Top of Solothurn and a few other Jura summits

The weather forecast for the Alps as well as eastern and southern Switzerland wasn’t very good at least for the morning. Therefore, I decided to go west. Checking on hikr I found that I could combine the top of Solothurn, Hasenmatt with some other summits in the area and at the end give the north side of Bettlachstock a try. Alpin_Rise (see here) as well as ironknee and Put (see here) gave it a try earlier this year. So why not “look at it on the way home”.

I started my hike in Lommiswil and walked along the well marked path to the dinosaur tracks (“Saurierspuren” is even marked on the 25K Swiss map!). After looking at the tracks for a while, I followed the right rim of Steingrueben up to its end (there are actually path traces there) and got to the path which takes you to the east rim of Hasenmatt at P. 949 (Gipfelbuch!). From there I followed the rim to the top of Hasenmatt. ironknee describes the whole rim in his report here. I have not much to add, but maybe the comment that you really need to go all the way along the rim in order to find some T4 like grounds. If you actually follow the path it is not more than a T3. I also found a “Gipfelbuch” on P. 1325, Gitziflue deposited there by the SAC Wiessenstein (some weed smoking kids filled a few pages which were quite funny to read…) and of course a “Gipfelbuch” on top of Solothurn.

From Hasenmatt I followed the marked path over to Stallflue, Küferegg and Obergrenchenberg – the whole path is right on the rim and it is a very nice and scenic walk with a beautiful view. From Obergrenchenberg I then went down the Ängloch and crossed over to P.1217. I looked at the Kamikaze north ridge and thought about it for maybe half a minute, but chickened out too (it’s probably not wise to even try it). Instead I also took the second couloir in the NW flank of Bettlachstock, like ironknee and Put, and most likely Alpin_Rise too (see the arrow on this picture where I went up). With all the rain the Jura got in the past days, the rotten trees, fragile rocks and the steepness of this clayey couloir, it was enough of an adrenalin rush for me. At least I had some grass to hold onto which must have been missing early in the year. Anyway I made it to the top and had muddy pants and hands and was very glad I didn’t have to go back down again…

For my way down, like the other hiks, I also took the path which is marked with yellow spray-paint dots (at least at the top) in the northeast flank of Bettlachstock. The restaurant at Mittler Brüggli was closed due to “Ruhetag” and so I only washed my hands in the fountain and walked along the marked path to the train station of Selzach.

Lommiswil – Im Holz – Saurierspuren – Hoggen – P. 949 – Gitziflue – Hasenmatt – Stallflue – Küferegg – Obergrenchenberg – Ängloch – P. 1217 – Bettlachstock - Mittler Brüggli – Unter Brüggli – Vögelishof – Moos – Selzach