Maschgenkamm to Mels

The forecast for Saturday called for eastern Switzerland to be rain-free the longest, so we planned a run near Sargans. The idea is to do something fun where it's ok if it starts raining at 2 or 3.

We take the gondolas up to Maschgenkamm and start running under lovely blue skies along the trail to the Spitzmeilenühtte (been a while since we were here!). This ends up being a really nice and flowy trail that's runnable most of the way... super enjoyable. We stop at the hut and have coffee/tea and cake, top off our water bottles, and then continue. From the hut we climb gradually up to the Schönegg ridge and then contour around to the Schönbüelfurggel. This could also be nicely flowy, but there are still a bunch of snow patches that kind of require walking. More traversing around to the Fansfurggla, where we take another short food break. A bit more climbing and then along the ridge, some of it even runnable, down to the Siezfurggla. 

The trail here takes us across a good sized, and rather steep snow field (which is a bit nervewracking with trail shoes and no poles), and then further along, mostly maintaining the same height, to the Madchopf. It's still early in the year for this stretch, which hasn't been out from under the snow for long, so there are parts where finding/staying on the trail isn't super easy. More walking than planned. A bit below the Madfurggl on the other side we stop for a quick food break before starting the long descent. A look at the weather radar causes us to cut this a bit short and finish our sandwiches while walking. From this point on it's more or less entirely downhill for 2000m of vertical. The descent route is mostly runnable (we picked well!) except for a stretch above Vermol where the farmers have brought the cows up along the hiking path in the rain. One final food break after getting out of the cow chaos and then we're down in Mels. Here we only have to wait 10 minutes for the bus, so we opt for that instead of continuing a few more km along the road to Sargans.

This was a really nice run (though the descent at the end was long!), and we managed to do it without getting rained on. Good planning! ;-)

Track:

Stats: 31.9km, ~900m up, ~2400m down, 5:57