Just above the fog on yet another Gulmen

I actually didn’t plan on going to Wildhaus on this day, because I just spent all weekend there on its surrounding mountains. However, since I forgot my jacket there, I had to go back and pick it up. After all I was glad and it was definitely worth the trip!
 
There aren’t very many mountains in this area which I haven’t visited, but the Gulmen near Wildhaus was one of them. The SLF warned: “WEITERHIN HEIMTUECKISCHE LAWINENSITUATION”, therefore, I wanted to do something safe and due to forecasted fog up to about 1500 meters, I chose Gulmen, which is almost 2000 meters high and rather safe, and as I said I have never been on it.

The Gulmen is not really good for skiing, because the bottom is all in the forest, further up there are lots and lots of knee pines and in addition the steepness is not all that great for skiing, it isn't even mentioned in the SAC Skitouren guide. Therefore, I decided to take my snowshoes along.

I started my hike at the Lisighaus (I know the obvious choice would be Wildhaus Post, but as I said, I had to go and pick up my jacket first) walked to the post and further to the bottom station of the Gamplüt cable car. About 250 meters after that the path up to the Gulmen turns left towards Bodenweidli, along a path in the forest. I didn’t even have to put on my snowshoes up to Langenboden, because on the trail there was pretty hard pressed snow. From Langenboden on I needed them and walked along the path up to the Gulmenütte and then all the way to the summit.

At the Gulmenhütte which is at 1660 meters I started worrying that I wouldn’t make it out of the fog, because it still looked like the upper limit of the fog was quite far away. Only at around 1850 meters I finally made it out of the fog into the sun. What a great feeling again.

I stayed at the summit for about two hours, explored the ridge to Gätterifisrt as far as I could, because I just didn’t feel like going back down into the fog. At around 2 PM some clouds started rolling in from Austria and that’s when I started walking back down.

For my way down I first went back to the Gulmenhütte and Langenboden and from there I walked down to  Tesel. Via Alp Fros I got to the restaurant at the top station of Gamlüt (drank a Gamplüt-Kafi) and then walked back down to Wildhaus along the marked snowshoe path and later along the street to  Wildhaus, Post.

 Wildhaus, Lisighasu –  Wildhaus, Post – Bodenweidli – Vorder Bannwald – Langenboden – Gulmenhütte – Gulmen – Gulmenhütte – Langenboden – Tesel – Alp Fros – Gamplüt – Lisigweid –  Wildhaus, Post

PS: There are 4 Gulmen in SG (one on the border to GL). Gulmen comes from the Latin word "culmen" (which means summit). Gulmen in Swiss German is mostly referred to a roundish summit.
PPS: I was glad I wasn't the first one going up there but found some tracks, because without them it would have been difficult to find the path in the very thick fog!