Cycling The Swiss Alps

I started this blog sometime last year and I thought I'd take a moment to do a quick summary of some of the Swiss Passes I have ridden:

• Susten
• Klausen
• Pragel
• Oberalp
• Furka
• Lukmannia
• Grosse Scheidegg
• Ibergeregg
• San Bernadino
• Splugen
• Maloja
• Chasseral

This ride was done on May 26th 2007. It covered two of Switzerland's high alpine passes. It started in the town of Wassen, went up over the Susten Pass, down into the town of Innertkirchen, up over the Grosse Scheidegg Pass, and finished with a decent into the town of Grindelwald. The above picture is from Grosse Scheidegg looking down towards Grindelwald.

I had ridden the Susten a few times before, but this was my first time riding the Grosse Scheidegg pass. I was looking forward to exploring the Scheidegg based upon some of what I had read about the road.

• Map of Route
• Profile of the Susten, 2224m high, 1308m elevation gain, 17.4km long
• Profile of the Grosse Scheidegg, 1962m high, 1262m elevation gain, 16.4 km long

It rained lightly for my first hour of riding, but leg warmers, arm warmers, and a light cycling jacket were enough to get me through it. I did manage to catch a cold, so a cycling vest would have been a nice extra.

This was the earliest I had ever ridden the Susten Pass. The pass was closed just the week before, and up near the top there was still more than a meter of snow at the sides of the road. The Scheidegg pass, which is a few hundred meters lower than the Susten, didn't have any snow along the road.

I won't write much about the Susten pass here since I've written about it in other blog entries. What is interesting is to compare some of the photos from this trip, done in the late spring, with the photos from another trip done in the high summer.

The above picture was taken near the Susten pass, just before entering the short tunnel to the pass summit. Check out that snow bank with my bike leaning against it.

The above picture is of the restuarant at the Susten Pass summit.

It is 27 kilometers of downhill from the Susten pass to the village of Innertkirchen. Wow, take a look at that Swiss road engineering. I am finally learning to take off my sunglasses before the tunnels.

A view of the village of Meiringen from the early part of the Grosse Scheidegg road near the top of the Reichenbach falls. Remember this picture was taken on the same day as those snowy pictures from the Susten pass. It is looking quite sunny and green.

A cool little restaurant near the top of the Reichenbach falls. This place rents some little go-karts that you can use to coast down the hill.

A park map on a plateau about half way up the climb to Grosse Scheidegg. If you look closely you can see some description of the animals that can be found in the park. At this point I was still thinking the climb was going to be a piece of cake. But wait the steep part is still to come.

A picture of the famous Rosenlaui hotel which is found a bit more than half way up the climb to the Grosse Scheidegg. It is a few kilometers before a really steep section of the climb (12+% grade). Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the steep part. I guess I was too busy breathing and trying to muscle my legs over my pedals :-)

A little rest spot just after the very steep section of the climb, and just before the final few kilometers to the top; the road to the top winds off to the left of the picture. Don't worry there are still a couple of 10+% grades on the way to top. At this point I was starting to think the climb was worth its 148 difficulty rating.

The restaurant at the Grosse Scheidegg pass.

It is all downhill to Grindelwald from here. If you click on the picture you can see the village of Grindelwald down in the valley and on the far side of the valley is the Kleiner Scheidegg just below the north face of the Eiger Mountain.