – Murg - Mühlehorn
After two weeks away on a wonderful hiking holiday in the Tyrol and the Dolomites, this weekend I am back on my Lake Constance to Lake Geneva project. Having well and truly deviated from the official national route No. 3, I am now faced with two shortish stages along the south side of the Walensee, before two more mountainous stages will take me over to the Wägital and Sihltal valleys, and so on to Einsiedeln to re-join the official route.
It's a pleasantly warm morning as I catch the train to Walenstadt, but you can see from the sky that it's not going to last. The dominant blue is broken up by patches of torn, grey cloud, dislocated from some larger nebulous mass by winds at altitude. The Föhn is blowing and rain is forecast for the afternoon and for tomorrow, before another spell of hot weather begins on Tuesday.
The walk does not start in the most auspicious way: tarred lanes, shabby farm buildings, the constant noise of a busy motorway and military keep-out signs accompany me as I leave the lakeside town. Walenstadt is a garrison town, and today there will be constant reminders of the fact as the path skirts, and sometimes crosses firing ranges, luckily not operating on an August Sunday. At the edge of a forest, there is a field of still small calves. One of the calves has somehow managed to get itself on the wrong side of the electrified fence, and is standing in the middle of the path, mooing plaintively at its companions in the field. One of them moos back in encouragement (or possibly it's taking the piss?); the others clearly could not give a damn… cow society reflecting humanity, I wonder…
Quarten is a nice little place, less developed than Oberterzen, with extensive views across the lake to Quinten on the far bank. Whether there is any link between the Quarten – Quinten names or whether it is pure coincidence, I do not know.
Sadly, the remaining hour and a half of the walk is all on roads, and becomes progressively less attractive as I go on. I follow a lane downhill between green fields, until it eventually brings me to the lakeside village of Murg. If Quarten was pretty, Murg is ugly. Clearly a place with an industrial past, it is bisected by the railway in one direction, and by a river flowing over a bed of red rock in the other. Some of the old industrial buildings have been converted into flats (or "lofts" according to the signage); others stand empty waiting for a new lease of life. There are also quite a few terraced houses, clearly old workers' cottages, and it makes me wonder what industry exactly made this place tick a hundred years ago.
Now the path sticks close to the banks of the lake. I am passed by numerous cyclists, which makes me think that it would not have been a bad idea to do this leg of the walk by bike; an idea that I will try to remember if there are any similar stages further on. The lakeside path would be idyllic, were it not for the incessant noise of the motorway in my left ear and the occasional passing of trains, also in the same ear. Despite this, there are houses – presumably expensive ones – between the path and the lake. Top prize goes to one big house where, in addition to the noise pollution, there is the stink of a sewage treatment plant right next door, despite which there is a family sitting in the garden having a barbecue. How anyone could live in such a place defeats my imagination… but then I live next to a railway line where a train passes every 2 minutes, so maybe they just get used to the noise as I have.
Grading: T1
Height gain: 785 metres
Height loss: 780 metres
Walenstadt – Oberterzen – Quarten – Murg - Mühlehorn
After two weeks away on a wonderful hiking holiday in the Tyrol and the Dolomites, this weekend I am back on my Lake Constance to Lake Geneva project. Having well and truly deviated from the official national route No. 3, I am now faced with two shortish stages along the south side of the Walensee, before two more mountainous stages will take me over to the Wägital and Sihltal valleys, and so on to Einsiedeln to re-join the official route.
It's a pleasantly warm morning as I catch the train to Walenstadt, but you can see from the sky that it's not going to last. The dominant blue is broken up by patches of torn, grey cloud, dislocated from some larger nebulous mass by winds at altitude. The Föhn is blowing and rain is forecast for the afternoon and for tomorrow, before another spell of hot weather begins on Tuesday.
The walk does not start in the most auspicious way: tarred lanes, shabby farm buildings, the constant noise of a busy motorway and military keep-out signs accompany me as I leave the lakeside town. Walenstadt is a garrison town, and today there will be constant reminders of the fact as the path skirts, and sometimes crosses firing ranges, luckily not operating on an August Sunday. At the edge of a forest, there is a field of still small calves. One of the calves has somehow managed to get itself on the wrong side of the electrified fence, and is standing in the middle of the path, mooing plaintively at its companions in the field. One of them moos back in encouragement (or possibly it's taking the piss?); the others clearly could not give a damn… cow society reflecting humanity, I wonder…
 |
| The Walensee |
I climb up through patchy forest, the morning still polluted audibly by the noise of the motorway and visually by high-voltage power lines. This side of the Walensee has clearly lost out in the environmental stakes, with electricity, road and rail links all concentrated in a narrow strip of flattish ground between lake and mountainside. The way becomes temporarily prettier as the gravel track gives way to a path that runs along the edge of the woods, and the noise diminishes as the motorway disappears into a tunnel away below. A signpost tells me to turn right, then another one confusingly tells me that this path doesn't go anywhere, and that path is only allowed to be used as a diversion when firing is going on at the range.
After a couple of hours' not very inspiring walking, I reach the village of Oberterzen, halfway stage of a cable-car line from the lakeside up to the winter sports resort of Flumserberg. I make a mental note for another time: up there, beyond the top cable car station, there must be some nice walking country.
Meanwhile, as I try to find my way out of Oberterzen, I m confined to road walking: the path marked on my map leads into private property and no longer exists. At the roadside, a sign informs me that this is a mushroom preservation area, and that picking mushrooms is limited to 2 kilos per day per person… that sounds like an awful lot of mushrooms to me! I follow a twisty lane uphill; it's not unattractive but it's still road walking. I look for a suitable place for lunch, but all the fields are blocked off with electric fences, and in the end I resort to a roadside bench overlooking a tumbledown old barn with an unusual chimney. Another path marked on my map turns out not to exist in reality, and I am forced almost 200 metres higher along the lane, at which point I have to drop down again on a steep, gravelly path to the village of Quarten.
Meanwhile, as I try to find my way out of Oberterzen, I m confined to road walking: the path marked on my map leads into private property and no longer exists. At the roadside, a sign informs me that this is a mushroom preservation area, and that picking mushrooms is limited to 2 kilos per day per person… that sounds like an awful lot of mushrooms to me! I follow a twisty lane uphill; it's not unattractive but it's still road walking. I look for a suitable place for lunch, but all the fields are blocked off with electric fences, and in the end I resort to a roadside bench overlooking a tumbledown old barn with an unusual chimney. Another path marked on my map turns out not to exist in reality, and I am forced almost 200 metres higher along the lane, at which point I have to drop down again on a steep, gravelly path to the village of Quarten.
Quarten is a nice little place, less developed than Oberterzen, with extensive views across the lake to Quinten on the far bank. Whether there is any link between the Quarten – Quinten names or whether it is pure coincidence, I do not know.
Sadly, the remaining hour and a half of the walk is all on roads, and becomes progressively less attractive as I go on. I follow a lane downhill between green fields, until it eventually brings me to the lakeside village of Murg. If Quarten was pretty, Murg is ugly. Clearly a place with an industrial past, it is bisected by the railway in one direction, and by a river flowing over a bed of red rock in the other. Some of the old industrial buildings have been converted into flats (or "lofts" according to the signage); others stand empty waiting for a new lease of life. There are also quite a few terraced houses, clearly old workers' cottages, and it makes me wonder what industry exactly made this place tick a hundred years ago.
Now the path sticks close to the banks of the lake. I am passed by numerous cyclists, which makes me think that it would not have been a bad idea to do this leg of the walk by bike; an idea that I will try to remember if there are any similar stages further on. The lakeside path would be idyllic, were it not for the incessant noise of the motorway in my left ear and the occasional passing of trains, also in the same ear. Despite this, there are houses – presumably expensive ones – between the path and the lake. Top prize goes to one big house where, in addition to the noise pollution, there is the stink of a sewage treatment plant right next door, despite which there is a family sitting in the garden having a barbecue. How anyone could live in such a place defeats my imagination… but then I live next to a railway line where a train passes every 2 minutes, so maybe they just get used to the noise as I have.
 |
| Looking across the Walensee to Quinten |
The last kilometre before Mühlehorn is very unpleasant. The lakeside path is being rebuilt and is closed; a diversion is in place for cyclists, but walkers have drawn the short straw. I climb up above the railway, following the diversion signs, but then have to walk for a quarter of an hour along a main road with no pavement, sandwiched between a mountainside and metal crash barriers. I arrive back in Lucerne and emerge into pouring rain. Walking home from the station is only the second time this year that I have needed my rain gear… the other time was also walking home from the station!
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| Not ideal for walkers... |
Clearly, the designers of national trail No. 3 were faced with a problem after reaching Amden: how to transition from the eastern Swiss Alps and the Churfirsten to central Switzerland without imposing at least one day of motorways, hard surfaces and lack of mountain scenery on walkers. Hopefully, the next leg over the Kerenzerberg to the Glarus valley will be more interesting. As for today: the Tyrol and the Dolomites, it most certainly wasn't.
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