At the beginning of August, with the new school year, the football and hockey season just around the corner, our family calendar begins to fill dangerously: training sessions, matches, and tournaments of my husband and sons, my running events… and suddenly the calendar is full for three months ahead. Free weekend days are hard to find. When I find such days, I mark them in the calendar with a highlighter and exclamation marks. And in my mind, I pray that the weather will be good and we can go somewhere out.
On the last holiday day (yes, the summer school holiday ends in mid-August) I didn’t want to go on a trip somewhere far away. When my husband asked: “Where do you want to go, there are quite a few places around where we haven’t been?”, I immediately answered: “We haven’t been to Moosegg yet!”. This is a hill near Langnau in Emmental, from where there are wonderful views of the surroundings (how else 🙂).
Starting point: Signau
The village of Signau is located about 26 kilometers east of Bern. You can get there easily by car or by train. Parking is right at the train station (4 francs for the whole day).
From the station, we headed towards the village, passed the Gasthof zum Bären restaurant and started to climb to the local church. Behind the church, the trail led steeply up into the forest.
Fortunately, the kids had no time to complain that it was uphill because there were literally blackberry plantations along the path. I was afraid we’d get stuck here and we couldn’t get any further. And that was almost 4 kilometers of climb. As we had had enough the blackberries, we continued on through the forest.
From the plateau of the Ober Rainsberg, a rewarding view of the Bernese Alps, the Emmental hills, the Stockhorn chain and over the Entlebuch in the direction of Pilatus. At such “viewing” stops we gathered strength and set off again and farther up.
Blaseflue
After about an hour and a half, we reached the highest point of our hike, the Blaseflue peak. Here we took a break to roast sausages, enjoyed the views of Emmental, and continued on, now downhill.
I have to say that this one-kilometer stretch was quite difficult, even when it was downhill. The path was lumpy, in some places we had to carry our youngest little bit because the natural “stairs” (made by holes from fallen trees) her legs would not make.
Gasthof Waldhäusern
Then we reached the restaurant Waldhäusern. Our original plan to have something good here (read: beer for parents, ice cream for kids : ) ), but the restaurant was crowded on that beautiful summer afternoon. A terrace with spectacular views was literally bursting at the seams.
So we went on. And we enjoyed the views too, even though we had to endure countless inquiries from kids about when they would have ice cream (which we eventually had almost at home in our favorite Café Fischer in Ersigen).
Summary
- The trail is not suitable for strollers.
- Along the trail, we came across 3 roasting places: one behind Ober Rainsberg, the next one about 0,5km bellow the Blaseflue peak and the last one right on the Blaseflue lookout.
- The trail leads mostly through the forest, partly on forest paths, partly on asphalt.
- I found the route on the website of the Wandermagazin SCHWEIZ, where is also shown 3D profile.
