Druesberg

"You know that the Hoch Ybrig cable cars are still closed, right?" inquires the bus driver when we board the bus to Weglosen. Well, we didn't know, but we had planned to start walking from the valley in Weglosen anyway. The fact that the cable cars are still closed, should mean that it's going to be nice and quiet in the Hoch Ybrig area, right? Until we arrive and discover that some brilliant mind thought it was a good idea to organise a "Supermoto" bike cross at Weglosen... Now, I quite enjoy a bit of motor sports myself every once in a while. But here, disturbing the peace and quiet of this mountain scenery so mercilessly? Really? We would be hearing the revving bike engines all they, though luckily beyond Druesberghütte the noise diminished to a bearable level.

I'm hiking together with some CouchSurfers, Abi, Ashish and Martin. We start by taking the Leiteren path. This is marked white-blue-white, but is not particularly difficult. In contrast to the name, there is in fact only a single ladder, and even this one can be just as easily circumvented.

We continue through meadows past the Druesberghütte. Around the 1900 metre contour, things get more interesting as we hit the scree and boulders on the north-west side of the Druesberg. There is still a descent amount of snow here as well. We encounter two other hikers (the only ones we would meet all day) who have abandoned their ascent of the Druesberg, not trusting themselves with navigating the snow fields in the mist. However, we give it a try ourselves, and reach the saddle between Druesberg and Forstberg without too much trouble. From here to the summit of the Druesberg, the path is mostly free from snow again. We are in the clouds on the summit, but they lift just enough to make us realise that there's a bloody big drop just north of the summit, and an even bigger drop on the south! The summit log book is filled to the very last page and needs replacing.

We hope to continue across the Forstberg to Klein Sternen. However, immediately after the saddle between Druesberg and Forstberg, we hit a large snow field. We can go around, but in the mist we can't see where the path continues on the other side. We are not sure what other difficulties might lie behind. Moreover, the bus driver had warned us that the last bus from Weglosen would be at 15.53 already, contrary to the SBB route planner that also showed a bus at 17.23. Hence we do not have a large time buffer, and we decide to descend along our ascent route. The same snow and scree from before is even less comfortable going down, but we take it easy and safely make our way down.

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In spite of the noise of the bikes, the limiting bus schedule, the limited views and the failure to ascent the Forstberg, we had a great day out. I'll certainly have to come back some day when the conditions are a little better, to complete the entire Druesberg-Forstberg traverse.