TUMBLE DRY LOW • TRAVEL ADDICTIOn • Switzerland
Books • Maps • Training • Equipment • Packing • Lodging • Food • Water • Restrooms • ATM's • Trails • Transportation
BACKGROUND
This was a fairly strenuous hiking trip to celebrate my finishing three
rather strenuous years of graduate school. I originally picked the Alps
because I wanted to hike the Haute Route—having hiked only in
the Canadian mountains, the Smokies, the Adirondacks, and the mountains
of New England, I couldn’t imagine a 2 week hike all above the
tree line. The Haute Route’s scenery looked unreal for someone
like me in love with tall mountains. After further research though,
and a reoccurring knee injury to my right knee (caused from overuse
and running, I think), the Haute Route looked more strenuous than what
we wanted. We had three weeks set aside for this trip, and about two
weeks of that set aside for hiking, so we also considered doing a full
two weeks of the Alpine Pass Route. In the end, though, I think what
we chose was perfect: a week in the Bernese Oberland (more luxurious
accommodations, better cheese and yogurt, more people, lifts to help
you on your hikes, perhaps more spectacular scenery in a way) and a
week in the Valaisian Alps (beautiful isolation, harder hikes, less
luxurious accommodations, some French).
We had thought about paying some company to organize all this for us, but the prices for that were very high—by organizing the trip ourselves, we were able to stay in Europe for a total of 3 weeks (versus the 7 days we would have been able to afford on a guided trip). I will say that planning for this trip was a part time job the month before we left—we decided, for peace of mind, to reserve rooms at the places we would stay along the way. Deciding how far we would hike, where we would stay, and how we would get there took many hours (not to mention the overseas phone calls in our broken German to reserve our places). On the other hand, packing was a breeze, since we were bringing so little–and all the planning was worth it once we reached our first summit and turned around and saw that we were level with the clouds in the green alps, or when we were gaping at the view from our first Berghaus in Engstelnalp, the windows unscreened wide open, the cow bells clanging, as we watched the sun set over the really tall glaciered mountains where we would soon be hiking.
BOOKS WE USED
Since we were planning this trip ourselves, we decided not to skimp
on the amount of books we purchased to help us plan and learn more about
Switzerland:
Walking
Switzerland the Swiss Way: From Vacation Apartments, Hotels, Mountain
Inns, and Huts
Switzerland's
Mountain Inns: A Walking Vacation in a World Apart
Lonely
Planet Walking Switzerland
Lonely
Planet Guide to Switzerland
Lonely
Planet German Phrase Book
Chamonix-Zermatt:
The Walker’s Haute Route
If you’re spending much time in the Valaisian alps, I think a French phrase book would also be useful.
One very smart move we made: to photocopy the pages we would be using out of the book, and leave the (heavy!) books at home. We did bring the entire book of the Lonely Planet Guide to Switzerland, just in case we wanted to traverse other parts of the country.
MAPS
I had tried purchasing topo maps them before we left online, but no
luck. Thankfully, It's true what the guidebooks say: you can find great
topo maps practically anywhere, at the tourist information centers,
at book stores, and places where you'll lodge. Smaller cities and towns
seemed to carry maps, but only the local ones. Larger cities (Sion,
Basel) have larger book stores that carry ever topo map ever created.
At Basel, where we able to pick up practically all the maps we needed
for all of our hikes. They really are beautifull maps -- we went with
the "swisstopo" series, and you have your choice of 1 : 25000,
1 : 50000, and 1: 50000 Wanderkarte specifically for hiking (more expensive,
but all the hiking trails are marked in red, and it's really easy to
read). It's also true what the guidebooks say: you really should purchase
maps for wherever you'll be hiking!
TRAINING
I live in Central New York, where there are drumlins and huge hills
but no mountains. We live a few hours from the High Peaks of the Adirondacks—I
tested out my new pack on a three day backpack trip to Mount Marcy.
We also hiked up Mount Graylock in Massachusetts. For the three months
preceding the trip, I was taking brisk walks during the week of 30-50
minutes a day, trying to fit in as much hill work as possible, and doing
longer hikes on the weekends (trying for climbs of 1,000 feet). I wish
I could have gotten some hikes in with climbs of 2,000-3,000 feet, but…that
would have meant climbing up and down stairs and would have been very
boring. A few times I dragged along my pack, weighted about 20 pounds,
but I hated that sort of training –carrying the weight for no
good reason. I also did hand weights for upper body strength 2-3 times
a week. Had we done more training, the first week of Switzerland may
have been easier, but we simply didn’t have the time to do any
more hiking before we left!
OUR EQUIPMENT
Gregory Deva 60: I love this backpack—made specifically for woman,
it fit my short upper torso perfectly, had a lot of padding, and in
good Gregory fashion an endless supply of straps for tightening or loosening
or shifting the load. I was very hesitant about it at first, because
it weighs about 5 pounds on its own (!), and I was trying to only bring
20-25 pounds total. But…I just couldn’t find any backpack
remotely close in comfort. The books recommend 2,000-3,000 cubic inch
pack—that felt really tiny, as we would be gone for 3 weeks, so
I was glad to have a 3500 cubic inch pack. And…the best thing
about this pack is it had a sling to slip a Nalgene bottle. So convenient
and essential when climbing!
Gregory Z-Pack: my husband decided to go with an ultra-light pack, which he loved, though the bottom did show wear by the end of the trip (a tiny tear), as he had been in the habit of tossing down the pack onto stones or gravel. 3200 cubic inch, weight a little over 3 lbs.
Trekking poles: essential. I use EMS poles, my husband uses Leki poles, which sometimes retracts on him. My poles have been great.
Boots: I wore Ridge Gortex II Merrell boots, and I didn’t
love these boots, though they did get me through this trip. They had
a lot of slippage on the downhill, and caused some tendon aggravation
for my right ankle, which I fixed somewhat by making a homemade heel-lift
out of a small foam towel. I don’t think the insoles that come
with the boot are all that great. I had thought the 40 miles I did in
them before the trip would have been adequate break-in—perhaps
I just needed to break them in further. Even after the break-in, I had
pretty much constant rubbing on my right small toes, and had to cover
my foot there every day with moleskin.
My husband wore Vasque Sundowner books and loved them, though we did
need to buy insoles in Sion for his shoes.
WHAT WE PACKED
As little as possible—nothing too surprising. We bought 2 paperbacks,
which we both finished and then traded towards the end of the trip,
several cliff bars (wish we brought more!), 2-64 ounce Nalgene bottles,
a few wool socks, light weight long underwear pants and tops, underwear,
tank tops, shorts, sports bras, a journal, a digital and small automatic
camera, powdered laundry detergent, rain jacket and pants, hat and gloves,
first aid kit, moleskin, ear plugs which did no good in the dorm rooms,
lots of plastic zip lock bags, Swiss army knife. I found it useful to
have a button down nylon shirt that packed small (and also happened
to have a SPF of 30) and a semi-clean pair of nylon pants for the evenings—Berghaus
guests in the restaurants don’t dress up excessively, but they
also don’t tend to look scruffy or like they’ve been living
in wilderness for a year either.
WHERE WE STAYED
Berghauses (private rooms) when we could, dorm rooms only when there
were no other options. We loved the Berghauses—friendly, intimate,
filled with people who loved hiking, good hot plentiful food, and old-fashioned
rooms and the most incredible views I’ve ever seen. We tried to
get private baths when possible as well—usually the 10 or 20 extra
francs seemed worth it to have your own shower! That said, when we were
sharing bathrooms with other guests, there was never a wait to use a
shower. In fact, we never saw any of the other guests in the group bathrooms
at all! In Sion, where hotels were expensive, we stayed in a private
room in the hostel. If you are non-smoking like we are, you may be shocked
at the amount of smoking that goes in, in the hotels and in restaurants
and, actually, everywhere. Often when hiking there aren’t a whole
lot of choices of lodging, but looking back, I think we would have done
our best to find non-smoking accommodations when possible in the larger
towns. One other note: check-in is much earlier in Switzerland than
it is here in the states. We learned the hard way, arriving at 9 p.m.
at our first place we were staying and finding they had closed up, but
left the key for us thankfully on the door. Try to arrive at your place
of lodging early, or call! If you’re eating at the Berghaus, halb
pension dinners often have a set start time, such as 6:30 p.m.
WHERE WE ATE
I’ll admit I tired of Swiss food rather quickly -- but after all,
we didn’t go to Switzerland for the food, right?
Is it possible to be vegan in Switzerland? I try to eat vegan in the U.S. whenever possible (meaning no dairy nor eggs or other animal products)—but it would be very difficult to maintain a vegan diet while hiking in Switzerland, while also receiving enough protein, calories and fat to maintain energy through the hard hikes. I suppose if you were okay with lugging nuts—and lots of peanut butter—and your own food through the mountains, you might be able to stay vegan. We did find a great health food store in Sion that sold these little containers of vegan pate that stayed fresh indefinitely. Though if you eat your accommodation’s breakfast, I found it necessary to use butter on bread to get calories to stay full for even an hour or two (and if you want to eat in a Berghaus for dinner, chances are your vegetarian options will involve cheese or dairy of some sort). I do like to think that the dairy cows seemed pretty happy, grazing on the sides of the mountains in some of the most beautiful pastures I’ve ever seen, getting to roam about (albeit with a large clanging bell around their necks).
So is it possible to be vegetarian in Switzerland? The answer to this is yes, though I will say that I didn’t realize how much different vegetarian ethnic foods are part of my life (Indian, Mexican, Korean, Japanese, etc.) until I was in Switzerland, where ethnic restaurants are non-existent, or else not very good. The falafel that I had during my first meal in Germany (after emerging from Switzerland) was the best thing I’ve ever tasted. We tried Asian food in Switzerland twice, and both times it tasted, well, Swiss (one time I’m convinced they used spaghetti noodles for the dish). Most of the Berghauses and restaurants had difficulty creating what I’d call a well-balanced vegetarian meal—you know, vegetables, carbohydrates, protein and a little fat. Usually the dinner involved cheese and potatoes and bread. Rosti was on every menu—hashbrown potatoes—with cheese, or bread with cheese stuck in the oven. If it didn’t involve cheese, it involved no source of protein—for instance, you can have plain Rosti if you want, but then you’re just eating potatoes. That said, for the most part I had enough to eat, since the food at the Berghauses, even when not balanced, is given in great quantity: usually soup, sometimes a salad, a main course, and then desert. The best vegetarian dish by far that I tried it at 3 or 4 different restaurants was the Gemischtersalat-- a collection of vegetable salads that tasted pretty darn good. The Valais had polenta dishes and more French cooking, which was a welcome change. When making reservations at a Berghaus, if you’re getting halb pension (dinner and breakfast), identify yourself as a vegetarian so they have a little time to plan in an ideal world. We didn’t do that for some reason, which meant in the worse case I ate whatever they had in the kitchen, which was rice and carrots for dinner.
Best vegetarian restaurants in Switzerland: If you are vegetarian, do not miss these two Berghauses: Hotel-Pension Waldrand at Pochtenalp and Hotel Stutz at Gratchen. hotel-Pension Waldrand served an incredible tofu dish with wild mushrooms one of the cooks had gathered that day, and fresh roasted fennel—one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Hotel Stutz (which is also non-smoking—yay!) gave an incredible tofu curry…yum.
Halb pension: It’s most price effective to do halb pension at where you’re staying, if they offer it—dinner often was 10 or 12 francs on the halb pension plan, versus 25 francs and up per person if you ate out (and that could just be for a single course). We eventually gave up trying to find cheap restaurants when in a city in Switzerland—all the cheap restaurants seem to close at 4 or 5 p.m. With halb pension though, you’re given no option in what you eat (but you are, on the other hand, given several courses and a lot of food!).
Lunch: I think you can ask some of the Berghauses to prepare you a bagged lunch, but we were trying to stay on a budget, so we simply bought large chunks of cheese and yogurt when we could from alps (these little cheese stands in the Bernese Oberland—make sure to get MILD fresh cheese—the smelly cheeses really begin to smell in your backpack after a while). We’d pick up some bread when we came across a store, and some fruit. We always carried chocolate, nuts, dried fruit, and other energy food. Sadly Cliff Bars have not made it across the Atlantic to Switzerland, though we did discover Vitals—sunflower not too sweet little dense circles that gave us good happy energy. In the Bernese Oberland, usually we would just have to carry that day’s lunch. In the Valais, we had to go at most three days without running into a store, and had to carry a loaf of bread with the cheese. Stores really do close between noon and 2 p.m. in Switzerland—I had read this on other people’s web sites, but just couldn’t believe it. What a major inconvenience for lunch! I still don’t understand the reasoning behind this completely, but just plan ahead.
Breakfast: Breakfast really varied and seemed to have no relationship on the price a place charged for the night. At our most expensive hotel for the night, in the capital city of Bern, we ate a few slices of light french bread, butter and jelly for breakfast, and we left the table hungry. While we were at the B&B in Luzerne, we ate so well—yogurt, cereal, fruit, eggs, wonderful breads, fresh jellies, fruit juice, and fruit. Breakfast tends to be either a buffet, or you’re given a limited amount (usually not enough for hikers) of bread and butter in a basket. I’m a tea drinker (I prefer green tea, which was generally not available), and I never understood this, but if you ask for tea and milk, you tended to get a large pot of tea, and a large pitcher of warm milk. Perhaps the Swiss drink their tea with half tea and half milk….in any case, it was another way to stay warm and get more food!
Chocolate: After extensive testing over every single dark chocolate bar we could get our hands on, our favorite chocolate was....actually German! We found the Vivani dark chocolate bar to be incredible, rich, super dark, creamy, and organic! And cheap too...we picked up about 30 bars before we left at a natural food store in Mainz, an act of consumerism which was slightly embarrassing, but necessary. And the good news is you can find Vivani chocolate back here in the states, and it's just as good! However, we also enjoyed some of the generic grocery store brand's dark chocolate -- especially "Frey Noir", made by Migros. Cailler, made by Nestle, was also quite good, especially the "Cailler's Frigor", which was dark chocolate filled with hazelnut creme. Yum! A few Swiss people tried to tell us Lindt chocolate was the best, but the dark Lindt just wasn't dark enough for us.
WHERE WE DRANK
Is there opportunity to get water while hiking? For the most part, yes—a
water filter would probably be overkill, at least on the trails we were
doing. Especially in the Bernese Oberland, it seemed adequate to have
two -64 ounce nalgene bottles filled for two people. We seemed to always
be passing by a restaurant/ski lift that had rest rooms you could fill
your water bottles up at, or there are these water fountains/spouts
that I think grazing animals drank from. I’m not entirely sure
if that water was great to drink—I’m assuming it came from
a spring though, and wouldn’t have any the giardia or other nasty
stuff to watch out for, and that water tasted great and we didn’t
get sick from it. There was one time we were drastically short on water
(Falhourn), and I wish we had purchased a gallon to lug up there for
the both of us. In the Valais, water was less common—less animals
grazing, less little alps, less fountains with water pouring out of
them, so you generally had to carry enough water for the day. But we
decided to ration our water intake (and drink deeply if we did pass
the random fountain) rather than carry more weight on our backs. Switzerland
cities and towns are filled with the cutest coolest water fountains—decorative,
but you could also drink out of them.
RESTROOMS
Well, this was another thing I wondered about in Switzerland—since
it’s not wilderness hiking, and you’re hiking in crowds,
where are the toilets? In the Bernese Oberland, there seem to be ski
lifts everywhere, where you can use the rest rooms, no problem, or ask
at a restaurant. When we couldn’t find restrooms, use good backcountry
leave no trace rules, because there are so many people around. In the
Valais, you have the isolation…just remember to bring toilet paper
(and pack it out with you).
ATM'S AND MONEY THINGS
I wasn’t quite sure if there would be ATM’s in the smaller
towns we would be traveling through, but it turned out there were ATM’s
in pretty much every smaller town we visited (not in the tiny alps though
thank goodness!). To give myself a peace of mind, I went on Visa and
MasterCard’s web sites and did a search for ATM’s in the
towns we’d be traveling through, and made a note when we wouldn’t
be able to withdraw any money for a few days. Generally the Berghauses
accepted only cash, but you can ask when you make your reservation if
they accept credit cards—a few did.
TRAIL CONDITIONS
The trails were well maintained and fairly easy footing for the most
part, compared to the Adirondack mud/rock fest that we experienced when
hiking up Mount Marcy or in the Adirondacks. Footing was generally solid
and flat, making the hiking quick-going. It would have been very easy
hiking, had it not been for those darn ascents and descents. Another
good thing about Swiss trails—no bugs! Don’t even bother
bringing any bug spray.
TRANSPORTATION
When our guidebooks recommended it, we took lifts to avoid dull parts
of trails (huffing uphill under a ski lift, while leisurely walkers
float past you on the lift, is not a joy to be savored). Sometimes we
took buses. My philosophy was that we were trying to enjoy ourselves
and to see as much beautiful scenery as possible—the hiking that
we did during the day turned out to be difficult enough! I know some
people are more hard core about this, and want to hike everywhere, even
if it means plodding along busy roads. I will say that some of the buses,
especially in the more remote areas, ran less frequently. Certain bus
routs ended early (4 o’clock in one case!). The Swiss Transportation
department has a great web site (http://www.sbb.ch/ or http://fahrplan.sbb.ch/bin/query.exe/en
in English)where you can check bus and other connecting times—it
made me feel better to have a sense for when trains and buses would
leave, but you could probably also check via phone or your inn keepers
when you get there. It made sense for us to get half passes for a month
through the Swiss Transportation system—this meant we got 50%
off of most lifts, buses, and trains. A good deal.