Säntis Alp; a view of the plateaus we’ll hike down with Germany and Austria in the background
The highest peak in the Alpstein range in north-eastern Switzerland is Säntis at 2,500 meters. Its possible to see six countries including Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, France, and Italy.
Säntis – Lisengrat – Rotsteinpass (1 Std. 15 Min) Challenging
Rotsteinpass – Meglisalp – Seealpsee – Wasserauen (3 Std. 30 Min) Challenging
Our hike starts on the bottom of the map at the Säntis peak and heads south along the ridge to just north of the “A” in Appenzell. Then, similar to the writing, we head parallel to the words in the valley just to the north of the words “Appenzell Innerrhoden” and “St. Gallen” and end up in Wasserauen.
The ’short’ hike starts on top of Säntis after a fun cable car. The next photo is one of the views from the top. In the background, you can see Germany (left side) and Austria (over our heads) and Lichtenstien (far right of the photo). As you can imagine, its pretty awesome up there. You can also see the valley we will be walking down. The lake is called SeeAlpSee (Lake Alp Lake) and its about 3,500 feet below us. The hike continues past the lake and down another 1,500 ft.
This view is a winner. Out of sight and to the right is the southern end of Lake Zurich. At the bottom of Lake Zurich if you are looking at a map, or rather the top of Lake Zurich if you are looking by elevation; in either case, the next big lake is Walensee which we pass by train regularly. Walensee is a deep lake with steep mountains on its north. From the train, the mountains look intense and exciting. There are houses which seem to only be accessible via boat from the southern coast because its too steep even for a small European road. This photo shows the back of those mountains. This photo is looking south-west back over the entire country. Just behind those teeth like peaks is Walensee. It’s exciting for me to see the other side of these mountains.
Our hike begins with a 90 min ridge walk to the first Alp House, Rotsteinpass, located on the Rotstein Pass. The pass and house are seen at the end of the grass in the photo, you can just see a white roof in the distance.
This is looking back at the Santis observation deck. There are several differing buildings found in the mountains while hiking. Most buildings are farms, some are restaurants and big ones are usually hotels and observation points similar to Santis peak in this photo. We are hiking to Rotsteinpass, a restaurant also called an Alp House.AppenzellerSäntisAlpsteinDay HikeSwitzerland