LIMMERNSEE

October 2018

It was already the middle of October, but the weather in the Alps was still great and so my friend and I set out to do this hike I had been wanting to do all year. Getting up to this viewpoint above the mesmerizing Limmernsee isn’t uncomplicated, but once you’re there, you’ll get treated to a view second to none.

The hike begins at the train station with a few kilometers of walking down in the valley to get to the cable car that will take you up half the mountain and drop you off basically in the middle of a massive cliff. The hiking trail then snakes its way up the wall switchback after switchback until you reach the top a couple hours later and get to admire the beautiful views surrounding the Muttsee Hut that sits in the middle of the small plateau up there. Our goal however was this little mountain a little closer to the lake that offered an incredible panorama.

After having hiked up in the warm autumn sun, it quickly started getting very cold after the beautiful sunset and the wind started picking up. Since our tent was completely exposed to the strong wind gusts, there wasn’t much sleep to be had with the different layers of the small tent clattering against each other, making noises reminiscent of a horror movie.

It didn’t get better in the morning either and made for a very cold sunrise stroll and freezing fingers during breakfast. You had to hold on to everything, as just letting something go for a millisecond would result in it being blown into the valley below immediately. The wind started gaining more and more speed as we set out on the hike back down and it got so bad at one point, that standing up straight was impossible. This made for a very scary descent down the rather exposed switchbacks. At the end of a long day however, we made it safely back to the train station and were both pretty spent after little sleep and a good 26km / 16mi of hiking in total.