Summer calls for hiking - well, as long as the weather allows us to go. We didn't have many sunny days this summer but we still tried to make the best out of it. I have a nice collection of our day trips that I can't wait to show you! Today, we will start with our trip to the Seealpsee.
Seealpsee is a picturesque lake hidden deep in the mountains of canton Appenzell. We have seen it during our previous hikes in the area but never managed to take time and go there. It's a great starting point for many other hikes, but to get there you first need to conquer almost 400 m in altitude, and let me tell you that it's tough as it's not a very long hike.
We woke up early as I read that it's a very popular place and was afraid that we wouldn't find a parking spot. We were lucky as there were still a few left but we arrived already at 9AM. I can't imagine how it looked like at lunchtime.
There are a few ways to get to the lake and we chose the longer trail from Wasserauen. It's starts very steep and it continues like this in the forest. But once you reach the top it flattens and becomes more of a relaxing walk. You can also take a shorter way from Wasserauen but it goes slightly up all the time which we thought would be more difficult. There is a paved road almost the whole way to Seealpsee which is not as exciting as an elevated trail in the forest.
After a few hundreds meters of hiking uphill we found a bench and ate our snacks. Not that we were so hungry, but we were barely catching our breath and needed to take a break. The view of the Appenzeller Alps was worth it. Here we can see Ebenalp (1640 m)
Then we continued up the hill. I don't even know how long it took us to get up but I do remember how happy I was when we finally reached the top. Suddenly, the trees cleared to an incredible plateau with cows everywhere.
We haven't been on a hike with so many people before, and I was surprised to realize that it didn't bother me not to have the mountains only for ourselves (it sounds silly, I know). It was actually encouraging to see other people giving their best and share our pain. Funny though, that you can't see any people on the pictures but here and there you can spot a cow or two 🙂
We were surrounded by so many peaks that we didn't even know which way to look first. We have also noticed that the Alpstein region has specific structure that we haven't seen before in the Alps. It looks like a climber paradise.
The landscape on the other side of our trail was completely different. Later, we realized that this is where we would walk back to the valley.
We were lucky with the weather. It was a hot day but we had some wind, so it was very pleasant. The clouds were moving fast, and it was fascinating to see how fast was our view changing. Luckily, it didn't rain at all.
Somewhere there in the back is our destination!
This part of the hike was my favorite. There were plenty of these pyramid like rock formations...
Looking back at where we came from..
Almost there - we couldn't see it yet but asked some people coming from that direction how far it was, and they told us that it's just there, hidden behind that hill.
Aren't they perfect?
Here we go! Let's have a closer look.
The lake is at elevation of 1,143.2 m and it's max depth is 15 meters. Right in front of us is our beloved Säntis which we couldn't see because of the clouds.
Once you arrive at Seealpse, there are lots of different activities to do and places to visit there. You can sit down and enjoy the atmosphere, have a picnic, do a barbecue, take a rowboat, have a delicious meal at one of a several restaurants, or even go for a swim! Water is ice cold but we saw a few people who were brave enough to enjoy a quick dip.
We decided to enjoy the moment and sat down on the ground for some time. When it was getting late and it looked like a thunderstorm was coming, we walked around the lake, had a ginger beer from the region, and hiked back to Wasserauen.
The drive back home was challenging as we were both tired but we managed to keep each other company and arrived safely. We did a lot of singing 🙂
We had a great time and I'm sure that we will come back to explore the Alpstein region even more!
Thank you for reading,
Cheers!
Martina