Aareschlucht - Chaltenbrunnen
I did this hike together with some friends on the 17th of September, 2021. I had seen the Chaltenbrunnen-Hochmoorweg on Switzelrandmobility, and thought it looked really nice. We decided to alternate this hike to the below, and start with a visit to the Aareschlucht.
Full route: Swisstopo
We went from Zürich to Meiringen by train and started the hike at the eastern entrance to the gorge. We were rather early, so we almost had the entire gorge to ourselves, while walking through it. It was slightly misty, which made for some really nice views walking along on the pathway.
Once out of the gorge, we continued on the hiking path through a little village outside of Meiringen, after which the trail went into the forest and the ascent started. The morning was still cold, but as we made our way up and the sun got higher on the sky, we quickly got warm.
After a short while, we came past one of many great viewpoints on this hike. The forest opened up, and we could see the mountains in the near distance above Meiringen and Aareschlucht. It was a really beautiful autumn day, and the colors were everywhere great.
After the first steeper part of the ascent through the forest, the trail flattened out into a more open landscape. We were the only ones on the trail for most of the hike, which always makes it extra special.
As we got closer to the top of the hike, the ground started to be frozen and we also had some snow on the trail. None of it was though problematic, and we just went slow on the icy areas. From the gravel road, we could see the top of Wandelhoren, which the trail runs under.
We made it up into the moor landscape, which looked really great with the autumn colors. This is the highest moor area in Europe, and I found it really impressive and beautiful to walk through.
We found a nice spot in the sun and had lunch up here, enjoying the stunning views and the snow covered mountain peaks. The trail from here was flat for a while, and it was nice to have an easy part before the descent, to fully enjoy the surroundings.
The trail was generally easy on this hike being either gravel road or hiking path, without lose material or too many steeper parts. As we started the descent on the other side, we had great views to the Rosenlouwigletscher above us. We took another break here as we could see we had a lot of time until the next bus.
The views on this hike were really amazing, and I definitely need to come back and do more hiking in this area. Back down, we took a bus to Meiringen, from where we continued with the train back home to Zürich.
