Day 4 – From Meiringen To Hochmoor

Today we visited the town of Meiringen and hiked up to see Hochmoor. Like yesterday this hike was more about elevation than distance but the scenery was magnificent thanks to the beautiful weather.

Cindy and I left Brienz about 10:00 AM for a quick 10 minute train ride eastward to Meiringen, a pleasant town of about 5,000 located on the valley floor between imposing snow-capped mountains. The recorded history of Meiringen dates all the way back to the 13th century thanks to its location at the foot of several mountain passes and along the headwaters of the Aare River, but its modern claims to fame are far less strategic in nature.

Meiringen is known as the setting for the presumed death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famed character Sherlock Holmes. In “The Adventure of the Final Problem”, Holmes and his nemesis Moriarty plunge over nearby Reichenbach Falls. The town is a mecca for Sherlock fans, complete with a surprisingly substantial museum and numerous businesses that gladly promote the association. There’s even Das Hotel Sherlock Holmes – no, we didn’t stay there (for reasons that should be elementary, my dear reader).

Meiringen also claims to be the place where the meringue was invented, so if the name sounded vaguely familiar then that’s probably why! Local historians credit the invention to an Italian chef named Gasparini that lived in Meiringen ca. 1720. Various flavors of the story involve either Napoleon or Louis XV, which may explain how the town’s decidedly German name morphed into the decidedly French ‘meringue’. This sweet (if nutritionally vacant) dessert concocted from sugar and egg whites is a staple in region.

The trailhead for Hochmoor is well above the valley floor along a winding road to the mountain pass at Grosse Scheidegg. Given that the core part of the hike was going to be challenging anyway we decided to take a Post Bus to the trailhead instead of walking. We boarded the bus at the Bahnhof around 11:15 and arrived at Kaltenbrunnen a very twisty 30 minutes later. The road was steep and narrow (often just a single lane) with many hairpin turns along the way.

Hochmoor lies near the top of a glacially-formed valley, so we had some climbing to do – 1,800 feet of vertical – once we started out from Kaltenbrunnen. While the grade was challenging, the trail was excellent, the flowers abundant, and the surrounding mountains magnificent in the sunshine. The trail was actually a farmer’s road, much of it fully graveled and the balance in well-maintained two track.

By the way, Hochmoor (hoch being German for ‘high’ and moor essentially the same in English, namely a bog or marsh) is reportedly the highest eco-system of its kind in Europe. Originally a high Alpine lake, the area has silted in completely over the millennia. The soft soils and abundant vegetation offer a dramatic contrast to the surrounding peaks of granite and thus the appeal to hikers as well as biologists. The entire area is a protected nature and wildlife preserve.

The trail conditions changed dramatically once we finally reached Hochmoor. Much of the area was still snow-covered due to the elevation and the trail became more and more elusive. Someone had passed through fairly recently and their tracks in the snow were quite helpful, but after a while we started to wonder whether or not they were headed the same place that we were. After a late lunch overlooking the valley below we decided that completing our intended circuit hike was just not in the cards. We turned around and re-traced our steps (quite literally in the snowy areas!) back down to Kaltenbrunnen, making our hike for today roughly seven miles.

We arrived back at Kaltenbrunnen, quite by chance, just moments before the Post Bus was scheduled to come along for the downhill run back to Meiringen. This is a fairly remote stop so the bus only runs a limited schedule weekdays. We were prepared for up to a two hour wait but as luck would have it we barely had time to collapse our hiking sticks before we saw the bus come around the bend. The consolation prize was the small berghotel (mountain inn) right across from the bus stop – if we had been off schedule and needed to wait we at least had someplace to go for a cold Rugenbrau on the sun terrace!

On the ride back to Meiringen we really got to see the Post Bus right-of-way rules in action. These quasi-governmental buses have the right-of-way over just about anything else on the road, so if you’re coming around a mountain bend and hear their signature (and very loud) three-note horn you’d best get out of the way. In most cases today there was enough sight line for the oncoming vehicle to find a wide spot in the road and pull over, but several times the opposing vehicle had to back up. My favorite was near the bottom when we rounded a tight bend and came face to face with a new Mercedes sedan. The driver demonstrated quite clearly that he had no clue as to how to back in a straight line in spite of his wife giving copious and gesture-filled instructions from the passenger seat …

Map

Photos

Weather

Meals