Cycling The Swiss Alps

• Klausen Route Map
• Klausen Pass Profile
• Klausen Pass Webcam

I hope to come back to this blog and sprinkle in some photos, but for the time being I've posted a web cam picture from another day.

The Klausen Pass has an elevation of 1950 metres. It can be approached from the east via the village of Linthal or from the west via the village of Altdorf. I took the train to Altdorf and started my climb from there. The ride went from Altdorf to Glarus, a distance of approximately 63 km with the climb occupying about 24kms it. The climb took me just over 2 hrs.

The ride first passes through the villages of Altdorf and Burglen. Burglen's claim to fame is that it was the home of William Tell. He's the character that was supposedly forced, by an Austrian reeve, to shoot an apple from the head of his son. The story goes he later shot the reeve and sparked a rebellion that lead to the formation of the Swiss Confederacy. This was around 1307. The Swiss Charter was signed in 1291. You'll have to investigate the timeline yourself to figure out what filled the gap :-)

The profile of the climb is shown here: Klausen Pass profile. It is a pretty steady uphill grade - no standing was necessary - with no really steep sections. There is one downhill in the middle of it into the village of Unterschachen. It can be seen on the swiss maps website here and below is a photo.

above photo taken from http://www.varp.net/

One thing that makes the climb less daugnting is that like most Swiss passes there is a little restaurant at the top of the pass where you can eat some well earned bratwurst and drink some apfelsaft before starting the long decent. That's one thing that biking in Switzerland has over some of the biking in North America; food and drink is always nearby.

The route up climbs through several small towns during the first 16kms and then moves up into a more rocky, remote looking alpine territory nearer the top. The last 4 or 5 km of the road are pretty impressive and are built into a cliffside; the views are very good along here. I personally didn't look over the edge very much while biking because I sometimes have a little thing about heights.

Just before the top I rested at a lookout, squeezed a 'clif-shot' into my mouth, and chased it down with some water, while looking back at a spectular valley view. There was a little restaurant hotel there, The Klausen Pass Hoehe, and a bus of tourists had also stopped to enjoy the view. Nothing against the bus tourists - it is a beautiful way to see the country too - but I doubt they shared my feelings of accomplishment. It's surprising to look back at these long mountain valley climbs and think 'gosh I climbed that on my bike'. Once again, here is a link to the Klausen Pass webcam.

At the very top of the pass, about 1 km further up the hill, there is again another little restuarant and a parking lot before the decent starts. The side of the mountain heading into Linthal has many more switchbacks than the uphill portion of the ride. It has a few flat sections along the way and some of these sections have some little restaurants too. Closer to the bottom of the ride some of the switchback turns are made with small cobblestone. Fortunately I am a slow descender, so the cobblestones don't bother me much.

It was hot on the way up, but as I got higher the temperature dropped to a comfortable biking temperature. At the top of the pass there was enough of a cool wind that I put on a cycling vest before the decent. On the way down the mountain my ears popped and the temperature increased to hot. I pulled over to give my hands a rest from squeezing the brakes, to enjoy the views, and take off my cycling vest.

At the bottom of the moutain is the town of Linthal, from there it was still about another hour of riding to Glarus. At about 14kms out of Glarus I got a flat while biking on a path paved with fine gravel because my tire casings were wearing out. Given the state of my tires, I decided to take the normal roads into Glarus to avoid another puncture.

I arrived in Glarus, a map of which is here, about 2 hrs after having reached the mountain pass. The town boasts of being the smallest Canton - state - capital in Switzerland. It was my second time being there; the first was during a ride of the Pragel pass. You can see more pictures of it on their website http://www.stadt-glarus.ch/ or the Glarus Webcam .

In all the trip took about 8 hours round-trip from Walchwil counting train travel and transfer waits.