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Ruppen
1'004 m
Appenzell Outer Rhodes / St. Gallen
The Ruppenpass is a gentle Appenzell crossing at about 1,003 metres, linking the Rhine-valley market town of Altstätten with Trogen in Appenzell Ausserrhoden.
1'004 m
Appenzell Outer Rhodes / St. Gallen
The Ruppenpass is a gentle Appenzell crossing at about 1,003 metres, linking the Rhine-valley market town of Altstätten with Trogen in Appenzell Ausserrhoden.
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DESCRIPTION
The Ruppenpass is a gentle Appenzell crossing at about 1,003 metres, linking the Rhine-valley market town of Altstätten with Trogen in Appenzell Ausserrhoden. A mule path joined the two as far back as the Middle Ages, but the carriage road has an unusual origin: when the state declined to help pay for a proper trade road, the commune of Altstätten built it anyway, with a loan from the Appenzell communes of Trogen and Speicher and shares sold to the public in 1838. Its golden age followed quickly: from May 1842 into the 1860s a daily express mail coach ran over the Ruppen between St. Gallen and Altstätten.
The pass sits at a curious meeting point: near the summit stands the Dreikantonestein, a monument to the nearby corner where three cantons — St. Gallen and the two Appenzells — come together. It might have had a railway, too: in 1906 a "Ruppenbahn" was proposed, tunnelling under the pass from St. Gallen to Altstätten and on by a Rhine bridge toward Feldkirch — but the First World War, and then the resistance of rival valley regions, killed the project, and it was never built. Today the Ruppen is a quiet favourite of cyclists and motorcyclists, almost flat from the Appenzell side but rewarding the climb from the Rhine valley with a sweeping view over the Rheintal, Lake Constance and the Säntis.
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