Gemmipass (from Sunnbüel)

After the previous day’s hike to Blüemlisalphütte, Day 5 and the final hike of Bernese Oberland Season 7 needed to be something laid back; something that offered me a final chance to soak in Switzerland without the intense mental grind of a long uphill climb. In Kandersteg, the obvious choice as I scanned the local tourist trail map available in every hotel lobby was Gemmipass from the Sunnbüel cable car station.

Gemmipass is a pass sitting at around 2400m elevation which divides the Kandersteg region from the village of Leukerbad, which is only accessible by using train transport for your car. In this instance, I was quite content to take the Sunnbüel cable car to the starting point reducing the total ascent to around 600m, the shortest of my trip.

Gemmipass is a low difficulty hike so I was expecting to share it with a lot of hikers. This was true for the most part, but with a little creativity and use of the Komoot app, it was possible to divert my route away from the well-trodden path for a time and escape into my own private paradise. The result was what will always be an underrated gem in my canon of hikes.

Hike Details

To get to the Sunnbüel cable car from Kandersteg, you can take the 241 bus which I caught from the busstop across from the church. Note that busses only run one per hour to and from Sunnbüel. Otherwise, it is about a 30-minute walk. On my way back, rather than wait 45 minutes for the next bus, I walked back to Kandersteg, arriving just as the bus was heading to Sunnbüel where it would have picked me up. No special equipment is necessary, and there are no vertigo-inducing challenges here.

Starting/Ending Point	Sunnbüel cable car station
Distance	18.9 km
My Moving Time	4h 17m
Total Ascent	620 m

The Hike

Just beyond the cable car, the valley gives an enticing glimpse at what lay ahead.

Looking back before eclipsing the next level of the hike.

Looking ahead, Hotel Schwarenbach comes into view. This gives a great view of where I will split off to make this a loop hike around the lake. The tourist route takes the lower path which you can see level with the hotel off to the left. The higher and less travelled route is the ridge above it where the thick green meets the slopes.

Hotel Schwarenbach is an obvious and great place for a beer… but on the way back.

The tourist route goes straight ahead. I will come back that way. Here, I will take that rutted path heading up to the right.

Looking back to Hotel Schwarenbach from the high route.

From the moment I saw this view, I knew this was going to be my favorite part of hike. It was overflowing with nature. Butterflies, especially the Dark Green Fritillary (looking not so dark green but named for the color on the other side of their wings) were fluttering everywhere and occasionally I caught glimpses of marmots dashing into their hidey-holes. Otherwise, I had this route all to myself.

Looking down on the snake-like tourist route.

At some point you have to turn right which takes you deeper into the mountains or left which brings you out to the Daubensee.

Here I am approaching the farthest point of the hike where it turns right to head into the mountains towards Lämmerenhütte. This would add another 8 km to the hike so I proposed to make this a goal for the next season. Instead I went left towards Gemmipass.

This is a view of the Leukerbad side of the pass.

Here I am looking towards Lämmerenhütte imagining what could have been if I had more energy. Next time.

A beautiful stark view towards the Daubensee and the way back.

Gemmipass has a hotel and restaurant.

Hotel Schwarenbach and my beer, a Cardinal brewed by Feldschlösschen in Rheinfelden, Switzerland.

Final Words

The next day, Day 6, for the first time in all my seasons in the Bernese Oberland, I finally took a rest day. After five straight days of amazing hikes, I could no longer convince myself it was a throwaway day. There was nothing that was going to get me back out into the mountains on the last day. So I gleefully spent it sitting on my terrace writing and posting my Brewtiful Philadelphia: Having Beers with the Raven post. If there is one thing that makes me just as happy as doing a hike, it is finishing a blog post.

On Day 7, I drove home to Belgium, carrying many thoughts which swirled around in my head; memories and memories of memories; and began the long process of recounting these hikes and spinning words which hopefully do them justice, bringing me to this point, the final Final Words of Season 7. Just like the hikes, these words were pulled from energies rooted, weaved, and connected to the far-reaching corners of my being. It’s never just a hike, as it’s never just a beer. It’s a journey. Along every journey, there are many colors, each a fragment of the universe, and on this hike, at the conclusion of an unimaginable week, I was reminded of the one that matters the most.