In the summer of 2024, I walked from St. Moritz to Zermatt along the border between Switzerland and Italy. Now the dust has settled, only the most relevant memories can make it to these lines below.

Too tough to average 30 kpd in September

It can be easy to hike 30 km in a day, even with a thru-hiking pack on your back and net ascent figures in the 4 digits, but it’s a different thing to average that. The thing with September, as opposed to late spring or early summer, is there’s little cushion for the highly possible short distance days. One only weather event can throw your efforts for keeping up to the dust bin and the daylight hours time frame may be too short to allow recovery without hiking in the dark.

I felt like the whole journey became a daily race against time. I’m fine with long distances and sustained efforts but not with a permanent feeling of being in a hurry, which links nicely with the next argument.

Do I still like doing this?

Stories of the sustained type-2 fun

It’s the most typical of thru-hiking self-questioning but on this trip I got the impression that I asked myself about it more than anytime before. I struggled, day after day, every day but the last one, the only time when my target finish was at a very reasonable distance.

Mattertal. I didn’t take selfies until the very last day

I didn’t know if such struggle was the right thing to do. As I write this, I still don’t. At the time of hiking, I could only reason that the current day’s efforts were still meaningful, if only to make sense of the previous journeys’ work. It may be a paradigm case of not giving up. It may also be an equally paradigm case of persisting in the error because you’ve already spent too long in it. I guess I’ll never know.

On several days, I barely stopped for lunch or actually anything. I found myself jogging in the downhills when the terrain was favorable. Jogging with a full pack on is awful but I needed the time saved enough to make the extra effort worth it.

I didn’t compromise on route choices though, and there were many possible shortcuts I could have taken but I stayed true to the plan. That was my red line.

Can I still do this

And I don’t mean the thru-hiking but the average distances I was used to. This is the second trip in a row where I complain to myself and try to justify why I couldn’t keep up. Maybe it’s time to downsize my expectations and stop commenting on this altogether.

Rough September weather

September can be great for hiking, weather-wise, depending on the location. My previous experience in the area and season was very good, with mostly stable patterns, few thunderstorms and balmy temps but it wasn’t like this on this trip. I went through many rainy episodes, some of them long-lasting but the worst of it came in the last 4 days when a cold air mass installed in the region brought freezing temps, chilling winds and general instability.

On the other hand, September is surely quieter on all the infrastructure. I’d do it again.

Rain as a lost battle

I know I can’t beat the rain, when the rain insists, if the goal is to keep dry. It was long ago that I shifted the goal to keeping comfortable.

I went through a couple of big rain challenges on this trip. I took the first one and failed miserably. I stopped the day’s hiking at 10 AM at the prospect of the second.

In serious, non-stop rain, I’ll only take pics from under cover

I consider rain management in long-distance hiking as a work in progress where progress is badly needed.

The magnificence of the Alps

Despite all the human efforts to spoil it, the place is still glorious. Great scenery, beautiful mountains all over the place. Nothing new here but it still bears mentioning.

A very different side of Switzerland

Different from my previous, first visit to the region, where I also hiked east to west but on a line further north, along the Via Alpina 1, where the vibe was uber-touristy, with barely a trace of the rural left.

Not this time. Despite the start and end points being actual dead-tourist traps, there was some diversity all the way in between, including fully unglamorous but very interesting hamlets and shepherds’ huts. It was relieving.

Cons hamlet in Val Lumnezia

I made it but not the exact way I wanted

This one hurts a bit. I worked too hard to make it to Zermatt. Distance wise, I made it possible but I was thrown out of my intended route for the last three days by the wintery weather.

I had planned to reach Zermatt from the south, which meant going across the highest point in my route in the last hours of the trip. That’s Theodul Pass, sitting above 3000 m with a short section across a glacier on the north side. No big deal in favorable conditions but a potential concern otherwise and I’d be there with no chance to wait the weather.

Two days before last, I woke up to fog, wind and fresh snow at the Monte Moro Pass. It was my last chance to change watershed. I decided to be safe and went down on the Swiss side to reach Zermatt by hiking counter-clockwise around the Monte Rosa while keeping on the right side of the mountains, considering I had to reach Zurich right after hiking-trip end.

At the Monte Moro Pass in unwelcoming conditions

For a couple of days, the weather kept unstable, the high passes were hidden in cloud and I was glad I didn’t need to cross any, anymore. On the last day, the pattern shifted slightly and I could see the route over Theodul Pass clear as I approached from the north. I could have made it the intended way. The route line as drawn on the map would have looked more logical.

Traversing the land. The beauty of thru-hiking

Adventure, central-European style

This is the well-known, old story about the thru-hiking game. Starting somewhere and setting the mental compass bearing to some other point B, so far away that it’s difficult to even think about getting there. I certainly feel this way in a relatively short, two week trip like this one almost as much as I do in the really long, multi-month hikes. It’s actually the same mental process, think ahead to the next pass, the current day, barely any further, and keep the end goal as that mythical target that feels more like an emotion than a place. Only in those brief moments when you actually think about it.

Adventure is exactly this, do your hiking and see where the trip takes you in physical and emotional terms. Even in the highly controlled environment of the European mountains, there is uncertainty, responsibility and communion. Ambition and humbleness. All at the pace of hiking, something that my mind can understand. Take that, modern life.