Falling Under the Spell of a Swiss Mountain Town

I’ll make you a bet. If Mark Twain were nearing Kandersteg today, his journal would read: “. . . we entered a beautiful green valley dotted with chalets, a cozy little domain, hidden away from the busy world in a cloistered nook among giant precipices topped with snowy peaks.”

Why? Because that’s how he described this Bernese Alpine hamlet in the summer of 1878.

Since Twain’s day, the railroad has come to town and they’ve poked a hole through Kandersteg’s towering granite back door. The Lotschberg tunnel became the final link in central Switzerland’s major north-south railway. Suddenly, Kandersteg was connected to Europe’s international train system.

At 4,000 feet, Kandersteg is a spectacular headquarters for inveterate walkers, hikers, climbers and nature lovers. The village has preserved its rural character by integrating chalets, barns, shops, farms, gardens and hotels. In open space throughout town, lush meadow grasses, aglow with flowers, grow right up to the sidewalks.

Sit on your balcony among the geraniums and lift your eyes in any direction. Waterfalls are backlit like curtains of platinum. Hanging valleys cradle verdant pastures and forests. Beyond, mighty peaks soar to 10,000 feet and higher.

Around Kandersteg alone, more than 200 miles of well-marked trails curve through the Alpine landscape. They range from gentle promenades through forests and open valleys, to steep paths heading for the high passes and beyond.

And if that isn’t enough, it’s only a nine-minute train ride through the granite tunnel to the Lotschental Valley and its own enormous trail system.

A trip to the Kandersteg tourist office was invaluable in getting me started on my exploration. Manager Liliane Pfaffli, who has hiked every local trail, and her English-speaking staff made sure I was supplied with detailed maps, trail descriptions and the local festival schedule.

Along with dozens of walks right from their office, they offered plans for one-way treks with return by train and directions for quick lifts from the valley floor, by chair or cable car, to high trail heads.

An Alpine Lake

Within minutes, I was riding the nearest chair to the Oeschinensee, a milky turquoise lake in the lap of the Alpine giants. I climbed another thousand feet on a magnificent trail that loops high above the lake to Heuberg, a vista point carpeted with nodding grasses and swinging bluebells.

Across the water, great glacial tongues hung from rocky walls like patients at the throat doctor all saying “aaahhh.”

While climbers on the snow-capped Frundenhorn inched their way toward the summit, I followed a gentle contour on the opposite mountain, picnicked with grazing cows and nibbling sheep and traced the mournful cry of alpenhorns to a natural amphitheater beside the lake.

The “Schwinging and Aelplerfest” was under way. It’s an annual festival of Alpine games celebrating the cattle being brought to high pastures. Fit young farmers clad in everyday work clothes competed in schwinging (a form of wrestling) and steinstossen , the stone throw, like a shot put but using an enormous boulder.

Between events, a 20-man local yodeling choir performed at ringside. Its members were dressed in traditional formal regalia of the Bernese Oberland--black velvet suits with edelweiss embroidered on the lapels and matching wide-brimmed hats. Throughout the afternoon, wurst roasted while accordions played.

More perfect days unfolded. I followed the Kander River from the edge of town on its dramatic course along a narrow, nearly vertical, canyon corridor into the Gastern Valley. A meandering valley trail led me through strands of pine and larch, across meadows and next to waterfalls pouring over precipitous granite walls.

At midday I headed toward the Lotschen Pass for a close look at the glacier and descended to Berghaus Gfallap’s tiny mountainside terrace for lunch and another entertainment surprise. This time, it was Mother Nature who emceed a noisy spectacle as glaciers calved and exploding avalanches sent curtains of ice crashing down distant, stony facades.

Magnificent Trails

In the Lotschental Valley, a day’s climb over the Lotschen Pass (or a nine-minute train ride), two magnificent trails stretch the length of this atypical narrow glacial trough. There’s the Hohenweg (the path above the valley) and Talgrundweg (the path in the valley); you can walk either of them one way and return on the postal bus.

To get to the high path, I took a boost from the Wiler cable car. It deposited me on an elevated promenade, winding through pastures dominated by 11,000-foot peaks. Sharing the three-hour ramble with me were some nuns, in ankle-length habits and ankle-high boots. The trail ended in Fafleralp, a tiny settlement in a mountainous cul-de-sac.

The valley trail follows along the torrential Lonza River, where families with scythes and wooden rakes gathered hay for the long winter when pasture grounds are covered with snow.

It also links several villages, some of them dating to the 13th Century. In Kippel, there’s a splendid folk museum. In Wiler, a narrow main street with geraniums arching from balconies. In Ried, I paid a visit to Moritz Sieger, a fourth-generation mask carver.

Next door to Sieger is the Hotel Bietschhorn, the oldest in the valley. Recently restored, it is a popular hostelry for hikers and, in the winter, for cross-country skiers. Single rooms, with breakfast, cost between $35 and $45 U.S. per night.

Another day, I rode the postal bus to Fafleralp at the end of the Lotschental Valley, and hiked the four-hour loop to the Anusee with its close views of the Anun Glacier’s towering seracs (pillars of ice).

The descent follows a precipice high above the Lang Glacier, an immense crevasse-mottled tongue of ice sprinkled with house-size boulders--boulders that came crashing down and now are on a centuries-long journey as passengers on the glacier.

As a last grand treat, I hopped a train headed for Leukerbad, the largest Alpine thermal bathing center in Europe. After soaks and swims in all five pools at the spectacular community bath, I returned to Kandersteg on foot across the glacier-scoured Gemmi Pass with a cable car assist on either side.

Simple Pleasures

Night life in Kandersteg was a rare and simple pleasure. Each evening, I settled into my cozy hotel, which like nearly all the rest, was family-run, and enjoyed a nice meal often personally served by the owner. One exception: Fridays, when Ogi Buebe (Ogi’s Boys) rocks the Alpenblick Hotel with waltzes and toe-tapping polkas.

But most evenings, the entertainment was free. There was time to listen to silence, a special opportunity anywhere in the world these hectic days; time to watch the Bluemlisalp Glacier change her daytime dress from white to a peach-tinted gown at sunset, and to gaze at the shining moon that cloaked the Gallihorn, the gigantic granite thumb that lords over the valley, in a silver robe.

You’re right. I’m in love with this spot. Even for Twain, it was a place to die for, and he said it well: “The spirit of the place was a sense of deep, pervading peace; one might dream his life tranquilly away there and not miss it or mind it when it was gone.”

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Best time for hiking in Kandersteg is from mid-May to mid-October. You can ski cross-country from mid-December to mid-April.

By train, it’s 2 1/2 hours from the Zurich airport train station to Kandersteg.

As for accommodations, two middle-priced selections with special features ($35 to $45 per person, including breakfast) are the Hotel Adler, with honeymoon suites facing the Bluemlisalp and metallic gold Jacuzzis for two, and the newly renovated Bluemlisalp Hotel, where owner Verena Wandfluh prepares a spread of milk and cheese from the family cows and fresh salads from her garden.

The local blue trout swims fresh in the kitchen aquarium until you order. Contact the hotels direct: CH-3718 Kandersteg, Switzerland.

Travel companies offering organized hiking trips in the Kandersteg area include: Fred Jacobson Alpine Trails Ltd., Chappaqua Travel, 24 S. Greeley Ave., Chappaqua, N.Y. 10514, toll-free (800) 666-5161, and Mountain Travel, 1398 Solano Ave., Albany Calif. 94706, (415) 527-8100.

Swissair is inaugurating direct nonstop service from Los Angeles to Zurich beginning Nov. 1, on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. The lowest currently available round-trip air fare is $727. Call (213) 410-9452.

For more information on travel to Switzerland, contact the Swiss National Tourist Office, 250 Stockton St., San Francisco 94108, (415) 362-2260.