Trek: Urnäsch to Stein

Switzerland - Appenzell region

Distance: 25 km
Ascents: 1220 m, Descents: 1200 m

Originally, when planning our trip to Switzerland, I wanted to just to a five-day section of the Alpine Panorama Trail (alpenpanorama weg)—an excellent thru-hike option for early season hikers. The trail winds through lower elevation areas from Rorschach (near Zurich) all the way to Geneva.

Unfortunately, the weather forecast for the entire month looked to be nothing but rain, so a few weeks beforehand (and after learning of the majesty of the Lauterbrunnen area), I spread out our travel plans so that we were only hiking the Alpine Panorama Trail for sure our first day. Then we based ourselves our of Amden for two nights, so we could day hike as the weather permitted.

We combined stages 4 and 5 of the Alpine Panorama Trail for a total of 25 km.
Stage 4: Urnäsch–Schwägalp (12 km)
Stage 5: Schwägalp–Stein SG (13 km)

We arrived the night before in Urnäsch and got pizza at a restaurant in town. Breakfast and lunch for the hike were courtesy of the town's bakery and supermarket. When we arrived in Stein we got dinner from what seemed to be the only restaurant in town. From Stein, we took the train to Amden, which was a very long ride. If we could do it all over again, we would have taken the bus from Urnäsch to Schwägalp (a 15 minute ride, and quite cheap) then hiked stages 5 and 6 of the Alpine Panorama Trail, to hike right into Amden. The views looked to be better for stage 6 than they were for stage 4.

Stage 6: Stein SG –Amden (14 km)

The way was very well signed, as Swiss trails are in general. The Alpine Panorama Trail is number 3 of the national trails, so just be sure you are looking for a bright green 3 at any of the big intersections. Sometimes there are multiple trails leading to the same place. The Alpine Panorama Trail is a type of wanderweg (i.e. hiking trail) and often marked out with the color yellow along the route with small yellow signs that say wanderweg or yellow paint on rocks or other surfaces (I have some pictures illustrating this below). At signed intersections, there are also estimates of the time it will take to get to a given destination. These times are based on reports from volunteers (often older hikers) and exclude breaks. As moderate hikers, we found we only hiked around the speed indicated on the signs, but including breaks.

Pizza delivery by train!

The chocolate side of the bakery (I apparently did not take a picture of the pastries). I don't recommend their "specialty" (I forget the name of it) unless you really like fruit cake.