"Viajar a pie" is Spanish for "Travelling on foot"

Category: Alps

Via Alpina 1 Daily Account

Via Alpina 1

WhereSwitzerland
WhenSeptember
Distance268 km / 167 miles
Length8 days

The Blümlisalp massif from Hohtürli, highest pass on the Via Alpina 1

Via Alpina 1 Stage 8: Bundalp to Adelboden

This entry is part 8 of 8 in the series Via Alpina 1
StartBundalp
EndAdelboden
Distance31 km / 19 m
PassesHohtürli, Bunderchrinde

I wake up wondering if I’ll be fit for walking today. It’s difficult to say when nothing really hurts and a resting position makes everything feel right. Straight off bed I feel weak but that may be normal. I decide to give breakfast a go and see how it feels. It went down this well:

Alp breakfast

Via Alpina 1 Stage 7: Lauterbrunnen to Bundalp

This entry is part 7 of 8 in the series Via Alpina 1
StartLauterbrunnen
EndBundalp
Distance24 km / 15 m
PassesSefinenfurkke

For the first time in the trip, the day starts overcast. Chance of rain in the morning, getting dryer in the evening. Me, climbing right away, pretty much off the hostel door and up the glacial escarpment with interesting views back to Lauterbrunnen.

Lauterbrunnen from the other side

Via Alpina 1 Stage 6: Wetterhorn to Lauterbrunnen

This entry is part 6 of 8 in the series Via Alpina 1
StartWetterhorn base
EndLauterbrunnen
Distance29 km / 18 m
PassesGrosse Scheidegg, Kleine Scheidegg

After the early night thunderstorm, the morning is crisp and clear. The Wetterhorn is still there.

Dawn on the Wetterhorn

Via Alpina 1 Stage 5: Engstlensee to foot of the Wetterhorn

This entry is part 5 of 8 in the series Via Alpina 1
StartEngstlensee
EndWetterhorn foot
Distance33 km / 20 m
PassesNone

I’m glad I slept under tree cover, the Alps are a surprisingly damp place! but my shelter is mostly dry in the early morning and I didn’t need to compromise on views.

Dawn on the Engstlensee, Jochpass at the far end

Via Alpina 1 Stage 4: Brüsti to Engstlensee

This entry is part 4 of 8 in the series Via Alpina 1
StartBrüsti
EndEngstlensee
Distance36 km / 22 m
PassesSurenenpass, Jochpass

Morning is brilliant blue and it doesn’t take as long as on previous mornings for the light to shine, it’s the first time on the trip that I don’t sleep on the valley floor. I couldn’t arrange for tree cover overhead for the night but my shelter is dry nevertheless. Surenenpass is still there and it’s my next milestone.

Trailstar in the meadow, Surenenpass at the far end

Via Alpina 1 Stage 3: Urnerboden to Attinghausen and beyond

This entry is part 3 of 8 in the series Via Alpina 1
StartUrnerboden
EndBrüsti - Attinghausen
Distance33 km / 20 m
PassesKlausenpass

In the morning, as expected, everything is dripping wet and I need to leave well before the sun shines so I pack a wet mess and a good excuse for an extended break in the sun later on the day. The setting is not idyllic, too close to human habitation but the valley is beautiful and very well worth a camp pic:

Dawn in Urner Boden

Via Alpina 1 Stage 2: Elm to Urnerboden

This entry is part 2 of 8 in the series Via Alpina 1
StartElm
EndUrnerboden
Distance42 km / 26 m
PassesRichetlipass

Morning is dark inside the thick conifer woods where I’m camping just outside Elm village. I go through town in daylight but still well before the sun rises above the mountain tops. My legs are sore from day 1 efforts that no amount of stretching could heal but as soon as I warm them up, I can walk with reasonable dignity.

Morning in the conifer woods

Via Alpina 1 Stage 1: Sargans to Elm

This entry is part 1 of 8 in the series Via Alpina 1
StartSargans
EndElm
Distance36 km / 22 m
PassesFoopass

Sargans and nearby Mels sit in a wide, oddly flat valley confluence flanked by high peaks. The Via Alpina 1 enters the mountains along the Weisstannental in a course due west. This valley is narrow and deep, with a public road near stream level. The trail takes a different course on the upper floor, i.e. it makes an initial climb to the south-side slopes, then traverses along, linking the small communities and farms clinging to the hillside.

The Seez in Mels

Via Alpina 1, the passes

It used to be called the Alpine Pass Route so you can bet the passes are an important feature. They always are on mountain terrain! They’re the main landmarks to help us break the trail down into meaningful stages, they’re the double-side viewpoints and they decide where the water goes. This is a power list of the passes I crossed on the Via Alpina.

Via Alpina 1 Description

Via Alpina 1 is the newer name for the trail formerly known as the Alpine Pass Route. It goes East to West along the northern edge of the Swiss Alps from Liechtenstein to Lac Leman for a length of about 360 km, more or less depending on a few existing options.

Via Alpina 1 Deep Impressions

The Via Alpina 1, also known as the Alpine Pass Route goes east to west across Switzerland through the Glarner and Berner sections of the Alps for about 360 km, give or take some depending on options and starting point. I hiked along in mid September, 2018 with the loose, ambitious idea of completing it in a week. I didn’t make it to the opposite end but I did make a lot of other stuff. This here is a list of the aspects that left a lasting impression on me. It’s about the land, the mountains and the trail and it’s mostly about myself and how I was feeling at the time.

Via Alpina 1 Preview

Starting mid September, I’ll be hiking on the Via Alpina 1 all the way across Switzerland. Background, motivation and rough plan below.

GR 5 Alpine Traverse

Making friends at the Combe de Crousette

WhereWestern Alps
WhenAugust/September
Distance852 km / 530 miles
Length24 days

There’s lots of user information about the Alps already, yet traversing a significant section of the range while camping out most nights, packing several days worth of food at a time or not climbing any peaks is probably not the most typical activity people do in these mountains.

During the GR 5 traverse, I was never more than a couple hours hike from some kind of civilization and if I count on the stuffed huts that couple of hours happened very few times, if any. The Alps are no wilderness and the GR 5 is certainly not the most remote you can get in these mountains. It’s dead easy and requires no big planning effort to hike the GR 5 and get lodging every night.

In my very limited experience, lots of people use the GR 5 trail system but it seems not many try to hike it all and even less attempt any kind of extended self sufficiency. It will be odd to leave the last village only to climb up to some alpine meadow for camping but once there you’ll quickly forget the taverns you missed. It’s beautiful up in the alpine and these mountains are famous for a reason or two.

Conflicts with the wildlife

The Alps don’t stand out for the wildness and there are no big mammals to worry about. The goat-like chamois and bouquetin seem the most ubiquitous among the sizeable ones, relatively easy to spot and I never seem to remember which one is each.

Another common trail companion is the shy marmot, bound to be the main character in this comment.

Maps and Guidebooks

The GR 5 is well documented. As any GR trail in France, it’s got its own set of guidebooks, consistently edited by the FFRP (Fédération Française de la Randonnée Pédestre which approximately stands for French Hiking Federation). These books are in French and due to the popularity of this route among English speaking (or, in general, non-French speaking) people, UK publisher Cicerone released a guidebook that covers just the Alpine Traverse.

Gear Review

Most of the stuff is just as usual. I’ll comment on those new or somehow relevant items.

Shoes

Inov8 Terroc 330

Maybe the most comfortable shoes I’ve worn on the trail, surely the lightest and probably the less durable. The Terrocs performed well and were very gentle on my feet but barely made it to trip end. The shoe body was still ok but the soles suffered; one of them got a crack under the ball of the foot that turned into an alpine glacier crevasse exposing the midsole which eventually also cracked.

Villages

Going through villages is something that happens almost everyday on the GR 5; usually, more than once a day so it’s a key part of the experience. With recreation being such a big part of the scene in the Alps, it’s taken over a lot of the rural environment and some locations have more lodges and restaurants than farms and sheds. I tried to not spend much time in the urban but still feel a quick overview of what can be expected might be of interest. North to south:

Information

Is there anything I can write about the Alps that’s not already been said? Probably not except my own take at one of the most spectacular, long distance traverses along the western arm of one the most spectacular mountain ranges. A bit of blah, blah, blah too…

Preparations

The word alpine comes obviously from the Alps even though it’s evolved into a kind of generic term for everything alpine. But strictly speaking an alpine something should take place in some alps. There are actually a few mountain groups in the world named alps but it all began where the European plains rise several thousand meters to become a world of rocky, ice-covered big walls that define the line between north and south; east and west, too.

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