Napf - "Rigi of the Emmental"

Circular hike around the Fankhusgraben to the "Rigi of the Emmental", the Napf. Part of the Napfbergland border trail. The Napf is a huge cone of debris deposited by a primeval Aare during the Miocene. During the last ice age, the top of this cone remained ice-free, allowing the draining waters to grind into the Nagelfluh for longer than elsewhere. The main streams form a "valley star" radiating from the summit. The challenging, panoramic route described here leads around one of these main valleys. Little hard surface.

From the Fankhaus bus stop in the Leen, turn eastwards across the stream and climb quite steeply through forest and over pastures past the Steli and Ober Stutz farmsteads to Chrüzbode. In the border area of the cantons of Bern and Lucerne, the pleasant trail now more or less follows the ridge northwards. The few steps up to the free summit of Champechnubel are worthwhile: the view southwards to the Pre-Alps and the High Alps is particularly beautiful. Eastwards, you can see into Lucerne's Grosse Fontannetal, where gold is (hobbyistically) eagerly panned. The Kretenweg continues to follow the majority of the border to the Trimle. The borderline can also be seen in the different forestry strategies of the two cantons: while Bern cleared away the storm-damaged wood of 1999 and fought the bark beetle, Lucerne let nature run free in the Napf area, which is difficult to access. Hundreds of dead Norway spruce trees infested by the bark beetle bear witness to this. On the ridge level, the trail continues to the Stächelegg mountain farmstead and a short ascent to the Napf.
Here you have a comprehensive panoramic view. The infinitely branching tangle of ditches of the Emmental and the Lucerne hinterland is nowhere else so clearly visible. Simon Gfeller aptly compares the radiating ditches and ridges on the Napf to the roots of a mighty fir tree. The distant view of the Jura and the Alps is also overwhelming. The initially very steep descent to pt. 1277 turns into a magnificent panoramic trail in the Grüebli, which leads back to Fankhaus via Unter Höhstullen and Buechli.