Difficulty
This goes along with distance, but the fact is, some passes are harder than others!
Some of them are gentle and grassy. Others are steep, include trails along the edges of cliffs, and require long periods of walking through the sharp scree that is the result of big mountains slowly turning into small mountains.
I am reasonably afraid of heights, or rather of “exposure”.
“Exposure” here does not mean “getting cold and wet and hypothermic”, but the psychological effect of being high up and seeing clearly how steep is the drop below you. A trail high on a cliff-side might be no problem in a dense fog, but when the fog lifts and you see the valley far below, down a steep drop, it is terrifying. That’s “exposure” in this sense.
Edges are especially scary, but a big expanse of sky on one side of a steep slope will do it too. I found a lot of these trails disagreeably scary. I’m not the only one – we encountered other American tourists who had the wits scared out of them by passes.
People develop strategies for handling these situations. Mine include muttering mantras to myself like a lunatic, using all four limbs like Gollum, and using Chris as a coach. For example, I might say “Tell me to stand up and walk across this rock.” He will say “Stand up and walk across that rock.” And I will do it because I believe the words when they come out of his mouth but I don’t listen to myself.
Aside from scariness, the Via Alpina involves a LOT of climbing. And, inevitably, a lot of descent. Though most Swiss trails are beautifully maintained and easy to walk (for example, compared to trails in South Carolina, which can be rocky and uneven), climbing is inherently hard.
Scariness and general climbiness were factors we considered when choosing modifications. We try not to eliminate too many challenges, but we’re old enough to be realistic and we don’t feel like we have to prove anything. We were purists for the Tour du Mont Blanc in 2018, walking (almost) every step of the way. For this trip, purity was out the window. It was hard enough just to get through without forcing ourselves into unreasonable difficulties. If a cablecar could save us two or three hours of walking at a time when we felt like that would be pleasant – well, we took the damn cablecar!
Shoes
It’s been many years since either of us has worn hiking boots. We’ve used Altra trail runners for all our Alpine hikes as well as hiking over Greece and in the Nepali Himalayas.
On one of the final days of our Everest Base Camp trek, we passed a group going north, clumping along in their huge boots. Someone saw us and exclaimed “Trainers for trekking?” We said nothing, but inwardly were, like, “We’ve just done this whole trek, Yo!”
We never get blisters. Our feet never hurt.
I always wear lightweight toe socks.
I also carried a pair of Bedrock Cairns as my in-town shoes. They could double as trail shoes in a pinch, though I really don’t love them on rough or rocky terrain. (Some people do walk long trail distances in them, though.)
Bernese Oberland
The Bernese Oberland, or Bernese highland, is a key feature of the Via Alpina. The entire middle week is set there, and lots of people just walk that section.
It really is the money shot of the Swiss Alps. Though all the mountains there are eye-catching because the are SO VERY BIG, three peaks in particular stand out:
- The Eiger, or the Ogre.
- The Mönch, or the Monk.
- The Jungfrau, or the Maiden.
The area around these three peaks is called the Jungfrau region.
The Jungfrau Railway, or Jungfraubahn, runs tourists right up to the Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in the world (3,454 meters!). It’s built up with tourist amenitices, of course, including a high “cliff walk,” but it does provide amazing views across the Swiss plateau and the Aletsch Glacier.
Grindelwald, Wengen, and Mürren are the three classic resort towns of the Bernese Oberland. Grindelwald lies under the Eiger. Wengen is down the valley from the Junfrau, and well known for the Lauberhorn ski race. Mürren is a car-free town across a narrow valley from all three peaks, with especially good views of the Jungfrau.
Most Americans don’t realize (well, we didn’t before we started traveling here) is that Europeans have been doing tourism in the Alps for several centuries now. These three resorts, along with places Zermatt, Verbier, and Chamonix in France pop up in British and German travel feeds on a daily basis. It always struck me how places that felt strange and unknown to us were in fact extremely well-established tourist locations, just like shared nude bathing facilities are in fact a completely ordinary feature of the hotels.
Anyway! The Bernese Oberland resorts are cute, especially car-free Mürren, but they’re also very touristic. They give off a very different vibe from the tiny, isolated towns we stayed in on either side of the region. And they’re expensive – oh, so expensive!
That being said, the mountains are well worth seeing, and the whole area is criss-crossed with cog railroads, gondolas, and bus routes, making it very easy for tourists of all levels of fitness to visit comfortably. Anyone looking for a quick Swiss vacation really should head to this area at least once. There’s nothing else like it.
As for us, our Via Alpina started and finished small and quiet. In general, that’s the way we prefer things.