Western Oberland 3 The Rote Totz

[past my sell by date]

Kandersteg by the Rote Totz Lücke
After the minor cock-up of the Steghorn I determined to do this route correctly, and while Donna was
walking past the Daubensee I headed up the river bed from the Wildstrubel hotel, (as before) but when I reached the Lammeren hut I headed R on the correct route to the Rote Totz - I didn't even stop at the hut.

The Lammeren hut

View back from the hut

Correct route

This time I followed the signpost - not even visiting the hut - and headed up on the correct path.

The difficult path down from the Leiterli emerges from the gully in shade on the R

Looking up to the 2805m pass - the last grass for quite a while

Looking through the Leiterli to the Grossstrubel

Looking back towards the hut with the Wildstrubel peaks beyond

Looking up from the pass - the Steghorn glacier is at the top of the picture - there's clearly no way down!

Thlaspi rotundifolium - Round leaved penny-cress

Looking back from the pass

down the other side to the 3049m Gross Lohner

A wider view

Looking back - the last remains of a once sizeable glacier
Most of the ice shown on the map has now gone . There is a (blue) path on the map, but I don't think I found it: I made my way down the moraine, crossed the last of the ice and found a path, but it seemed to be climbing the other side and going over to Entsligenalp, whereas I wanted to be on the right of the Tallisee. So I left it, scrambled back down to the valley floor and picked up another path beside the lake.

I seemed to be climbing up

The Tallisee - another rather unspiring lake

I was about to descend into the mist

Veronica alpina - Alpine speedwell

There are a lot of paths in this area
In 2003 I did a day walk from the delightful berghotel at Entsligenalp to the Schwarenbach and back by different routes, so I've been on most of the paths: the one I wanted now goes directly below a huge cliff - it's quite dramatic - but I missed it in the fog and made an unnecessary diversion, descending and then climbing back up to get to the Schwartzgrat.

The path I should have taken goes under this cliff - 2003 photo looking in the opposite direction

On the Schwartzgrat looking back

Looking across the valley to the Tschingellochtighorn - surely a candidate for the world's daftest mountain
The paths on the ridge go all around it and I've no doubt it's been climbed, but it looks about as stable as Portree's Old man of Storr
From here you can descend steeply to the Schwarenbach, but the mist apppeared to be lifting so I decided to continue over the grassy summit of the 2472m Wysse Flue and on down the Üschene-grat - the rocky ridge between the valleys.

Climbing up to the Wysse Flue

Looking back to the Daubensee - Matterhorn and Dent Blanche behind

On the flat summit plateau

Altels 3692m and the Rinderhorn through patchy mist
The remainder of the ridge was a bit disappointing: the mist failed to lift completely and there was no view into the valley on the left. Moreover, because the ridge consists of rocky limestone, the path traverses well below the crest and only rejoins it occasionally.

A nice patch of Aconitum napellus - Common Monks-hood

a section of the ridge in the mist

The mist clears briefly again

Near the end - a view down a steep gully into the valley

Altels
I eventually came to a junction. You can carry on all the way down to the village, but it's still quite a long way and I'd already been going for nearly 9 hours, so I headed R down the very steep path to the lift. 55 min the signpost said - but I made in about 30 as the last lift was imminent! We met up in Kandersteg at a fairly inexpensive hotel we'd booked.