Hahnenmoospass (both sides) and Bummerepass

A Truly superb loop in central Switzerland in the shadows of the heavily glaciated Wildstrubel Alps. And two fantastically named passes. 🙂

Note, much of this loop was on unpaved trails/roads and required a little “bike carrying.” But the east side to Hahnemoospass is fully paved!

I started in Adelboden, but I have included a profile for Hahnenmoos all the way from Reichenbach. The road until Adelboden is OK, nothing special, but above the village it is a fabulous, narrow, deserted, well paved route.

I was surprised but excited to see that the route was paved all the way to the pass — note, the key to staying on the paved road is to take a left at the bridge at the Ski-Lift station of Bergläger – perhaps 5 kms from the summit (On the map below, I descended this way, but climbed partly on trails).

Except for the final 5 kilometres, the east side of Hahnenmoospass is the same as the paved climb to Siillerenbühl (1960 metres). Go straight at Bergläger for Sillerenbühl.

From Hahnenmoospass (1956 metres), instead of descending the other side, I turned left on a gravel hiking trail. A little slippery but ride-able.

I soon found my goal: Bummerepass (2055 metres). I hadn’t intended to go over-the-top as there is no road. But when I looked over the pass, I could see hiking trails, and some farm roads down lower and decided to pray for no rain and kept going. It was clearly a virtually uninhabited, scenic, end-of-the-valley, well above Lenk. Woohooo.

This place must be paradise on a clear day. I could see the outlines of huge mountains through the clouds. I made it down the trails by foot without too much problem. Once I had hiked down a kilometre or so, I knew I had made the correct decision. How inviting is that:

As I started on the farm road I ran into a Swiss road block:

We chatted for a while, I then gave her — and her friends around the corner — a wide berth and continued down. After a while the rugged unpaved road enters a forest. It’s steep, slippery and bumpy at times, but a great, and long descent past a couple of huge waterfalls.

Finally, I reached a paved road and soon arrived in Lenk: the start of the west side of Hahnenmoospass. As the profile above shows, this is a very steep 8 kilometre climb. Only the first 2/3rds are paved- unfortunately for road bikers. At about 1650 metres of altitude, following the well signed Swiss National Mountain Bike route #1, it becomes a steep, slippery gravel road. Hard work. But well worth the effort.

I loved this loop. It’s always fun to go over a pass by bike when there is no road. I did the loop part in the correct direction. At least in terms of maximizing cycling, and keeping the majority of the bike-carrying as downhill.

After I descended to Adelboden I took a short detour to visit Engstligen Falls – the second longest waterfall in Switzerland. It’s huge — we could see it from our hotel balcony from miles away — this photo only shows the bottom stretch.