Wäckenschwend - Mettlen
31 km
Elevation: up 1053m, down 1035m
Min altitude 700m, max altitude 1202m
Active hours: 7h4m
Steps: over 45051

When I woke up and got out of my tent there was sunshine, it just hadn't reached me yet. I needed to boil and filter the tap water, so it took a while to leave, but I left at close to 9.00. My plan was to get to Sumiswald, and from there see if the campsite on the map existed (that is, check the internet) and depending on that answer, go there or to a train station for the campsite in Burgdorf. I met mostly asphalt at first, but with the beautiful hills and going from one group of houses that I wouldn't call a village to the next, I could handle it better. I saw a lot of birds of prey again, so beautiful! And I managed to ask someone for water. The way people speak German here makes it sound almost like a tonal language. Kind of nice to listen to, very different from the German they speak on e.g. news interviews, but hard to understand, especially as my German is so bad in the first place (though I think it's getting a bit better).

Know the Emmental cheese? It comes from Emmental, that's where I am. It's the valley (Tal) of the Emme river, but they call the whole area Emmental. At a village there was a 'Schaukäserei' with a restaurant and store. Close to the restaurant it smelled very strongly of cheese, but the store ice cream and solved my 'I am running out of soap' problem. Not that a block of soap is hard to come by, but I'm not going to carry 150 grams of soap if I don't have to, and this had small soaps of 40 grams.

After that it was on to Sumiswald, beside a road, got some views, and then a view of a stone quarry I could have done without. I got to the village hungry, so I decided to have lunch and plan. Not the best lunch spot by a long shot, but at least I found a view of hills rather than cars.
I found a working website, so figured the campsite would probably be there, and if it wasn't, I could walk another hour to a bigger town. After buying water I left, decided to mess around a bit instead of following the trail (thinking I'd pick it up later), so of course I messed up. That is to say, I did find the trail again, after a steep climb through forest, but later I noticed it was a different one than the route I had planned to the campsite. Which in the end added an extra hour.

By late afternoon all the blue sky was gone, I had seen clouds developing for hours. I had some trouble with the climbs today, at least with starting them, once I was going it was okay. And there was quite a bit of climbing, through forests and fields, with increasingly beautiful views. This altered route I accidentally chose gave me climbs to 1055, 1144 (called Lüderenalp, though I don't think it's part of the Alps) and then 1202 meters and some amazing views (if only the sky had been brighter). At some point I saw the alps, in the distance and not very clearly, but definitely recognisable! The route between those three high points ran over the crest, and I loved looking out at all the hills and the mountains further on. The 1202 climb gave me an almost 360 degree view, which was amazing. It's a lot of beautiful here.

Then it was mostly down for another hour and a half, because there are no campsites on the summits and these are too low for mountain refuge huts. The campsite does exist, is open, and even has a building with fully equipped kitchen. So I cooked my dinner in an actual pan, ate it from an actual plate, and there is a kettle for tea which is awesome. Outside there is music (radio) and people having a campfire, which sounds attractive but I am really too tired to try and understand their Swiss German, so I'm afraid I'll just go to bed.

Geschreven door Jewaontheroad