Oeschinensee: the lake worth the climb

High above Kandersteg, in the Bernese Oberland, there is a lake that looks retouched in every photograph and is not. Oeschinensee sits at 1,578 metres in a bowl of cliffs under the Blüemlisalp, fed by the glacier streams that come off those peaks, and the water is the colour those streams make: a milky turquoise that changes as the light moves. It is part of the Jungfrau-Aletsch World Heritage area, and you can reach it in a day from Zürich. We have, many times.

There is a choice at the bottom. Hike up from the village, or take the gondola and keep your legs for the top. We always take the gondola. From the mountain station the lake is a short walk away, and then the ground opens and there it is, ringed by rock and snow, looking unreal from any angle. We usually push higher up the slope, because from above you get the whole oval of it at once, the cliffs standing straight out of the far shore.

Once we went in. The lake is glacier-fed and the cold is total – the kind that takes your breath in the first second. We swam anyway, then sat on the bank with a picnic, shaking. The walk down to the shore had been easy. The walk back up to the station was not, and by the time we reached the top, hot and out of breath, all we wanted was to go straight back down and get cold again.

That is the climb in the title. Even with the gondola doing most of the work, the lake asks a little of you, and the little it asks is what makes it land. If you want the gentle version of the same day, the smaller Blausee sits lower down the same valley – a stroll, not a climb. Oeschinensee is the one you feel in your legs, and the one you remember.