This is a mountain restaurant, not like many others that I’ve seen. Location, location, location !

This tiny restaurant at about 1450m above sea level is perched like an eagles nest at the bottom of a steep cliff. It is precariously set at a small ledge, from where there is a 600m drop down to the valley, rather a steep drop I must add. The views of course are no less than spectacular, and their chäs rösti, (a swiss national dish like a big hash brown with melted cheese on top) is so good, it alone is worth the hike up there. So we started our hike…

Not too well prepared we drove via Appenzell to Wasserauen and arrived at the parking lot in the early afternoon. There was hardly a parking space left, for a moment we considered turning round (in the evening news we later heard this weekend had been the hiking weekend, highest visitors numbers throughout the country for 2014 !). No clue where to start, we asked the very friendly parking attendant. There are 3 options : the easy one would be to take the gondola for a comfortable ride up to Ebenalp, which costs 20 CHF one way, from there walk for about 15 minutes to the Aescher.

We do consider ourselves sportspeople so we want to do the hiking version, the choice is go up right here under the gondola, which is more out in the open and not so scenic, or take the steeper route via Seealpsee, a tiny mountain lake which reflects the surrounding mountains in it glass clear waters. Seealpsee sounded better, so we followed the road past the gondola station and headed towards the lake on a rather wide tarred road.

Now our friend the parking attendant didn’t tell us quite how steep it was, probably thought we looked rather fresh and fit, and could handle it. After about half an hour we did understand why all these people came walking down, and hardly anybody walked up … Boy it was steep ! After about an hour we reached the lake which is absolutely gorgeous. There is a restaurant on the lakeside serving good food with splendid views, as expected it was very busy there. You can also walk around the lake which takes about an hour, and the going round it is easy, meaning nice and flat !

From the lake we walked back for 10-15 minutes to where the trail to Aescher turns away from the main track. Now if we thought the part to the lake was steep, this was worse, much worse. After about 1000 steps I stopped counting, but it still went up, and up, and up ! The views down are beautiful and do make for a good excuse to stand still and catch your breath, as do photo stops…

No I did think of myself as more than averagely fit, but Juerg was, at some point, seriously worried about my health, I was puffing and panting like an old steam engine, and the going got slower and slower.

At the bottom it had said 1 hour, after a long time I looked at my watch, no, that can’t be, it must be broke ! Still 25 more minutes to go, how will I ever get up there… ? I promise I will never ever do this again. Luckily after a mere 10 minutes we saw the restaurant, so we are fit and did it in 45 instead of 60 ! But honest, in those 45 minutes we only had 2 even parts of about 10m each, all the rest is hard work !

Once there on the Aescher restaurant terrace with a big cold drink in my hands and a chäs rösti ordered, things looked different again. This spot is so awesome ! Just sitting here, sun on my face, enjoying the view, life isn’t too bad, and hiking is good fun after all. Unfortunately the really good view is towards the west, where the autumn sun is now slowly setting. Not so good to take photos in that direction in late afternoon, so I’ll have to put on my walking boots once more, and come visit here in early morning light, when the view towards Seealpsee will be lit spectacularly.

I heard later from a friend that there is another way up. I think I will try that one next time ! Start at Weissbad, and follow the route through the forest, which is a bit longer but also scenic, and nice and cool on hot summer days. Most important : it is not quite so steep, a medium instead of demanding hike, it’s always good to have some options ! We walked the last part, past the little chapel, through the cave to Ebenalp, and went down in the gondola, nice and easy, to end of a spectacular hiking day. Just too bad there were more people who had the same idea…had to stand in line for an hour before we could finally go down.

Do enjoy the hiking ! At the bottom is the official map with all the routes, judge and decide where to go  for yourselves, and have a great hiking day !