Gasterntal Valley: Kander waterfalls

We had an easier walk today, with not too much ascent, although we did end up doing 15 kilometres… this walking lark must be getting too comfortable! We took the bus to Eggeschwand, which was free with our guest cards. From there we walked into the Gasterntal Valley, which we reached by climbing up a path through a narrow gorge.

After the recent storms, and with snow melt from the glaciers, the River Kander thundered through the Chluse Gorge, a torrent bouncing over the rocks. At the moment the river is pretty grey because the silt’s been stirred up with the high volume of water, rather than the pretty milky turquoise we usually see in mountain rivers in August.

A narrow single track road runs up the valley, carved out of the cliffs, and over a pretty stone bridge. We were intrigued to see that cars are only permitted to travel down the road for 20 minutes out of each hour and up for the another 20 minutes, presumably with 10 minutes between to allow time for traffic to clear. The footpath took us away from the road, down to the river on wooden steps, then we crossed the water on a small, probably temporary, foot bridge.

We emerged from the gorge into open pastures between high mountains. Jegertosse, the high alpine meadow which we visited earlier in the week was high above us on the left. A hike to Balmhorn hut, which we may do later in the week, was to our right. As well as the hut perched high on a cliff, there were several beautiful waterfalls on our right. The first, the Geltenbach, spurts from a cave and can apparently only be seen during the spring snow melts.

We walked up the valley through woods and alongside the Kander River, which comes from the Kanderfirn Glacier, for about 5 kilometres. There was some high cloud around today so it was cooler than previous days, and very pleasant.

On our way back we stopped at Hotel Waldhaus, and treated ourselves to beer and ice cream. The hotel is very pretty, adorned with cowbells and decorated with wooden carvings and tubs of bright flowers. The view from terrace is delightful. However, we had to drag ourselves away… blogs to write and washing to do!

We wandered back down the river, through the gorge and past the waterfalls to the bus stop. Once there, we decided we might as well walk back to Kandersteg. It was a pleasant walk through more flower meadows and woods, if rather hot in the now bright sunshine.

Now we’ve caught up on our chores and are planning our last few days in Kandersteg. Our Walkers’ Haute Route trek is fast approaching!