One day, two peaks, (almost) zero view

Updated: Sep 28, 2023

After the hike onto the Great Mythen I decided to camp in that area and stayed overnight at the beautiful campsite of Euthal just at the shore of Lake Sihl. As the forecast had more or less good weather until noon with a chance of lightning around mid afternoon, I started at 6.45 am to make the most of the day. I was aiming to reach the peaks of Small and Great Aubrig. Last year I was on Great Aubrig already but couldn't see anything due to dense fog. So of course my spirits were high that morning to get a better view this time. After a 15 minutes stroll along the lake I turned right into the woods and met a steep ascending slope that only stopped after about 20 minutes later right in some ... dense fog. Well it was still early in the morning and I felt confident to see the sun soon. I kept following the trail into the direction of Small Aubrig, which now led up and down, passing some forest, some farming houses and some fields of grass. In those fields the path was not really visible but luckily I always saw the next sign at the very edge of the fog pointing me into the right direction. Like the last time when I walked in the mist I focused on the small details right around me: spiderwebs, snails and loads of plants that sparkled with raindrops from the day before.

Because of that rain the path was pretty muddy but that just made my inner child happy. :) After about two hours walking I reached the crossing of Wildegg where the final ascent onto Small Aubrig started. Sweating and breathing quite heavily I stood 15 minutes later on the summit with no view at all. :) Well whatever, I enjoyed the hike so far and a break and some food was now well deserved. Once back at the crossing, the thought of heading back to Euthal crossed my mind, but even though my spirits were lower than in the morning, I had not given up yet to get a good view of the surroundings. So I turned into the direction of Great Aubrig and after sliding down a muddy slope behind the next hill, some trees emerged out of the fog right before me. It looked pretty surreal and really epic, like I was in Norway or Scotland. :) And as 500 meters later a small deer crossed my path I knew the decision to keep on walking was absolutely right. Soon enough I found myself on the ascending slope up to Great Aubrig. As the path was full of wet rocks and roots it was quite tricky to get up there, but my inner child was happy again ploughing on and scrambling up towards the summit. Once there, I noticed that the view hadn't changed at all since my last visit. Haha. It was white wherever I looked. As I had enough time, I stayed on the peak for an hour having lunch and a short nap. Towards the end of that hour one side of the thick fog finally broke up and revealed a not so bad view of the surrounding alps.

At least it gave me an idea of what I was missing out before. Rain was predicted for later and as I expected that the view wouldn't get better I descended back the tricky slope and traced my steps back until reaching Wildegg again. As the rain hadn't started yet I found time for a beer with a view in the restaurant there. After the refreshment I kept on descending towards Euthal waiting for the rain and lightning that (in the end) never came. Arriving back at the campsite at about 4 pm I felt tired but also happy as mother nature gave me a lot today. :) Only the weather god was not with me. At 5 pm most of the clouds were gone and all surrounding mountains visible. Bad timing I guess, as I wished this would have happened earlier, but at least I was able to enjoy a nice sunset at Lake Sihl.