Hiking the Swiss Alps
An epic ten days in the Swiss Alps, traveling and hiking with a Natural Habitat Adventures tour. After flying into Zurich, we started with an afternoon’s gondola ride and hike at Appenzell:
The next day, we hiked the Swiss National Park, where we spotted herds of red deer. We overnighted in Moritz, which gave me the chance to take an early morning walk around the lake:
Then we were off on an eight-hour trip on the Glacier Express to the car-free town of Zermatt, which sits at the base of the Matterhorn. The next day, we rode the cog train and gondola up and hiked down the Five Lakes Trail:
We got to spend one night at Gornegrat, at the top of a cogwheel train ride over 3000 meters above sea level. Besides a hotel, it’s an operational observatory, and we had a 360-degree view of the Alps, including the Matterhorn and the Monte Rosa massif. We also got a close-up view of several ibex visiting a salt lick at dusk.
Several more train, cable car, and gondola rides took us to Murren, another car-free Swiss village, and we took a short walk to visit Gimmelwald, with lovely farms, gardens, and a local brewpub.
The hiking around Murren was epic: cows high on the hills with their bells softly jingling, wildflowers in full bloom, ripe wild strawberries, and waterfall we could walk behind. We saw almost no other hikers the entire trek!
From Murren, we rode several gondolas up to Shilthorn, where we ate brunch at the rotating restaurant high on the top. The 360-degree views of the valleys, mountain peaks, and clouds was incredible! We had an unsurpassed view of the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau peaks.
On our way out of the mountains, we visited Trummelbach Falls, a waterfall that cuts through the center of a mountain. Through a series of tunnels, you can hike up to ten different viewing platforms and watch the water crash through the caverns that it’s carved in the rock.
The final stop was Lake Geneva, seen here at sunset from Montreux, and then from Geneva, where the glacier melt color showcased the lake’s crystal-clear water.
