Amber said she wanted to do several hikes during this trip, so I made sure to come prepared with multiple options. My choice for this morning was of moderate difficulty and was supposed to take around two and a half hours. We’d hike up to a summit, then catch a cable car back down. Doesn’t sound too bad, right?

What if I told you the route from Schwende Station to Ebenalp included a climb of 2,500 feet? That sounds a little scary, and it probably was a bit more than either of us were originally expecting. But the trail was well-maintained and we made good time despite some sections that had us huffing and puffing. We were on our own for about the first half, then we caught up with some other groups and played leapfrog the rest of the way up. We had some great views over the valley, and passed through a cave near the end. We were pretty well spent by the time we got to the top, but we can look back now and say it was a pretty reasonable hike for us.

Near the beginning.

Middle.

At the top just before getting on the cable car.

The climb ended at the Berggastgaus Guesthouse where we had an interesting lunch to help us refuel. I played it safe and got a breaded pork cutlet with french fries, while Amber took a risk and got something I can’t remember how to spell. It was a pasta dish with sausage, but the pasta was a little too onion-flavored for her liking.

With lunch taken care of, we had one last objective before catching the cable car back down. We worked on a multicache that required gathering numbers from nearby hiking trail signs. This was a little tricky with the translation from German, but we were able to get there and make the find without too much trouble. We watched a few paragliders take off as we came back toward the cable car station, then bought our tickets down so we could catch a train back to Appenzell.

Riding the cable car down as another one goes up.

This is the view from the train station at the bottom of the cable car. It comes down from the upper left.

The rest of the afternoon was spent finding all those caches at which we’d failed so miserably the day before (and dodging raindrops). It’s amazing what a full nights sleep will do for your geosenses! We even managed to work our way through that field puzzle, though I’m not sure we actually took the intended route to get there. We also visited the Appenzeller Bier brewery, and while we weren’t able to do a tasting as we’d hoped, we did get to buy beers and drink them while we listened to their audio tour.

We rounded out the evening with dinner at our hotel since it was supposed to have one of the better restaurants in town. We opted to sit outside despite the rain which was mostly pleasant until it picked up just before dessert and started coming in around the edges. This was probably our best meal yet with both of us really enjoying our selections.

One last thing…