Having Fun In The Swiss Alps

As an avid hiker, I’ve always dreamed of hiking the Swiss Alps. The idea of hiking through amazing mountain landscapes, while at the same time learning about the history and culture in local villages, was appealing – so different from the vast, rugged wilderness I’m used to in Canada.

Mountains comprise 60 per cent of the central and southern regions of Switzerland and, although the country is only 217 by 355 kilometres, it has 65,000 kilometres of hiking trails. A vast network of cable cars helps make the mountains accessible to hikers of any age or ability.

Surrounded by five different countries, with four national languages, English is common. So, when I learned that Switzerland Tourism had dubbed 2019 the Year of Hiking and that Air Canada now offers seasonal direct flights from Vancouver to Zurich, I decided it was time to live the dream.

A two-hour train trip from Zurich brings me to Brig, where I overnight, and my history lesson begins. Located next to the Italian border, Brig was the site of the first man-made road into the Alps, a trade route between Italy and France. The oldest city gate in all of Switzerland is here (which Napoleon would have moved his troops through) plus Stockalper Castle, one of the most important Baroque palaces in the country – and I’d never even heard of this small Alpine town before.

Our first morning, we meet our hiking guide, Ed Kummer, in nearby Morel. A series of cable cars takes us up to Riederalp, and from this vantage, it’s easy to see the interconnected trails that weave the communities together, including the village where Ed lived as a child.

“Usually we would be hiking through cows, sheep and fields of wildflowers in June,” says Ed, “but this year was a big snow year and the melt is late, so the livestock is still down in the valley pastures.”

Indeed, the wind is howling, and it’s trying hard to snow. When I dressed this morning, I didn’t consider the cooler temperature at the much higher altitude over 2,000 metres, and in my shorts, my bare legs are icy.

Ed swears that the cold temperatures of the mountains preserve the skin, and he looks and moves like he’s at least 15 years younger than his 81 years, so I’m inclined to believe him.

From Riederalp, we walk over to the Moosefluh gondola, which will take us to the base of the 23-kilometre Aletsch Glacier, the longest in the Alps and a UNESCO World Heritage site. At the top of the cliff overlooking the glacier, Ed shares another reason that he’s happy about the snow and cold this year, with a before-and-after photo evidencing that the glacier has retreated 1.3 kilometres since 1980. The effects of climate change are frightening for a culture built around the mountains and the water they provide, not just for drinking, but also irrigation and hydroelectricity.

As we traverse over patches of snow down Panorama Ridge Trail, it’s like being on top of the world, and Ed orients us to the surrounding mountains. To the south is Italy, the east, France. Jungfrau and Eiger peaks are to the north. The snowy tip of the Matterhorn is just visible in the distance. The temperature rises as we descend, and the snow disappears to expose grassy pastures dotted with wildflowers.

Back at Riederalp, before we go down the mountain on the cable car, we stop for a hearty traditional lunch of warm, crispy schnitzel at Restaurant Derby. I love the fact that even high up in the Alps, there is civilization.

My next stop is Gstaad, a famous Alps ski-resort town in the Bernese Oberland region. There are 300 kilometres of hiking trails here, but on this rainy day, I’m taking a horse-drawn-carriage ride through the countryside, which is home to 200 farms, 80 working Alpine pastures and 7,000 cows.

All of this means it’s Swiss-cheese time, so we stop at Molkerei Gstaad, a village co-operative where the cheese – made up in the summer mountain stables the way it has been for centuries – is aged and sold. A 25-metre descent underground pops us out into a cheese-heaven cellar stocked with 3,000 giant wheels of cheese, tasty Hobelkase samples and a glass of wine at the ready.

In Switzerland, where there’s cheese, there’s fondue, so that night, I’m immersed in fondue culture at Romantik Hotel Hornberg. A server in traditional Swiss dirndl attire serves up a delicious fondue trio – meat and seafood in a bubbling broth, the beloved Swiss cheese fondue (still my favourite), and chocolate fondue for dessert.

Down the train tracks, further into the Bernese Oberland region, we arrive at Grindelwald, a Swiss-chalet-style alpine village. Grindelwald has become a basecamp for climbers tackling the iconic Eiger north face, but tourism began here in the 1700s, as one of the first places in the Bernese Alps to offer guided mountain tours.

We start from the Firstbahn cable station with our guide, and an hour of easy hiking winds us through snow drifts and past wooden alpine huts up to Bachalpsee Lake. When conditions are just right, there is a perfect reflection of adjacent Schreckhorn peak in the lake’s calm blue waters, but today it’s foggy, with sleet and snow, so my camera remains in my pocket.

In better conditions, the trail continues another hour-and-a-half along some steep switchbacks to Berg Hotel, one of the oldest mountain inns in the Alps, built in 1830, where you can enjoy a hot chocolate on the patio of the inn’s 2,681 metre Faulhorn Summit perch.

You can’t visit Grindelwald without hiking the First Cliff Walk, a metal suspension path that wraps around the mountains. The walk culminates in a narrow plank-walk onto a suspended glass-bottomed observation deck that juts 45 metres out into the void. On a clear day, I’m told, the views are stellar.

Our guide, it turns out, is a daredevil, and rather than taking the cable car all the way back down to Grindelwald, we jump on the Mountain Go Karts to careen down the three kilometres, mostly gravel road, hydraulic brakes screeching as we navigate hair-pin turns. His final surprise? A ride on the First Glider that has all four of us hanging suspended 15 metres above the ground while being speedily pulled backwards, then shot down the mountain at 85 kilometres per hour. One more way to have fun in the Swiss Alps checked off my list.

IF YOU GO:
For more info, go to Swiss Tourism: https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-ca/

Recommended accommodations –

In Brig, Hotel de Londres: www.hotel-delondres.ch/

Gstaad region, Romantik Hotel Hornberg: https://hotel-hornberg.ch/

Jungfrau/Grindelwald region, Hotel Eden Spiez: www.eden-spiez.ch/de/index.php