At a good 1370 meters above sea level, Lake Arnisee is located in the middle of Switzerland. As a day trip destination and starting point for high alpine tours, the idyll is easily accessible and nestled in the Uri Alps. The dammed water of the Leitschachbach and Intschialp streams drive the turbines at Amsteg, 851 meters below, to an output of 13 megawatts.
After a five-minute walk from the mountain station of the Intschi-Arnisee cable car, you reach the Chänzeli. The Chänzeli is a lookout point on a rocky outcrop that offers a view of the Urner Oberland, the Maderanertal and the Bristen. There is an open-air chapel in the forest adjacent to the lake. After a twenty-minute walk from the mountain station, you reach the Vorder-Arni lookout point. From here, you can see over the Reuss valley and as far as Lake Uri.
The Uristier
To this day, an ox head with an outstretched tongue and a nose ring adorns the coat of arms of the Swiss canton of Uri. There is a beautiful and wild legend surrounding the “Uri bull”.
There once lived a very young shepherd named Urs on the Surenenalp. The vast alp belonged to the Engelberg monastery and brought in a large income. Sometimes the shepherd would slaughter a sheep and take its fur to the Urnertal.
One day, strange men from French-speaking Switzerland passed through the Urner Valley. They were driving exceptionally beautiful, light-haired sheep, the likes of which the shepherd boy had never seen before. He was particularly taken with a small, snow-white lamb. He begged the men to give it to him - and they finally agreed. He returned to the Surenalp with his lamb and never left its side. One day he even decided to baptize it with real baptismal water from a church.
At that moment a pitch-black storm with thunder and lightning rolled in and the earth trembled. When the boy looked around anxiously for the lamb, he saw a horrible black monster standing in the alpine roses instead. Scared to death, he wanted to run away, but the monster rushed after him and tore him to pieces.
From then on, the Alp was no longer safe. The horrible monster, which the shepherds called the Greiss, tormented people and animals. Little by little, no one from Engelberg wanted to spend the summer on the Alp any more.
One day an unknown stranger came and offered the people of Uri his advice, provided they filled his purse with crowns. They were to raise a silver-white bull calf and let it suckle from a cow for nine years. In the first year from one, in the second year from two, and so on. Then they were to lead the adult, wild bull from a pure virgin to the Alp.
Everything was done in this way. After nine years, Agnes, the daughter of Baron von Attinghausen, offered to carry out the redemption of the Surenalp. She set out all alone and dressed in white, leading the wild bull behind her without resistance by a little cord that was attached to its nose ring.
Then a terrible storm arose - a strange roar resounded in the Alp and the black, rushing clouds enveloped everything.
When the Urner finally dared to go up to the alp after a long, anxious wait - when it seemed to have become quiet up above - they found the dead Greiß. Not far away, the victorious, silver-white bull lay dead in its blood. A rich spring arose beneath it, which was called the Stierenbach from then on. Agnes, the virgin, was nowhere to be found and she disappeared forever.
The people of Uri were happy that the bull could no longer harm their cattle, but they were unhappy that they had to pay dearly for the salvation of the Alp with the life of the maiden. They decided to include the head of the victorious bull with the nose ring in their national coat of arms. They took the maiden of Attinghausen into their hearts for all eternity.
(Source: Meinrad Lienert, Swiss legends and heroic stories, Stuttgart 1915. Abridged version)
Access
The small cable car goes from Intschi towards Arnisee. From the mountain station it is only a few minutes' walk to the lake. A second four-person cable car goes from the valley station at the Amsteg motorway exit to Vorderarni. From there it is around 20 minutes to the lake.
