Man muss das Eisen schmieden, solange es heiss ist. Or in English: strike while the iron is hot. With my objectives clear for the year, it was time to start work on achieving them. Once I saw a day coming with the prospect of reasonable weather, I made my plans, bought the train tickets, and prepared my rucksack.
The train deposited me in Rorschach, and I was faced with the first decision of the walk. The Alpine Panorama Weg, starts at Rorschach Hafen, which is about one kilometre from the train station. I could ignore that one kilometre, and just go straight onto the trail. But I know that somewhere along the way, it would be nagging at me that I had not really started in the right place. So I walked back along the street to the small harbour. Rorschach sits on the shores of the Bodensee. At the end of the fifteenth century, it was the scene of conflict. It was not part of the Swiss confederation at the time. The abbot of St. Gall was in conflict with the municipal authorities of what is now St. Gallen about the right to govern the holding of markets and other events. Matters came to a head when local armed groups broke in and looted the abbey. But the abbot had powerful friends in the Swiss Confederation. In 1490, the Swiss besieged St. Gallen, and routed a combined force from St. Gallen and Appenzell. The abbot was restored, but required to remain in St. Gallen. So, Rorschach never got its monastery. Today, it is a peaceful little town, with those violent events long forgotten.
My route from Rorschach Hafen brought me back along the waterfront to the station. There was a bank of mist out on the lake, making it impossible to see the other side. After crossing under the station, I followed the street eastwards before heading up into the hills above the town. I went under the motorway, and past the schloss at Watensee, then through the woods to come to Wienacht-Tobel. I didn’t stop in the village, but went on through, always going higher and higher. Then, at Schwendi, the route descended briefly, before starting to ascend again from Mattenmüli. It levelled out soon afterwards and I came first to Stapfen, and then into the village of Heiden.
Heiden is described as a Biedermeier village. In the first half of the nineteenth century, it grew from a tiny settlement to a substantial village, with a pleasant square in the middle. The church, of the Swiss Reformed faith is characteristic of the Biedermeier movement. The original church, built in 1652, burned down in 1838. Over the following two years, the villagers built a new church. It is characteristically devoid of decoration for the congregation it serves, though it does have a magnificent organ.
From Heiden, the route continues steadily upwards. I passed Appenzeller hill farms, and I had great views of the Bodensee.
I thought that once I passed the Kaienspitz (1122m) I would not see the Bodensee again, but in fact it was to be a regular presence on my right as I went on. After the Kaienspitz, the route descends, and takes to the southern side of the ridge for a while. There are multiple trails in the area and the marking was not always clear, but I managed to stay n the official route, and eventually reached Rehetobel. Rehetobel has a church that looks older than the one in Heiden, but is actually newer, having been built in 1890. The church is austere and uninteresting, so I did not hang around, though I did pass a more interesting looking farmhouse on the way out of the village.
The route continues on downwards, occasionally twisting and turning, and not very well signposted, until it reaches Chastenloch. This little place, with altitude at just 695m meant that I had lost more than 400m of the height that I had toiled to gain earlier in the day. And from Chastenoch, the route goes steeply upwards. I passed two ladies on horseback on the way upwards. One of the horses took fight at my walking poles, with their tap-tap-tap noise on the ground, but the young lady quickly recovered it back under control. The rough track from Chastenloch only becomes a road when it reaches the edge of the village of Trogen. It flattens out slightly, so that the way into the centre of the village was a bit easier.
Trogen is the seat of judicial activities in Appenzeller Ausserhoden. In the last few centuries, the dominant family name in the area was Zellweger. Is this where the actress’ family originated? But I cared little for such matters as I took time for rest and refreshments, sitting at the fountain overlooking the Landsgemeindeplatz. The guide to the route treats Trogen as the end of Stage 1, but I was going farther. Once refreshed, my route went on upwards from the town. At first, the slope was gentle enough, but when I entered the forest after the junction at Sands it became steeper. I could hear the noise of machines ahead, and soon came on the largest shredder I have seen. There are small garden shredders that many people will use to chew up plant waste. There are the larger shredders used by landscape gardeners, capable of shredding tree branches as thick as one’s leg. But this was a much larger machine that seemed to devour whole trees, filling agricultural trailers with the mulch thus formed.
I reached the top of Hohe Buche (1145m) watched on the last bit of the ascent by a lone cow stading outside a shed at the top. From there, I could once again see the Bodensee to the north. To the south, the snow looked sparse on the alpine peaks. It ahs been a bad January for alpine enthusiasts in Switzerland, and it sows on the mountain peaks. They should be solidly white, covered in snow, but large areas of dark rock are exposed. People seem to think that global warming is something that will happen in the future, but it is happening right now.
After that, it was almost all downhill. There was a rocky outcrop at 1091m, but this was only a short interruption to the downward direction. It wasn’t long before Bühler came into sight. This was to be my journey’s end for the day. I came down into the town, and went directly to the railway station. My timing was perfect, with only a very short wait before the Appenzeller Bahn train started me back on my way to Basel.
My total step count for the day was 43,162.
Walkingman 