Langlaufskiing (Cross country skiing) at Les Près-d'Orvin

Today, for the first time in many years, we tried cross country skiing. We had a great time, but discovered that we have very much to learn and re-learn about cross country skiing. I used to go skiing around my family's farm until I was about 18 and went away to college, and MrB had skied only once or twice before. That was very different from today's skiing on the well prepared trails, and on even the small slopes that we encountered today we had some difficulties. We have a lot of practicing to do, hopefully on a flatter area at first, to get our 'ski legs'.

It was a beautiful day for it, very sunny and about 4-5°C (about 40°F). There was an occasional gusty wind blowing, but it was not too bad. We drove through a gray cloudy layer on the way up, and it was not till we reached very near the top of the hill/mountain (1000-1350 m altitude) that we started to see any snow, and the sun.

I had forgotten how much work your whole body does in this sport. It is amazing exercise, working your legs, shoulders, torso, and uses different muscles than walking. It is even harder work when you are first learning (or re-learning) how to do it. I'm sure we will be quite sore for the next few days, both from working new muscles, and from falling! Going downhill is much trickier than it looks. We have yet to learn the snowplow technique. I never had to use it on the tiny hills I skied on at the farm growing up.

We stopped on the way out for some soup, coffee and beer at a little restaurant that was also a cow farm where they raise Scottish Highland cattle. I had to take a picture, because these are what my mom and dad raise on their farm now. I was a little surprised to see them out here.

Thank you very much to our friends V and N who kindly drove us and patiently waited while we muddled along, giving us tips and helping out. I think V skied about twice as much along the trail as we did because he kept coming back to check on us.

As we drove away from the parking area, a magnificent view of the Alps came up on our right. I tried to get a photo, but it was a bit too dark, and I still have much to learn about the camera. I include it here anyway.

Hunting for the Schalberg Ruins

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

Today I made up some more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and we headed back to Aesch to find our way to the other ruins that are near Pfeffingen on the map. We made our way up through Pfeffingen (up being the operative word, the entire hike there and through the town was all up hills of various grades) to the trail marker directing us into the woods toward the Ruine Schalberg (15 min). The uphill trend continued through the woods. These castles are of course built on the most advantageous viewing points for the region, which means hills!

About 10 minutes or so into the woods we saw this tree, adorned with Christmas decorations! That's my kind of tree, alive and happy out in the woods, not dead and drying out inside a house. No, we don't have a Christmas tree in our house. We haven't in quite some time, and I'd rather not follow that tradition. But it was a pretty surprise to find a decorated tree out in the middle of the woods.

A ways beyond that we found the first of three sets of ruins, that we think might have been the Münchsberg ruins. There was no sign for them, and they are barely visible. There are only a few crumbling walls left and the trees and moss have taken them over almost completely. They were probably simple watch towers, and were built on two separate outcroppings of rock that overlook the valley where the Klus Valley Vineyards and Domaine Nussbaumer operate.

Roots growing over what was left of a wall...or is it just a stony outcropping? Very hard to tell at this point.


The next ruin we saw had a helpful sign attached to it as well as a ladder to climb up to it. This is the Burgruine Engenstein, and they think that it was built in the first quarter of the thirteenth century, and served as a 'stadthaus' or city hall up until the completion of the Burg Schalberg in 1280.

As we were looking around on the top of this ruin, we saw to our north yet another ruin. Here, finally, must be the elusive Ruine Schalberg! We climbed down from Engenstein, and continued along the trail. The next ruin was indeed the Schalberg ruin. With its crumbling outline it is hard to make out amongst the trees.
Looking up at the ruin from the trail below, and up the trail along the wall of the ruin.

Looking out across the ruins toward the tower. Upon closer inspection, the tower has unfortunately been filled with trash. There is also some graffiti scrawled on it, very sad.


Tree growing up and out of the window.





As we left the Schalberg ruins, we came upon a small natural 'cave' system, that is called Schalberghöhle. It was only marginally a cave, as it was open on both ends, with holes overhead in a couple of places, more like stone archways than a cave. Unfortunately the photos I took did not turn out very well. The sign there said that judging from the archaeological remains found there it had likely been used as a resting place for hunters, and as a hide out.

As we wound our way down off the mountain, we crossed over this small icy stream, that ended at the road in this gorgeous waterfall.

These last two photos give you a better idea of the overlook the castle was built on. The first was taken from the ruins looking down at the horse farm in the valley, and the other is looking up at the ruins from the horse farm.

Ruine Pfeffingen - Homeless shelter?

It has been a busy weekend. Saturday we took a trip to Laufen to Sport Shop Karrer to see about renting langlaufskis (cross country skis). We managed this successfully, even though we had to do it in German. Now we just have to find some snowy place to make use of them! Sunday we took a last walk through the Basel Weinachtsmarkt and had the last cup of glühwein for the season. Then we continued on a walk along the Rhein for the rest of the afternoon.

Monday we decided to head out to the ruins we had seen overlooking the valley during the train ride to Laufen. Looking over our hiking map, we decided these were the Pfeffingen ruins, and we could get there by taking the 11 tram to Aesch and walking to the town of Pfeffingen, about a 20 minute walk. From there, we followed the signs to Ruine Pfeffingen. By the way, that is not snow on the ground, but frost. The moisture in the air around here forms some pretty impressive frost crystals, as you can see in this photo.







This was another fairly extensive castle ruin with bridges leading to it on two sides, and a gorgeous view of the surrounding valleys.


There was the tall tower at the end of the cliff, and a smaller tower at the right of the bridge we walked over, but you couldn't go into either of them. There were warning signs saying something like 'For your safety, and for the protection of the stonework, don't climb on the stonework' and there were no stairs that had been built as in the other towers we've seen.


As we were walking on the trail around the big tower, we saw this sweater that had been rigged up in one of the windows (the only window available to see that area of the interior). Lifting up the corner to peek through, we saw that someone had set up camp inside the restricted area in the ruins, carefully hiding all their gear so that it could not be seen from the viewing area. From the amount of stuff lying around, they had probably been there for some time; likely they remained undiscovered because virtually no-one in Switzerland goes where you aren't allowed to go.

Here you can see the stairs on the left that lead up to a metal rail - the viewing area. Behind this is the interior of the tower, where the little camp was set up. From the rail you could not see any of the person's belongings.

When we were done here, we decided to try to see another three ruins that are on the map near Pfeffingen. We headed out along the fields on the wanderweg, but it was too late and we did not make it to see them. We had to head back to Pfeffingen and Aesch so we could catch the tram home. We may head out tomorrow to explore the other three, but we'll have to remember to check the tram's holiday schedule. The walk from Aesch to Basel is about 5 hours, so it would not be pleasant to miss the last tram home!

Heading away from the ruins, sun shining through a stand of fir trees.
Looking back at the ruins in the distance.
View of the valley with haze wisping through.
Viewing platform in a copse of fir trees where we stopped to eat our lunch.

Wartenberg Ruins

Sunday December 16, 2007
On our numerous trips to Ikea we had seen an old stone tower up on top of a hill overlooking the town of Muttenz, and thought it would be fun to go see it sometime if we could figure out how to get up there. Today I figured we'd take the number 14 tram out to Muttenz-Dorf and see if we could find the way.

When we got off the tram at Muttenz, we realized they were holding their Weinachtsmarkt. It was cold enough that we considered just browsing through the booths there and heading home, but the thought of exploring the ruins kept us going. We decided that if it was still going on when we got back down we'd stop and have some glühwein to warm up.

The little yellow wanderweg (hiking trail) signs had Wartenberg Ruin listed, which sounded promising, so we followed them up the very steep hill to the top. When we got there I was not too badly tired out, amazingly enough. All the walking we've been doing seems to be getting me into better shape, yay! We had seen on the map at the bottom of the hill that there were actually three different ruins. Vorhere Ruin, Mittlere Ruin and Hintere Ruin (something like forward or front ruin, middle ruin and back ruin).

We started at the front ruin, and that turned out to be the most interesting one. It had the most complicated layout of the three. The other two were basically just towers. They had all been at least partially reconstructed at various times over the years, ranging from the 1930s through the 1990s. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any information about them, even online.

There were what looked like 'bunkers' or pillboxes interspersed between the ruins. I'm no expert, but they were possibly from circa WWII, and were full of leaves to about neck height so we didn't attempt to go in them. We also discovered a bomb shelter type construction that had been included underneath part of the front ruin, possibly during one of the reconstructions. It was filled with graffiti, which seems to be a big problem around here. Thankfully the top part of the ruins were not too terribly defaced.

This is a view of the interior of the front ruin, there were a number of windows and half walls scattered throughout, but it was hard to tell if anyone had ever lived there or if it was built only as a fortification and watch 'tower.' It certainly had an outstanding view of the surrounding countryside.

On the trek from the front ruin to the middle ruin we saw an area that had been dug out of the hillside. This had most likely been used as the quarry for building the original fortifications, as there were still some big blocks lying in a pile along one side.

The middle ruin was a big square watch tower that had originally had at least 3 floors, judging from the holes where the floor joists had been. Stairs and a platform around the outside had been put up at some point so you could go to the top. This is the tower that is visible from the tram and had peaked our interest. There was a wooden bridge across a big ditch leading to the doorway. A wrought iron gate had been put in, probably when it was restored, and this was propped mostly open. There were hanging ferns growing in the corners from the second floor , and one of the windows had a decorative grate that was an interesting contrast to the rest of the rather utilitarian construction.


More windows in the middle ruin, one with a view of the town of Muttenz, you can see the church tower in the top middle. The church was also very well fortified, which is a bit unusual for the area. We kept hearing wafts of Christmas music from the town as we wandered the ruins.

The back ruin was a round tower with incredibly thick walls and funny little skewed holes to help light the interior. There were wooden stairs spiraling up to the top, and it was very dark inside, so those little holes did not do a very good job letting light in. Of course, the walls were about two feet thick, so they were really too small to do much.

There was a courtyard on the far side of this tower surrounded by half fallen rock walls. A fire pit had been set up here, and had obviously been used for picnics. Unfortunately I couldn't get a very good shot of it because there was litter scattered quite liberally around.




This is the view looking out towards Basel from the top of the last tower, and the other is looking out over the back of the hill. Quite a contrast. The built up areas are very crowded, houses and industry packed in side by side. It is nice that they make an effort to keep some of it as fields and forests.

Since the sun was starting to set and we had explored all three of the ruins, we headed back down the hill to look over the rest of the Weinachtsmarkt. We did stop and treat ourselves to a cup of glühwein (the stuff we had in the Barfusserplatz Weinachtsmarkt was more flavorful, this tasted a bit watered down), and shared a vanille-erdbeeren stange (vanilla strawberry pastry) that was delicious. It probably helped that we had worked up quite an appetite from hiking up that hill...unfortunately, my batteries needed charging so I didn't get any photographs of the fortified church or the Weinachtsmarkt.