The Cross-Swiss Walk - Susten Pass

Ken Baldry crosses Switzerland on Foot -

Burglen to the Susten Pass from Wassen to Meiringen 2006

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This alternative has an easy, if unexciting, first day & gets you to Meiringen in three days.
The Surenen Pass original route takes four days.

This map is copied from the Official Map of the Automobil-Club der Schweiz,
(with their permission) which is on this link but not to scale

Friday 8th September 2006 Valley walk from Burglen to Wassen
LKs 246, 256 (you don't need this) & 255

It rained like fun in the night, with the usual fireworks & echoing thunder. In the morning, the cloud was down to about 1500m. No VISA here (Hotel Waldhof, Burglen) & yesterday cost Sfr 94.70 altogether. I walked down from Burglen to the Reuss Valley at Schattdorf & along the rather industrial Gotthardstrasse. Beyond Erstfeld though, and after the railway crosses the road, there is a footpath along the Reuss which takes one off the road, even if the motorway gets a bit close at times. This goes to Amsteg, a pretty village & I stopped for a coffee, Sfr 3.40, as the 'going up', such as it is today, starts here on the road. I got as far at Intschi & stopped for lunch, huge pork steaks (2) & a vast salad with a beer for Sfr 24.90. It was a road walk all the way to just below Wassen, where a steep footpath cuts off the zig-zags. This is notoriously, the place where the fancy railway tunnelling gets some height in for the Gotthard tunnel. It took 7.25 hours & I booked into the Hotel Alte Post, getting a garret but with a big shower room opposite for Sfr 70 + 7 for cake & coffee later, after I had sussed out how to start the morrow's walk.

Saturday 9th September 2006 The Susten Pass as far as the Susten Hospice

The Susten Pass is commonly thought of as a road pass, much visited on the Three Passes coach tour. It is the last pass visited on that tour & passengers are usually feeling hill fatigue, thereby missing the wild ambience of this pass. I certainly did on a school trip in 1957.

However, there is a footpath alternative for most of the way.

Just out of the woods

The Susten upper meadow.
The road is well above

Path to top, picks up
from previous photo

I set off at 0814 & got to the Susten Hospice at 1456. The walk starts ok up to the woods but soon become a little path by the stream before crossing the brook. Then, it is quite good with a dodgy bit around a field & on to Meien, which is called Dorfli on my map. It crosses the road & after the church, there are 200 metres of main road, all one does today, before a metalled track leads off through various buildings at intervals to Farnigen. This is the old pack horse pass track & goes up into the upper valley during which I chatted to an old Austrian couple.

Sunday 10th September 2006 Down the Susten Pass to Meiringen

I was away at 0729 & into the hotel in Meiringen at 1656, 9.5 hours for a largely downhill trip but a very long one. The first bit to the Steingletscher, is a bit hard to find but I managed by cutting across the fellside. The glacier is not much shrunken since I took my schoolboy photo in 1957 (far right). Then, one goes up a bit on excellent pack-horse track & up & down, losing no height but in an enchanting valley well away from the road. At the end of this is a long, steep set of zig-zags, again very well maintained.

Sunrise West of the Susten Hospice

The Steingletscher in 2006

The Steingletscher in 1957

The magical valley

The well-maintained pack horse track.

Nearly down

These go down to a weir, where a little bit of 'up' leads into woods & a path which improves to jeep track. However, this comes out onto a stream bed, well waymarked & containing bits of asphalt. Obviously, the water had destroyed the road marked on the map! Then, there is a bridge over it & a pleasant meadow path. This corresponds to the upper meadows on the other side. This goes on until steeper metalled zig-zags above Nessental, where the track joins the main road briefly & the only hotel is up for sale. A cut-off on the right of the main road soon goes under it, this being the pack-horse track again. It goes to the water works at Hopflauenen but I could not find it again after, which is a pity, a I had to walk down the road & soon was to see the old track on the opposite & less sunny side of the valley. I joined it above Wiler again, where one is back on the main road but on pavement until the old track goes down to Innertkirchen. One feature of the weekend was been vast numbers of bikers & these were gathered in Innertkirchen where I had dreamed of a coffee, so I carried on the footpath by the Aare to something I had cast from my mind, the Lammi. This 2161 metre pass before Meiringen has a steep track up one does not need at the end of such a long day but I have done it before, which in a sense, makes it worse. However, the path through the woods down to Meiringen is very pleasant. I staggered into town 'more dead than alive' but got into the Hasli Lodge. This seemed familiar until I realised it was the old Hotel Weisses Kreuz I had used before but taken over by a chain. A sweet maid seemed in charge & I used her mobile, kept beside an honesty piggy-bank, to ring my wife. I had a huge dinner, beer & coffee, the day costing exactly Sfr 100.