Tomlishorn and Widderfeld

More or less exactly a year ago we did a nice T5 trilogy on the Pilatus and, along the way, went up the Tomlishorn. In discussing that tour we found a hikr report about doing a T5 tour up the Southwest ridge of the Tomlishorn that sounded fun. Today we did that tour along with a bit of extra fun that Andrea found.

We start with the train to Alpnachstad and then start hiking through town and then up, up along road, forest road, and hiking path. Up, up, through the trees, through the gorge that's not really a gorge near Tiergarten, and then up some more until taking the first break near Polentablätz. We're on our own through all this and everything nice and quiet. Fun to be doing all this vertical with light packs and below 2000m! :-) Coming into the open below Fräkmünt we get our first good view of the ridge. Looks good! The ridge to the Matthorn, to our right, also looks good; going to have to come back and do that one too. Onwards past the picnic area, where we see the first people of the day, and then up, up a bit more to the alp at Tumli.

Here we leave the path and scramble up to the ridge and the bench that's directly above the alp. Nice food break here enjoying the views and quiet and then we continue along the ridge.

There's some easy and fun scrambling in this interspersed with nice walking and great views, always heading up, up, up. Someone is playing an alphorn in the area, so we've got a bit of musical accompaniment (yeah! back in Switzerland!). Towards the top, as the ridge broadens out and gets gentle, we catch up with a group of five who had clearly also just finished the ridge. We also walk past the guy who's playing the alphorn and continue up to the normal hiking path for the last bit to the Tomlishorn.

Now we're in the masses you expect on a peak like this on a lovely fall Sunday. There's barely room to stand on the peak itself.

After a short stay at the peak, we continue on our way along the ridge towards the Widderfeld (we last did this with Kristen ten years ago). Instead of following the path along the right of the Widderfeld, we turn off to the left and follow a use trail (later marked with blue stripes) that continues under the cliffs of the Widderfeld. Here we're alone again. :-)

The path takes us to a tunnel with stairs that take us up through the cliff and to the steep grass on the other side. Here we follow the use trail/markings until topping out on the trail down from the Widderfeld. We continue to the top and enjoy another food break and views across the madness on the Tomlishorn (we're alone up here). Supposedly there's an interesting direct route down from there, but we don't manage to find it, so after the break we continue along the path down the ridge, past a *really* nice bivvy spot (lacking water, but that's probably solvable) to the saddle between the Widderfeld and the Mittaggüpfi (11 years since we were last there), and then down, down, down. At Lütholdsmatt we stop for cool beverages and then continue the rest of the way down, down, down to Alpnach Dorf, where we start the trip home on trains that are as full as one would expect on a lovely September Sunday.

This was a nice long tour that's not particularly technically challenging. Since it's South-facing it might be a good one to add to the list of possible early-season training tours.

Amusing aside: two weeks after doing this tour, we found a very similar tour on the list of new tours added to the SAC tourenportal (though that one is a lot shorter since they start from the Schybach parking lot).

Track:
Stats: 23.7km, about 2000m up and down.