Plans change on mountains… often

You arrive at your planned destination. Ready for a day of high altitude hiking. The cable car is not running. So your plans change. Which happens quite often when you’re playing in the mountains. And mostly when you least expect it. Yesterday’s forecast for sunshine turns out to be wrong, thanks to a fast moving front. Instead of sunshine you have overcast conditions and a freezing cold wind. The suncream you put on totally wasted, you get a few extra layers on and move on. Or, as was the case when we got to the bottom cable car station for Maschgenkamm, you find out that the cable car is not operating for unexplained reasons. Anyway the whole place is shrouded in mist, and there’s not much chance of the panoramic walk we expected. So, plans change…

The view below - plans change when weather change
The view below – plans change when weather change

Instead of making our way to the summit of the nearby peaks, we decide to walk a route that will take us past Maschgenkamm and Seebenalp and finish at Unterterzen, next to Walensee. To gain a few hundred metres we catch a ride on a chairlift, from where we start walking. Our new target high point, a minor peak just over 2000 metres high.

We set off. Easy on the uphill, until we get to just below Maschgenkamm, where our plans change again. Instead of visiting the bigger ‘panoramic’ Maschgenkamm restaurant, we decide to visit a slightly lower, much simpler restaurant where we stop to check the map. We make our way into the little mountain restaurant and order coffee. The atmosphere in the little place is flat. But the fire from the log burner is lovely and warm, and the coffee – even if it’s not decaf – tastes better than okay.

Before we set off we add extra layers. Then we say goodbye and venture back into the cold misty outside… At Maschgenkamm we check the map again and manage to pick the right route in the mist… we head steeply uphill, before levelling off and then we continue on a narrow path on what feels like a very slim ridge, the world below covered in a thick blanket of mist.

At some point on our descent to Grosssee at Seebenalp, the world below us starts appearing through the cloud. When we stop for lunch at the lake, we are well below the cloud and we can see the bottom of the Churfirsten where they rise above Walensee. We even get an occasional glimpse of some of the peaks themselves.

When we reach the edge of the plateau, we overlook the impressive Walensee stretched out below us… a few quick pictures and we set off downhill. First on an uneven footpath, then on a steep jeep track and finally on tar until we reach the cable car station at Oberterzen, where we decide we’ve had enough of tar covered steep downhill paths… we catch a ride the rest of the way down and make our way to a lakeside restaurant where the Radler is cold and the view across the lake is superb! Not the most exciting outing we’ve had, with plans changing and views obscured, but still a great day out in the beautiful mountains.


Getting to Flumserberge

The Flumserberg website provides many options for hiking in the area. Even if plans change…


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