The Hasenberg Tower, Rhine Swimming, Wettingen Monastery and Swiss Wood
8 February 2025
Paris has its Eiffel Tower (built in 1889), but Hasenberg has the Hasenberg Tower (Hasenbergturm). Although this tower (Gemeinde Widen, canton of Aargau) is considerably lower (40 metres) and younger (2021) than the Eiffel Tower (312 metres, 1665 steps to the top) and has fewer steps (210), it stands out far above it because of its location at 714 metres.
Another difference is the wooden construction, which is made of wood from the forests of Aargau. The stairs, however, are made of steel for stability reasons. In the mist, the surroundings also have a fairytale feel.
The Eiffel Tower offers a beautiful view of the city of light and love. The Hasenberg Tower, however, overlooks (without clouds) the Alps of the Innerschweiz, eastern Switzerland, and Bern.
The panorama of the Alps is not the only attraction. Several surrounding villages can also be seen (without fog). In the process, the rapid growth and building of the past 50 years also come into focus.
Melting glaciers have existed for a long time, say 10,000 years ago. The barren, drab rocks of dry glaciers are less eye-catching than imposing masses of ice and snow. It is also a fact that skiing events and ski jumping on the Hasenberg no longer take place. There was even a ski jump on the Hasenberg until 1960!
However, glaciers at high altitudes are not a rich source of flora and fauna. Perhaps this will change with a further temperature rise, and glaciers, too, will have life that is not visible to the naked eye. Glaciers are also crucial for the water supply.
However, rapid cultivation of valleys means a direct decline in flora and fauna, which is not natural. There is mostly no or limited space left for flowers, plants, and animals.
Photographs of villages near the Hasenberg tower highlight this development. The explosive increase in the number of people on earth, twentyfold since 1800, has disrupted flora and fauna.
Egelsee
Not far away from this place is the Egelsee. This lake, surrounded by an extensive marsh (Moor), was created about 10,000 years ago from the water of the melting Linth-Rhein glacier.
It is not new that glaciers are melting, but valleys are filling with roads, houses, business premises, airports, railways, and other infrastructure much faster than the glaciers are melting.
Nature Reserve Egelsee
Man has an (undetermined) influence on glacier melting, but it remains a natural phenomenon. However, cultivating the earth is not a natural phenomenon but exclusively a human intervention.
Perhaps it has also been nature’s master plan for a few hundred thousand years. Nature has time, and then something else will come along. Meanwhile, the planet keeps spinning.
Stiftung Haus Morgenstern
The Hasenberg tower also overlooks the Morgenstern complex. Initially, it was a holiday resort for children and, during World War II, a reception centre for Polish soldiers and refugees. Today, the Stiftung Haus Morgenstern manages these buildings for people with disabilities.
The St. Niklauskapelle (1621, rebuilt 1843) on the Hasenberg for spiritual peace in uncertain times
The centuries-old restaurant Rüsler is on the Rüdlersberg (Gemeinde Neuenhof), part of the Heitersbergkette. This road connects the Reusstal valley with the Limmattal.
Wettingen Monastery
Therefore, the former Cistercian monastery of Wettingen is a fitting spiritual conclusion to a walk from Widen to Wettingen. The Limmat has continued to flow here for about 10,000 years (a very short period for nature).
The Grubenmann-Brücke in 1795. Collection: SNM LM-81832. International fame reached as far as England.
The original wooden Grubenmann-Brücke had connected Neuenhof to Wettingen since 1765. French soldiers destroyed the bridge in 1798. Reconstruction occurred in 1818 with a shorter wooden bridge and an iron bridge (renewed in 1886). The building on the left was the monastery’s spinning mill.
Rhine swimming from Basel to Zurich via fish ladders
Fish ladder near Wettingen
The Limmat
The former monastery on the half-island was founded in 1227 and dissolved in 1841. That’s an ‘eternity’ for humankind. However, the origins of the Egelsee and the Limmat offer the proper perspective from an earthly and natural perspective.
About 10% of industrial Swiss timber comes from Canton Aargau. About half of Switzerland’s flora and fauna live in forests. In the forests, too, there is a tension between mankind and nature.
However, the Egelsee nature reserve forests are no longer used for timber extraction, following the canton’s plan to give nature a free hand in 7% of the forest area.
Trees grow much older in these areas. Beech trees can live up to 350 years and oaks up to 1000 years. In timber production, trees never get older than 100 years!
But even these old giants do not have eternal life; they provide food and habitats for a wide variety of new life, ‘the circle of life’ in the Egelsee nature reserve.
The name giver of the mountain and the tower
The Swiss Alpine Club
The Swiss Alpine Club (Schweizer Alpen Club, SAC/Club Alpin Suisse, CAS) organises ski tours, hiking trips, and other sports in the high mountains and other areas.
