Schijen, the one which is in GL, SZ and UR

There aren’t very many mountains in Switzerland where you can walk around the summit and at the same time visit 3 different cantons. The Schijen is one of them. At P.2610 the 3 cantons Glarus, Schwyz and Uri join up. The path up there isn’t very easy no matter how you go up there and that’s probably one of the reasons why it is not visited very often. As stated in the SAC guide: From the whole Ortstock group, only Ortstock and Glatten have a summit cross at the top. In a catholic area like this, it is a strong indication how rarely these mountains are visited. However, for the experienced alpine hik(e)r it offers a lot of excitement.

During my hike last year from Braunwald to Ortstock and Glattalp I was already tempted by this mountain, but for several reasons couldn’t go up there then.

I started my hike at the top of the cable car station at Glattalp and walked along the right side of the lake to its end. There I left the marked path turning right (southeast) and went up the pretty steep rubble / grass slope aiming towards the obvious gap which lets you go up to Tieralpeli (T4).

From Tieralpeli I continued in more or less the same direction to P. 2465 on the ridge. Two hunting dogs came towards me there and barked at me - soon after two hunter-hikers came down from Schijen as well. We had a long chat and discussed many things and observed a young golden eagle enjoying himself - flying up and down like on a roller coaster. The hunters also explained some details about the path up to the top.

At P. 2465 I climbed over to the Urner side where an obvious exposed and quite narrow grass band leads you the way up. After a few hundred meters this grass band goes downwards again and I followed it until its obvious end. There a groove in the south flank leads the way up again. The climbing there is relatively easy, not even in the second grade, but there are lots of loose rocks which can be dangerous if other hikers are in this route.

I followed this groove until I saw a very steep grass slope with some rocky parts on the right, which leads the way up to the foresummit of Schijen. This last part is very steep and only recommended under dry conditions. Once on the foresummit I followed the ridge all the way to the top with Steinmannli (no summit log). I’m not sure this way up to Schijen is exactly the way which is described in the SAC guide Glarus (362), because the path described from P. 2465 in the guide is a little confusing for me and doesn’t really fit with what I encountered and did. Anyway, I agree with the rating of T5; however it is not the easiest T5 I ever did…

I enjoyed the nice panorama and loneliness, the impressive views down to Urnerboden, Glattalp with the beautiful lake and saw the people on the prominent neighbor Ortstock “fighting for some room on the summit”.

After quite a while I went back down to Tieralpeli the way I came up. From there I then took the longer but easier way back to Glattalp. I followed the rim of the Tieralpeli northeast wards in direction of Furggele and at the big gorge went down on rubble and grass, and joined up with the marked path from Furggele towards Glattalp at an altitude of around 2080m. From there I went back to the cable car station on the north side of the lake.

One last remark for the Luftseilbahn Sahli-Glattalp: On a very busy day like this you might have to wait a long time to get up to Glattalp. There is only one cable car which fits 8 people and one trip takes 15 minutes (because there’s only one, the cable car has to go up and come down again…). I arrived with the bus at 9 AM. The bus they provided from Muotathal to Sali was completely packed, they even had to get a second bus because there wasn’t enough room for everybody. Most of these people wanted to take the cable car up and so you can imagine how long some people had to wait until they finally made it up to Glattalp. I was lucky, because I got the first bus and was sitting close to the exit and got to the cable car teller early and only had to wait about two loads until it was my turn.
The same is true fro the way down. If you try to catch the last bus at 5:45 PM to Muotathal and plan to not walk down, you better be at the cable car station at least an hour early otherwise you might miss your last bus like me (I was down at Sali at 5:48 PM and “of course” the bus left on time). Fortunately for me there are lots and lots of people who go there with the car too. Thanks to the two nice ladies who gave me a lift to Muotathal!

Glattalp (cable car) – Seeloch – Seeboden – Tieralpeli – P. 2465 – Schijen – P. 2465 – Tieralpeli – Hinter den Steinen – Seeboden – Läcki - Glattalp cable car