Leukerbad to Kandersteg (2/2)

Today starts (fairly late, the hotel didn't start breakfast until 7:45) under a cloudless blue sky. We head out of town the same way we came in yesterday and then start heading up, up the trail to the Gemmi pass. This is a nicely maintained and surprisingly popular route. It also gets morning sun, which was a bit surprising. Fortunately it's not super hot yet and there is occasional shade from trees. Up, up we go, passing hikers, getting passed by one trail runner, until we get to the pass itself. Into the madness towards the gondola station to enjoy the views (oh the views!), and then we say goodbye to the Walliser mountains and turn towards the Berner Oberland. Down the trail through the crowd, a very very nice flowy bit of running along the lake, on the improvised trail around the end of the lake (the water is super high and the normal trail is under water), our first food break with views back towards the lake, and then onwards. Pretty shortly thereafter we opt to stop for coffee and tea (and to refill our water bottles) at the Hotel Schwarenbach before starting up, up on the trail to the Schwarzgraetli (we've were here more than 10 years ago). 

We're mostly alone on this piece of trail, but at the ridge we start seeing people again. After enjoying the views down to the Innere Ueschene and then continue along the trail towards Engstligenalp. Nice bit of trail under a big cliff. At a crossing point we run into a Swiss guy coming the other way who says something about a cave that neither of us understands, but that sounds interesting, so we decide to continue along to see what that looks like. Here the marked path is between the snow and the cliff. The snow gets higher and higher and the space gets narrower and narrower, but there are still markings, so we keep going. There's a bit of scrambling and some squeezing and then we hit a dead end (well, not a dead end, we probably could do some scrambling and continue, but it would be really tricky to come back), so we turn around and head back to a spot G had noticed where the snow wall was low enough to scramble over and there's a use trail. This shortly joins the marked trail, which we continue to follow, contouring under the snow field this time, across a bit more snow and then then up a bit to a trail junction (from here it's obvious that there was no good way out if we had continued between the snow and the cliff), where we turn and start heading down into the valley. This is steep at first, but steadily more and more runnable as we continue. Once things flatten out we stop to fill a water bottle (with the filters), continue a bit farther, do another food break, and then finish the last stretch down, down to Kandersteg.

Track:

Stats: 23.7km, 5:57, 1490m up, 1690m down