954 m
Valais / St. Gallen
The Hulftegg is a quiet pre-Alpine pass at 954 metres on the border between the cantons of St. Gallen and Zürich, linking Mühlrüti in the Toggenburg with Steg in the Töss valley of the Zürcher Oberland.
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DESCRIPTION
The Hulftegg is a quiet pre-Alpine pass at 954 metres on the border between the cantons of St. Gallen and Zürich, linking Mühlrüti in the Toggenburg with Steg in the Töss valley of the Zürcher Oberland. It marks the watershed between the river systems of the Töss and the Thur. A road has crossed it only since 1866, but the pass was long travelled before that by pilgrims on the Way of St. James. Even its name is gentle: first recorded in 1656 as "Hulfteren", it comes from a dialect word for the wayfaring tree, the "woolly viburnum" that grew here.
It is sleepy country – so quiet, says one cycling guide, that the invention of the car seems barely to have reached it, and you often have the road to yourself. At the summit, which lies entirely in St. Gallen, stands the well-loved Gasthaus Hulftegg, a favourite of cyclists and motorcyclists and a starting point for walks up the Hörnli and the Schnebelhorn, the highest summit of canton Zürich. And – true to the pass's unhurried spirit – the inn even keeps a short "joke walking trail", with forty-five jokes posted along the wayside.
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