Oeschinensee

Fri 31/1/25

After having our self made breakfast of fried rice and sandwich, we set out for Oeschinen lake, part of the Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn UNESCO World Heritage Site at 9am, located at depth of 1578m. We took the cable car to reach there as we didn't have snowshoes to hike the trail. We bought the return trip which cost CHF 16 (RM 80) which is cheaper than buying one way ticket each way i.e. CHF 12 per way with total CHF 24. We also bought the ticket through the SBB app.

fried rice for breakfast and packed for lunch

It was snowing and very cloudy today.

very cloudy, cannot see the top of the mountains

We shared our cable car with a family of 4. The mother pointed out to us a herd of mountain goats as we were riding up.

mountain goats

It was a foggy day today. We managed to reach the Oeschinen lake before it was completely clouded after walking about 45 mins from the train station, stopping for photos. We took photos at the lake viewpoint while the mountains were still visible. 

at the start of the walk to Oeschinensee

walk to Oeschinensee

walk to Oeschinensee

walk to Oeschinensee

frozen Oeschinen lake behind, mountains still visible

frozen lake Oeschinen

frozen lake Oeschinen

frozen lake Oeschinen

Once we went to the lake for the Ice Walk, suddenly the weather worsened. It became so foggy that visibility was only up to the next stick on the lake, which was probably about 10m. We walked around the frozen lake, following the sticks. You would require a snowshoe if you want to venture out of the marked area of the frozen lake as the snow was too deep. 

ice walk on the frozen Oeschinensee

frozen lake below

ice walk on the frozen Oeschinensee

getting really cloudy on the lake

There were people ice fishing on the frozen Oeschinen lake but we just observed from far. There are arctic char , lake trout and rainbow trout in the lake.

ice fishing

We returned to the lake viewpoint and sat on the bench there to have our packed sandwich and fried rice, in the hope that the weather would subside. After about an hour waiting, the weather did improve a bit, so we walked towards the lake and made another round with better visibility, but the mountains behind were still elusive. 

eating fried rice in the snow

slightly better visibility on the frozen lake Oeschinen

The weather forecast showed that the whole day would be foggy, so around noon we walked back towards the cable car station. Just before reaching the station, it became foggy again, worse than this morning, with visibility up to 2m only perhaps. We waited again near the station, watching a kid's ski competition before taking the cable car ride down at 1.30pm. 

Back at the apartment, Partner In Crime prepared dinner of fried rice and salad, and we had the last pack of Big Kari Maggi noodle with eggs that night. 

maggi kari in cold weather