Nägeliberg and Schären - skiing two wild "new Churfirsten"

Nägeliberg and Schären are not your typical ski-mountains. The way to their peaks from Strichboden is rather lengthy and the steepness of both mountains is not very homogeneous. In addition you need safe conditions, Schären is rated (S-) and Nägeliberg (ZS) in the SAC guide. However, if you choose to make the long way anyway, you will be rewarded with a view which is as good as on the rest of the Churfirsten and unlike on Selun or Brisi, it will most likely never be crowded on these mountains.

I started my approach at the Bus stop in Starkenbach. There was just enough snow (ice) there in oder to put on the skis. I followed the normal route towards Strichboden. From there I went more or less along the Toggenburger Höhenweg to Ochsen and then up towards Tisch. I then crossed over to the north face of Nägeliberg, this north face has a band of rocks about half way up but right in the middle there is a gap which lets go pass through. The steepness ranges from 35 to 40 degrees (for a few meters only). On top once again I enjoyed the very nice view down to Walensee. Since my last visit in fall there were only 8 entries in the summit log, this tells you how “crowded” it is up there :-)

Since I wanted to visit the close by Schären as well, but didn’t feel like skiing down to Tisch and then re-ascend from there, I decided to take the shortcut and walk over to Schären along the ridge. So I attached my skis to my backpack, put my crampons on and walked over there. The crampons weren’t really necessary but didn’t hurt either. Shortly before the peak of Schären, right before the steepest part on the ridge (there were it helps to use your hands to climb up), I saw a nice slope to ski down to Tisch, so I left my skis here and walked to the summit without them. After returning from the summit, I skied down this nice and very steep (about 45 degrees) slope (should definitely only be done during safe avalanche conditions!). The snow wasn’t the best any more but still surprisingly powdery. Close to Muelten there isn’t much skiing until Strichboden again, because it’s rather flat and one needs to push a lot (probably another reason why these two peaks aren’t visited much with skis).

From Strichboden down to Starkenbach I went down the normal route again. There are many possibilities to take shortcuts, in case one doesn’t want to follow the narrow and not always enjoyable path.

PS: A week ago when I was looking over to this area from Häderen, I saw some ski traces from Hinter Selun going down towards Leistbach, which would probably be a very interesting alternative. However, it also looks very steep and potentially dangerous. Did anybody go down there before?


Starkenbach – Stöcken - Strichboden – Ochsen – Tisch – Nägeliberg – P. 2087 – Schären – Tisch – Ochsen – Stichboden – Starkenbach