Mountain inn route

Shortly after starting at Untergrenchenberg, you can enjoy the grand Alpine panorama and the beech forest of the UNESCO natural heritage site Bettlachstock at the Wandfluh viewpoint. After a short but steep descent, Bettlachberg is reached. Like a string of pearls, mountain inns follow one after another to the destination. With the Hasenmatt (1445 m), you cross the highest point of the canton of Solothurn.

The name Weissenstein includes "white" because the ridge stretching from Balmberg to Bettlachberg carries a mantle of bright limestones from the Upper Malm – also called white Jura. This youngest sediment layer was deposited 161 to 145 million years ago on the bottom of a formerly spreading sea. The Swiss Jura folding, however, took place much later – ten to two million years ago as a late consequence of the Alpine folding. Characteristic of the Solothurn Jura are the fully preserved fold crests that form the approximately east-west running ridges. Therefore, this region is referred to as fold Jura, unlike the mostly unfolded Table Jura in the northwest and northeast of the country, which belong to the southwest German or French cuesta landscape.