A Wonderful Day Out Snow Shoeing in Braunwald Switzerland
Have you ever visited the car free mountain resort of Braunwald in Switzerland? Tucked away in the mountains in Glarus, it’s just around an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half from Zurich by car. You can also get there by train from Zurich HB.
It’s a charming, car free hamlet where you can enjoy all sorts of mountain pursuits. In Summer you can hike, go climbing and enjoy the scenic views and in Winter you can ski and snowboard, go tobogganing or for Winter hikes and maybe try snow-shoeing. We went for an excellent day out snow-shoeing (led by our wonderful friend Rhoda) and had an amazing day on the Panoramawanderung from Grotzenbüel to Gumen!
We arrived on a mid-January Winter’s morning and were greeted by beautiful sunshine and cloudless blue skies. After parking in the car park, we walked up to the funicular station where we purchased our ticket for the first part of the journey up. We then walked ten minutes up to Hüttenberg gondola which took us up to Grotzenbüel where we began our hike. If you have a HalbTax card do bring it along as it is valid on the lift system.
Although there hadn’t been much recent snow and there was none at the base station in the valley, once we had ascended a little there was a beautiful blanket of snow.
On The Trail
We followed the Panoramawanderung which was fairly steep in places. Do keep your wits about you though as some parts of the trail at the very beginning are actually part of a red skiing piste and toboggan run!
As you can see from the photos, it is amazingly beautiful and very scenic. In our group some people used snow shoes and poles and others just Winter hiking boots. The advantage of the snow shoes is that it is a little easier and you can go up steeper paths much easier. It also gave better grip when we descended.
At one part of the trail we went through a covered tunnel section where there were some beautiful icicles growing.
As well as the icicles there was a beautiful mural on the wall inside the tunnel.
We stopped for lunch at the Grumen mountain restaurant and sat outside in the sunshine admiring the views.
Ideally, we would have continued the circuit for another hour and a half two hours, but due to time constraints we needed to get back so we took the gondola from Grumen back down to Burstberg. This gondola also accepted the Halb Tax card but was a little more expensive than the earlier two. We then walked little further downhill to catch the funicular en route to the car park at the bottom.
If you’ve never tried Snow Shoeing before I highly recommend giving it a go. It’s a great way to enjoy the scenic mountain views and great exercise! Do wear layers as you can get quite hot and may want to peel off a little.
Hiring Or Buying Snow Shoes
If you’re considering Snowshoeing but not sure it’s for you, why not hire Snow Shoes from Sport Shop Time Out in Uster? Not only can they help advise you (in English) but if you do decide you want to continue they also give you the option to buy. Plus they can also give you advice on how to use properly.
For more information contact Sport Shop Time Out:
Address: Pfäffikerstr. 30, 8610 Uster
Tel: 044 942 06 16
Opening Hours: Tuesday – Friday, 9am – 6.30pm closed lunchtimes 12.30 -1.30pm and Saturday it’s open without a break from 9am till 4pm.
Visit the Sport Shop Time Out website here.
For details on Braunwald see below.
Braunwald
Dorfstrasse 2
8784 Braunwald
Phone +41 55 653 65 65
For more information on hiking & snowshoeing in Braunwald click here.
See the Google Maps coordinates here.
See Braunwald (the red pin) on Google Maps below:
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