Day 3 – Kandersteg and Oeschinen See

Today we took the train to the resort village of Kandersteg, about 40 miles southwest of Brienz, so that we could hike up to see Oeschinen See, a stunning high Alpine lake ringed with snow-covered peaks.

After waking up to see clear blue skies and the moon hanging over the snow covered Alps we boarded the 8:00 AM train in Brienz and arrived in Kandersteg about 9:45 AM after changing trains at both Interlaken Ost and Spiez. This route took us along the northern shore of Lake Brienz and the southern shore of Lake Thun before heading south from Spiez towards Kandersteg. Spiez is an interesting town that has something of a Mediterranean feel to it and offers great access to destinations throughout the region; it’s now on our radar for a possible future visit.

Kandersteg is a small town of about 1,200 people lying in the beautiful Kander Valley. Originally a farming community with settlement dating back to 1352, Kandersteg is now heavily reliant on tourism. In the winter the area offers one of the largest cross-country skiing areas in Switzerland along with groomed hiking paths, snowshoe trails, and limited downhill skiing. In the summer there are hundreds of kilometers of marked hiking trails as well as rock climbing areas for the more adventurous visitors. The scenery is spectacular no matter when you visit with dramatic mountain peaks all around, most notably the Balmhorn (12,133 ft), the Blüemlisalp (12,018 ft), and the Gross Lohner (10,003 ft). Kandersteg is also home to the year-round Kandersteg International Scout Centre, a facility that welcomes over 12,000 Scouts and Guides each year from all over the world.

We first visited Kandersteg over 20 years ago as a short day trip while staying in Gstaad. We thought that it was a charming town and have often talked about going back to explore it in more depth. We’ve also passed through a number of times since then via train on our way to and from Zermatt – Kandersteg is the portal town for the Lötschberg Tunnel, a 9 mile long passage carved through the Alps between the Berner Oberland and Valais regions of Switzerland. The tunnel carries passenger trains, freight trains, and even special open-sided car carrier trains that let you drive your car on board and remain in your car for the twenty minute transit. The tunnel is a popular shortcut, especially during ski season, because it greatly reduces the driving time to major Swiss ski resorts like Zermatt.

Our hiking destination was Oeschinen See, a mile-long Alpine lake cradled in a beautiful cirque of raw granite peaks. With an elevation of about one mile above sea level the lake is generally frozen from December to May, so we visited not long after the melt-off. The lake has a high concentration of suspended mineral fragments that reflect and refract daylight to give the lake a spectacular blue-green color, especially in bright sunlight. This lake is part of the Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch UNESCO World Heritage site, identified in 2001 for its unique combination of physical beauty and cultural history.

The Oeschinen See can accessed via a scenic cable car ride from Kandersteg, but we elected to walk up by following the bergwanderweg. Bergwanderwegs (often shortened to just ‘bergweg’) are the rough-and-tumble less reputable cousins of the more common wanderweg. They are steeper, rockier, less traveled, and less defined, all factors that tend to filter out the tour bus crowd. The visible indicator that you are on a bergwanderweg is the red-and-white color coding on the trail signs. In the absence of signage you look for the red-and-white painted blaze markings painted on rocks and trees instead of the yellow diamond shapes used to mark the easier trails.

We started from the Kandersteg Bahnhof where we followed the signs to the base station for the cable car. At that point we picked up the bergwanderweg and climbed a very steep and unrelenting trail that traversed back and forth up through pastures and woodland to Oeschinen See. We reached the high point of the trail about 1,600 feet above our starting point on the valley floor and then descended into the cirque that surrounds the lake. We found a bench with a commanding view and took a break to catch our breath, snap some pictures, and have some lunch. We then descended back into Kandersteg via an easier alternate trail so that we could enjoy the views along the way.

By the time we got back to the bahnhof in Kandersteg we had covered about seven miles on foot, including our first real vertical of the trip. For our return to Brienz we simply reversed our itinerary on the train. After a trip to the Coop grocery store to more fully stock our kitchen Cindy fixed another of her great Swiss-inspired dinners and we enjoyed a quiet evening overlooking the lake.

Map

Photos

Weather

Meals