It took a while for winter to arrive but when it did, it really did! We packed up our snowshoes and decided to head out to the mountains. Our base was Alt St. Johann from where we took the gondola to Sellamatt. There, we strapped on our snowshoes and started along the snowshoe trail. This trail lead us past the northern side of the Churfirsten mountains, which we then after lunch saw from their southern side.
There is something wonderful about walking though a forest or over fields when all you hear is the crunching of snow. We didn’t see a person, or animal apart from a few birds, and watching the sun come over the mountains was special. Suddenly, the snow started to twinkle like a thousand stars, crystals or diamonds.
Once we finished the snowshoe trail, we made our own way to Iltios. The snow was powdery and so pure that I felt bad about making a trail right through the middle of it!
Then it was through a fairy-tale forest, the branches were thick with snow, the sun peeked though and, until we passed some people along the way, perfectly quiet.
Once we reached Iltios, we took the gondola up to Chäserrugg, where we had a quick lunch, before walking along the Rosenboden trail for fantastic views of the Walensee – if there hadn’t been a layer of clouds – and the Churfirsten from the south. The mountains over to the east are already in Austria.
Although we took the gondola back down to Iltios, continuing back down to Alt St. Johann was very strenuous as it was downhill the entire time and my feet started to hurt about halfway down. Probably due to the constant pressure the tight straps exerted over my boots. I was so glad to be able to walk on the street again! We watched the last of the sun’s rays grace the side of the mountains on our way back to our hotel.
