Hey everyone!
Damn, I seem not to be able to finish all the articles from Switzerland. I’m so short on time these days.
Despite of Switzerland’s size, it has an incredible number of places worth seeing. A month wouldn’t be enough to see all its beauty.
And then, there are places that you have to see more than once. And I want to write about one of these today. It’s called Oeschinensee. You can read about my first visit in this article.
I didn’s use the cable car 2 years ago – I guess I was still young & energetic back then, while now I’m old and lazy, so we chose the more comfortable way up. Both of my visits had something in common – I was camping right by the lake. You probably wonder if it’s allowed. It’s not. And if you’re not sure, there are a few huge signs. I don’t know if the signs apply only to the grassy spots just behind the hut or to the entire lake area. In any case we risked it on the gravel far far back on the other side of the lake, where we didn’t see any “no camping” signs.
On the way we found another tent hidden in the bush, so we were not the only ones who wanted to experience morning sunrays by the lake. Judging from the way they were camouflaged, I would think that camping wasn’t allowed on the other side of the lake either. But of course we had to pitch our tent right by the water without even trying to be invisible. The view was better there. Well, this whole story has a happy ending – we didn’t get in trouble.
In the evening, we went for a quick swim, because that was our only shower option.
Handy stuff
You can park your car in Kandersteg, where there is paid parking right next to the cable car station (expensive as crazy, but that doesn’t surprise you in Switzerland after some time). The cable car is also damn expensive, but it really pays off. I remember scrambling up with a 20-kg backpack two years ago. It wasn’t even a nice hike because the path leads through the forest, so you can’t even see anything. The cable car saves you about 2 hours up and an hour down.
From the cable car station you have to walk for about 15 minutes to reach Oeschinensee, but that walk actually is beautiful. There are tons of cows on the way. There’s an okay restaurant (where they have ice cream!) at the lake. You can even stay the night in the hut.
If you want to hike a bit, it takes about an hour to the other side of Oeschninensee, using the left bank. After about a half an hour you will see a huge waterfall (great shower there!). Then you can hike even higher – much higher. Along the way to one of the summits, there are even mountain huts on the steep slopes where you can overnight.
In the end, we just chilled in the morning instead of rushing it back. We were exhausted from the constant climbing, cooking, planning, camping and driving. We decided to just enjoy it here as much as we could.
I have to brag about our morning setup. The previous day, we bought eggs, avocado, stole salt from McDonald’s, and I made an avocado toast for breakfast right at Oeschinensee.
See you next time! 🙂
E.
