The Lägern

So, I did some trekking (or maybe just walking) today near Zurich. A place called the the Lägern. I started in a village called Stienmaur in Switzerland - where i met a some friendly Swiss people who understood my German and replied in English :) and was done with the trek at Baden - a decent sized city.


Approximately 11 kilometers in around 3.5 hours. Hardly stopped in between and no 20-20 either :P The best part - I seemed to have stumbled on a non-touristy kinda thing! Unlike the last trip, hardly had any traffic on my route :)

Unfortunately I do not have the GPS tracks for this trek, as the GPS unit gaveup on me at little after Rengensburg, about an hour before the Lägern. The route is fairly easy though. Take a train on the S5 line from Zurich HB (Main railway station) towards Oberglatt and Niederweningen. Get off at Stienmaur - approximately 25 minutes from Zurich HB. You will find
Lägernstrasse towards the left of the station. Climb up the Lägernstrasse and about 200 meters or so, you'll see a main road. Across the main road, you will find a gravel road with a fairly steep gradient. A few boards around this road should advertise a certain Sculpture joint. Now carefully cross the road and yippee!!! you are on you way to the Lägern. So, my trek started at 1325.

The Sculpture joint is about 50 meters from the main road, don't know what goes on here, but looked like an interesting place. A few hundred meters from the Sculpture place, you will be accosted but three Yaks. Ahem! Ahem! Yes sir. Yaks. Ok I will repeat this one more time. Y.A.K.S. The kinds you find roaming around in Tibet. (ah ha)



Apprently this dude, Manuel Bauer, imported some Yak from Tibet in 1998 and well the rest, as they say, is history. I wonder if the Yak cheese tastes better in Switzerland than it does in Leh... hmmm... hmmm....

Anyways, these Yak seemed quite surprised to see me. I don't know why? I could see the curiosity oozing from those twinking bovine eyes. Maybe something in their genes told them that we were from the same land. What-e-nice... Su's theory of genetic geographic recognition. wah wah. I was obvoisuly thrilled. And right next to this kutti farm where these poor citters were fenced was the Kindergarten of Rengensburg. (btw.. did you know Kindergarten is a German word which we have hijacked??)

After Rengensburg, there is a potential for confusion, but remember - the Lägern is a climb, so take the steepest route. When ever in confusion take the steepest road/path :) I tried my pathetic German on many people today.

"Entschuldigung..... Welcher richtung ist Lägern??" - Excuse me... what is the direction to Lägern?

The younger ladies, rather strangely, thought I was trying to hit on them. The elder ones would reply with "Ja ja.. theses richtung" with a rather bemused smile. The outsiders would be like "Keine Ahnung!". And some replied in English - "It is five minutes down this path, then take a right turn, it is difficult to miss". Yay! God bless their souls!

The whole time it seemed like it would rain the next second, but then that dew point - current temperature caluclation prooved to be more than trustworthy. Caught some drizzle at the end of the trek at Baden.

I crossed a handful of people returning from the Lägern at 1420 pm - two men hurtling down the slopes on their mountain bikes, three women leading their horses down the slope, five or six families with their dogs, some with prams etc etc... but no one going up. Wtf? I know.

At the Lägern you will find this Alien artifact - even worse than MIT's portal to hell in Manipal - a round, maybe footballish shaped thingy which humans have converted into a radar station for the Zurich Airport. A few cafes below the radar station serve as the boundary between those you walked across the Lägern and those who didn't. I was rather tempeted to sit, drink some hot coffee, and eat some Spetzle, but then it did seem like it would rain any minute, so I plodded on.



The next stretch is the part to remember - soon you are walking along a ledge - with just vegitation on either side preventing you from rolling down 100 feet at 75 degrees. I must say, if these trees weren't there then vertigo may have just kicked in. But there were trees, so no vertigo or any such shit. For nearly an 1/2 hour of walking it was like this. At the top of the ridge types, and you can see these ancient walls - crumbling at some palces; and not crumbling at others... hehe... owersmarat blogger kaun?

Any historical significance? I still do not know the cultural or historical significance of the Lägern, but it looked like a fort from the Middle Ages. Google unfortunately has been least bit helpful - mostly in part because a search for "Lägern + history" returns "Lager - Beeripedia the Beer Wiki" and other such links :)

At the end of the Lägern began the decent down to Baden for nearly 1 hour and 30 minutes, you kept climbing down and climbing down and climbing down. Under the canopy of the protective trees there was a hidden medow of white flowers. What-e-nice it was. There were plenty of camp sites - imagine a night party... aie aie aye ya! I like. Must do it some time.

At 1700 hrs I was out of the woods and in the city of Baden! Baden is another 25 minutes by train from Zurich, and there is a train every 1/2 hour heading towards Zurich, so it really is easy come - easy go, with easy climb thrown in for free.

The trek in so many ways reminded me of the slopes of Coorg and Chickmagalur. Compared to Kumara Parvatha, this was a piece of cake. If you are arthritic it isn't easy either!

I also realized how much i miss the big city! all because of Zurich! I was there for a fleeting moment, but heck I was bowled over. If only there was a cheaper way to get there and back :D If only... if only...

anyways... I learnt of this trek at 1800 on Saturday from this website - http://www.theswitzerlandtraveler.com/walks-near-zrich-the-lgern/. The day tickets to Steinmaur and back from Baden to Konstanz was 68 Franks. The perils of last minute travel. I must reform myself to save some moolah... (imagine how many bar-lee juice that money could have bought huh... now makes sense no... bladdeee)

Switzerland, so far, seems to be a cultural melting pot. Why? I saw people from different ethnicities here - who seemed to be living here, as opposed to just visiing. Much more than I've ever seen before. You see, some of us have never been to New York before ;) But then some of us have never been to Zurich either! Wtf... most of us never went to Timmies either.

The Lägern