Saturday July 23: Altdorf to Engelberg
This was a super-long hike! The official route is 29 (30?) kilometers, up and over a serious pass, the Surenenpass. We know ourselves, and we knew that 29 (or 30) kilometers was much too far for us to cover in one day. Even with transport on either end, we only made it to town an hour or two before dinnertime.
Alpine Exploratory notes that “The first ascent can be shortened by a cable car to Brusti, saving 1,080 m and 3.5 km.” We definitely wanted to do this shortening! But I was worried about the little car, and how long it might take us to catch it, and whether it would even be manned. We’d been burned on the Walkers’ Haute Route when we counted on taking a cablecar down from Jungen to St. Niklaus. This cablecar turned out to hold four people at a time and ran on a ten-minute cycle; we waited over an hour to get our turn to ride it.
To maximize our chances of this cablecar working out and transporting us right away, we took a cab from the hotel to the Brusti cablecar middle station. It turned out to be easy; a bunch of people were heading up, including a local teenager who seemed to be visiting her aunt and uncle up on the mountain and a package traveling on its own.
There was plenty of climbing at the top! The Surenenpass has a rocky approach but opens into a glorious view down two valleys.
Then we walked! The approach to this pass was particularly beautiful and relatively easy until we were right under it.
We arrived at the pass around noon.
Then there was still a LOOOOONG walk down the valley to Engelberg. So we got going! At least it was downhill.
The rain started in the middle of the afternoon. It poured down on us as we picked our way through the muddy forest trail.
We’d cut about 4 kilometers off the total distance that morning, but that still left around 25 to go. Engelberg still seemed very far away when we arrived at the bus stop at the end of the road leading toward the ski areas. With the rain continuing, a bus into town seemed like a very good idea!
Having been whisked the last 5 kilometers into town, we made our way to the Hotel Alpenclub, where we’d spend the next two nights. Tomorrow was a rest day!
