Glärnischhütte

We went hiking this weekend. The plan while we’re here is to hike quite a bit.



We thought we’d start out easy and work our way into it. There is still snow in the high Alps and it was supposed to rain on Sunday and Monday (I didn’t have to work because apparently the Swiss also celebrate American Memorial Day) so we thought we’d go to a closer place where we could return to Winterthur if we didn’t feel like making a huge weekend out of it.

On the suggestion of our host mom, Marianne, we decided to go to Glarus and then catch bus to Klöntal. She suggested we hike to the Glärnischhütte (a guest hut) near the Glärnisch glacier. She said we could go to the area together because her husband lives in Glarus and she and her kids were going there for the weekend. In our minds, that meant we were going to ride the train there with her. But instead, she gave us a ride and brought us pretty close to the trail head. That was pretty cool.

The Swiss mountains are different than the Rockies, where I’ve been hiking in the past. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but I’ll try to explain.

First, they seem to rise faster. I mean that you’re on flat ground and then all of a sudden, there’s a sheer cliff. On this hike we walked through a valley for quite a ways. Then we had to climb and climb.



Second, the mountains are greener. There is grass much of the way up, even on the little ledges. This made for a beautiful walk through the valley. There were a number of low volume, high waterfalls. The water from each of these eventually joined together into one river, which flowed through the valley.



After about three hours we reached our goal, the hut. In the above picture you can barely make it out along the left side, about 3/4 of the way up - it's on the ridge with the highest waterfall. At this point, it started to rain so we sat inside a bit, rested and talked to the people running the hut. They told us it’d be another hour to the glacier. After a little break we decided we should see the glacier while we were almost there. This is in the snow area on the top left in the above picture. We didn’t see anyone above the hut and the view of the valley was great. Hiking is one thing that is hard to capture in pictures, as Bryan says, you really have to see it for yourself.

Some of the other guests at the hut said it wasn’t a real glacier with all the blues and colors, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. We got to a place where there was a pretty high snow mass in front of us and could see some cool blue tints. We decided not to go any closer because our reward to risk ratio was very low at that point. We could see all we were going to see and glaciers are very dangerous without the proper tools to help you if you fall into a crevice.

Then we trekked down. When we got to the bottom it was about 6:15. We were planning to catch the bus back into Glarus. The bus left at about 7 so we waited at picnic table near the bus stop. A family of three arrived about 6:30 to wait for the bus as well. We hung out until about 6:50 when the restaurant owner told the family that the bus wouldn’t come at 7 because it wasn’t summer yet. We thought, “Uh oh…now what do we do? Glarus is at least 8km ~ 5 miles and we are really tired.” The other family just started walking and decided to hitchhike. So we did the same. The first vehicle that came was a small Jeep. The family was walking behind us and got a ride. We were a little ways ahead and tried to also get a ride. It worked! First try. We are awesome! It actually worked out quite well because the family could speak German to the driver and the passenger (conversation is polite as a hitchhiker, or so I hear). Also, very few Swiss vehicles could fit 7 people, as this one did with two tight benches in the back. Then, when we got to Glarus, the family was also going to the train station, so we just followed them there. We ended up getting on the slow train, the one that stopped at every…single…town…along the way.

On the trip, we walked at least 10 miles and went up 1350 vertical meters (4400 feet). “That’s an easy hike to get yourself started?” you are asking. You’re right, it’s probably not that easy. But it was a great hike.



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