Santis, Switzerland
I’ve wanted do this hike for years, but we never seemed to get to the eastern corner of Switzerland. With extra time at the end of our Camino Frances walk in June, we took a quick lap through the Alps away from the crowds.
The ridge walk to Santis officially begins at the Schafler Hut (1,924 meters). We stayed at the lower Berggasthaus Ebenalp (1,644m) to save some walking for Lesly.
We can confirm that the zimmers are indeed schöne, and the kuche güte.
The standard trail signs predicted a time of 4 hours and 40 minutes to reach the summit of Santis from Ebenalp. Not sure how we would stack up against that, Matthew and I left early the next morning to beat the predicted afternoon storms. Lesly would meet us in the town of Appenzell that evening.
Once past the Schafler Hut, we stepped onto the ridge proper:
We found the ridge to be just as vertigo-inducing as it looked from the distance. But this being Switzerland, there were cables anywhere things got sketchy. We soon found our stride.
About a thousand feet below the summit we were faced with a section of rock and ice that appeared to be a dead end. With patience, a scramble with cables and ladders soon revealed itself.
We hit the foggy summit after 3,700 vertical feet of climbing over 3 hours 28 minutes, an hour quicker than expected. The relatively low elevation probably made a difference. The summit complex offered a full Swiss menu and a cable car to the next valley, both of which we took advantage of. We eventually made it to the town of Appenzell via post bus and train, just ahead of a terrific deluge.
