From Schwarsee to the Spitzflue

Starting with an aside: our trip to the starting point of this hike (Schwarzsee Bad) took us through Fribourg for the first time. It's a very attractive little city; definitely worth going back to some time.

We start at Schwarzsee Bad, along with a bunch of other folks, head around the end of the lake, and start up towards the Breccaschlund. The weather's great (if a bit warm) and the trail/road leads us easily upwards. At Rippetli we leave the main trail and head off along the blue-white marked path towards the saddle to the left of the Spitzflue, which towers above us. We almost miss this turn off, which isn't marked, but realize our mistake when we hit the fork in the path at p1483. We contour gently upwards around the bowl and then head up, up the wall at the end of the valley with a few broad zig-zags. The path is really nice, not overly difficult, and blessedly shaded. At the saddle we take a short break before starting the steep climb, mostly on grass, but with some rocks mixed in, up the last few hundred meters to the top of the Spitzflue. We've got the peak to ourselves and it's getting to be the right time anyway, so we do a nice lunch break, rest our legs (we've made the ascent pretty quickly), and enjoy the fantastic views.

along the ridge

After lunch we continue along the ridge, descending a bit to another saddle, and then back up to the Fochsenflue. This is great advanced ridge walking: a bit of scrambling, some path finding, great views all around, excellent stuff. Once at the Fochsenflue we consider our options. We'd like to head on to the Chörblispitz, but that route and the route down from the peak to the Combigabel are both T6. Since Greg's not really feeling like doing a T6 descent and Andrea isn't wearing the right boots we decide to go ahead and head down into the Breccaschlund. The first bit is somewhat steep, but then we're on a red-white marked path and the going gets easy. Down, down, down we go. Past the alp at p1550 and then to the road at p1490. Along the road, gently descending, now seeing other people, until we hit Unteri Rippa, where we stop for cool refreshment. From there the path leads us down, down through the woods (really nice old mossy woods here) until we end up on the road we took up. Instead of heading straight back, we opt to follow the path above the lake on this side, past Unter Bödeli, along and down, mostly under trees, on a very nice path, until we end up back down at the lake towards the end.

Spitzflue and Schwarzsee

Now it's just past the madness at the "beach" (holy cow are there a lot of people), then we check into our hotel, take showers, do some wellness, rest, and then have a very nice meal before falling into a well earned sleep.

View from hotel: Schwarzsee, Spitzflue und Breccaschlund

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