Swiss Via Alpina Day 2: Weisstannen to Klausenpass
Sunday, 6/25/23
Weisstannen to Klausenpass, 47.5 miles, +14,948ft / -12,280ft, 4:21 am start, 17 hrs 49 min (Strava Activity)
Today began in the dark on a meandering path called the Ibex Educational Trail (complete with educational displays with photos and fun facts about ibexes), followed by a gradual uphill gravel road approaching my first true mountain pass of the trip. I ate my homemade breakfast sandwich provided by the inn: fresh wheat bread, copious amounts of sliced cheese, mayo, and pickles. I’m officially now a believer in cheese, mayo, and pickle sandwiches. It was so good!
I felt anxious about this ambitious day I’d planned for myself, tackling the first three passes of the trail: Foo Pass, Richetli Pass, and Klausenpass, plus covering nearly fifty miles and 15,000ft of elevation gain. My quads were wrecked from the previous day's drop from Gaflei as expected, and it is always an adjustment for the body to suddenly be moving all day and stuffing down a bunch of food. Not to mention being all thrown off from jet lag! The climb up Foo Pass was a doozy on a very steep, dry, rocky trail. I was all proud of myself for reaching the “top”, except it turned out it was just the beginning of the pass and the actual crest was still another 1,000ft or so up. Hahaha, joke's on me! The climb up Richetli Pass was challenging, but beautiful and rewarding. Though I had many miles to cover and some anxiety about how long it would take me, I did my best to just enjoy it all and take it all in. I treated myself to an ice cream at a ski lodge on the way up, bought a souvenir or two, and marveled in the landscape of green grass, yellow wildflowers, and snow capped mountain slopes that looked like something you’d see on a Windows desktop background.
As far as the long, steady, and STEEP ups: the best comparison I can think of is this trail is like the Appalachian Trail on steroids. The AT has a lot of steep ups and downs, but usually just a couple thousand feet at a time. The climbs of the Swiss Via Alpina seem to be steeper and about twice as long. They require a lot of patient and steady work to get to the top. I had to be conscious of taking care of myself. I don’t love taking full-stop breaks, but I stopped midway up a climb at a church that had a running drinking fountain (these fountains/wells were in every town; I rarely had to filter water) to fill up my water bottle, splash some water on my dirty legs, and have a snack. It was a peaceful place to gather myself before continuing on.
Oh one funny thing happened, the route constantly goes through private farms and cow pastures. At one point today the entire single track trail was blocked by a traffic jam of cows. They wouldn't move for me so I had to bushwhack my way up a steep and cow-poo filled grassy slope to get around all the cows. It was a very funny sight.
I started to feel pretty tired and ragged toward the end of the day, and yet I still had Klausenpass ahead of me, which made me a little worried. The sky was starting to dim and I still had a little ways to go. Thankfully, the climb up Klausenpass was much more chill on an old wagon road (not a steep single straight-up single track trail) and I could keep up a pretty steady tempo with the more gradual grade. I started to finally feel at peace with the day and felt a renewed sense of energy. I surprised myself with how far I’d come and how good I felt physically/mentally once I felt at ease that I would make it to where I was going.
I was treated to an incredible pink and peach light show from the sunset on the mountains behind me. I took a side trail up to Hotel Klausenpass, where a staff member graciously waited up for me (I had communicated my late arrival time ahead of time, they said it would be okay). I arrived just after 10pm, still just barely light enough that I never needed to click on my headlamp. The kitchen at the hotel was closed, but they had set aside breakfast and lunch for me in the kitchen refrigerator. I went ahead and ate my pre-made breakfast for dinner in bed (cold cuts, cheese, bread, butter, jam, fruit, yoghurt), and then took my lunch (ham and cheese sandwich) on the trail with me the next morning for breakfast. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to accomplish this big day and was very proud of myself for doing so.
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