Hiking with kids: Adelboden in summer – from Sillerenbühl to Oey

I have long wanted to see the place where we go skiing in the winter otherwise than covered with snow. This desire I met this Sunday when we decided to outwit the prevailing heat wave in the lowlands and went cool us down a little to the mountains. We went to Adelboden, to the lift station Oey.

When buying tickets at the box office, we once again made sure that the route is suitable for strollers and then the cableway took us up to Sillerenbühl, to a height of almost two thousand meters. We beat this 2,000 height when we – after leaving the cable car – climbed the steps to the panoramic terrace lookout on the top of observation tower Höi Turm.

Inside the tower, there is a rope climbing construction, which is designed for children older than 4 years. For them (and for children up to 8 years of age) there is a separate assault course with 12 sections. For children higher than 140 cm (and adults of course), it’s been a little more adventurous: and with belaying you can walk along various courses of different ability levels. Here you can find opening hours and prices.

When we had enough of admiring views of the surrounding mountain peaks, we set out on our journey into the valley. For the descent, we chose the tarmac road, otherwise also one of the routes for scooters. In Adelboden is to be found literally “scooter paradise”. It can offer a total of 45 kilometers of various trails – maps and rental prices can be found here. This made our way a little bit more difficult, because although all scooters are equipped with bells, one was constantly alert and better still turning, if any lunatics are hurtling at high speeds (and we saw such a fools!).

But passing scooters were not the only pitfall of our descent. Surprisingly it was the tarmac road itself. The vertical drop of the route was really steep and we had to almost run behind the stroller as it pulled us down onto the smooth surface (unfortunately we do not have a stroller with a brake). That’s why I decided to put our little in Manduca carrier, but I even then I had to go with empty stroller quite briskly.

A five-kilometer hike to the station Bergläger took about an hour and a half, as we were timewasting by picking wild strawberries and raspberries that grew along the road. I must say that this summer I haven’t eaten as many raspberries as at this hike! 🙂

About a kilometer from the station Bergläger (where, among other things, you can find a large fireplace if you would like roast something for your lunch), we left the scooters trail and we set off the “classic” hiking trail (wanderweg) along the Allenbach creek. According to the map, this path was also suitable for strollers, and even though it was not a paved road, but the gravelly/stone/gravel path, we easily made it even with our old buggy stroller. After about a kilometer and a half, we came across another adventure park, where we just got a snack and continued on our way further towards Oye.

The entire descent (about 737 meters vertical drop!) took us – with breaks for snacks – about 2.5 hours and we have walked 9.18 kilometers. I have mapped out our route green in the picture. Although I considered it quite easy, I have pretty sore ass!