Our Swiss trek wasn’t supposed to start like this, with a blister the size of a thumbnail and the moleskin to ease it 5 miles away.
It was supposed to be as I’d imagined it since I was a little girl, reading the adventures of Heidi, the Swiss orphan who lived in a chalet high in the Alps with Grandfather, yodeled to the neighbors across the valley and drank milk fresh from goats that grazed on the meadow.
But I wasn’t about to let a nasty blister and a lost contact lens the next day ruin our chance for a Heidi-perfect week. And an encounter with a runaway apple later in the week not only had us rolling in the meadows laughing aloud at ourselves but thinking that Heidi would have gotten the giggles too.
We awoke that early June morning in Lauterbrunnen, a town in the shadow of the jagged peaks of Switzerland’s Bernese Alps. The air was pristine, the sky a deep sapphire blue. The snow-topped mountains lorded over alpine meadows carpeted with neon- bright wildflowers and the greenest grass.
The hiking paths that crisscross the mountains well above the tree line were as advertised – well-marked and suitable for people with all sorts of capabilities.
My husband, John, and I had prepared for this adventure: We spent a year getting fit, months breaking in new hiking boots and hours packing a first-aid kit with such necessities as extra contact lenses and moleskin, the felted adhesive hikers use to shield blistered skin from further rubbing.
We’d even pulled out an old copy of Johanna Spyri’s “Heidi,” a story written in the late 1800s that since has sold more than 50 million copies, about seven times the population of Switzerland.
We chose the Lauterbrunnen region partly to avoid the area of eastern Switzerland the Swiss actually named Heidiland in a fit of kitsch.
Lauterbrunnen, we were told, has the perfect mix of sky-high peaks, including some reachable by mountain railway or cable car, an easy-to-interpret trail system, picturesque farms and hamlets, and meadows and pastures where cows graze all summer long.
Our tourist-office map showed 16 marked trails – more than enough to choose a different route every day of our trip. Red-and-white signs meant challenging paths for experienced hikers carrying gear and supplies appropriate for bad weather. Yellow signs led to less arduous routes.
For our first day, we chose a long, circular yellow route described as easy for “walkers with appropriate footwear.”
After a hearty breakfast and with the morning sun at our backs, we walked to the funicular that would hoist us nearly straight up the mountainside to a train that would take us still higher to the village of Murren, where a tangle of trails steer sightseers, walkers, hikers and hard-core climbers off in every direction.
We found a signpost with arrows pointing to our trail and started up toward the Schilthorn, at 9,748 feet the highest peak on our side of the valley. Across the way were the three even higher peaks that identify the region – the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau, the loftiest at more than 13,600 feet.
We tramped the path for a couple of hours, keeping to the flower-strewn meadows above the tree line and intoxicated by the beauty of it all.
“Isn’t this absolutely glorious?” I practically sang as we parked ourselves on a boulder beside the trail and dipped into the daypack for the cheese and fresh-baked bread we’d bought at the village deli.
“It’s like ‘The Sound of Music’ – starring us!”
“Great,” John grumped, “except that my boot is rubbing a hole in my foot. Have you got the moleskin?”
Our backpack yielded a battered Band-aid and an anti- bacterial pad, but no moleskin.
With clouds gathering at the top of the Schilthorn above us, we started off down the trail, John limping more noticeably with every step and I encouraging as best I could.
By the time we reached our little hotel and the blessed packet of moleskin, fat drops of rain were splattering the streets.
That night we consoled ourselves with the fact that all the pre-trip planning in the world can go awry and vowed that tomorrow would be better.
Car-free alpine town
In spring, the alpine weather is a fickle thing. By the following morning, the Schilthorn sparkled in sunshine. With John’s heel swaddled in a new kind of blister protection provided by a friendly Swiss pharmacist, we were ready to set out again.
No cars are allowed in the mountain town of Murren, although pedestrians sometimes have to dodge tractors and hay wagons on the lanes leading to farms and settlements perched higher on the steep hillsides.
Small hotels and souvenir shops vie for the attention of mountaineers and day-trippers alike. The streets are clogged with elderly hikers forging along with the help of sturdy walking staffs, young couples pushing baby carriages or herding children along the paved trails, and middle-aged pairs like us, anxious to escape the crowds and get up on the mountain.
In Gimmelwald, a hamlet with fewer than 150 permanent residents, time seemed to have stopped generations ago, in Heidi’s day. Weathered chalets adorned with window boxes sprouting cheery red geraniums and ramshackle barns surrounded by rustic fences pressed against the path.
In the fields, farmers armed with scythes, pitchforks and rakes harvested hay for the winter while placid cows munched on flowers and mischievous goats bleated and butted each other. The air was thick with the smell of fresh- mown grass, manure and a chorus of mooing, baahing and cowbells.
John stopped to chat with a young couple at an overlook while I walked on to get a little closer to it all. When I raised my camera to take a photo of a particularly lovely black-and-white spotted cow, the lens cap brushed against my eye. I didn’t blink in time and my contact lens popped out. I heard it hit the pavement and saw it bounce into the grass beside the road, then disappear into the moist earth.
When I gave up looking and went back to tell John I’d be squinting until we got back to the hotel and our now well- used first-aid packet, he smiled.
“I’m a tenderfoot, and you can’t see. But together we make one great hiker,” he said.
Off to Grindelwald
Next day, not long after daybreak, we caught the train across the valley to Grindelwald. Other travelers had told us Grindelwald might be a disappointment after the bucolic mountain meadows above Murren and the grandeur of the Jungfrau. But we had to see for ourselves.
The other travelers were right.
Had we gone to Grindelwald first, it would have seemed quaint enough. But with its traffic, souvenir shops, hotels and restaurants, it screamed “city.” We happened on an elementary school with dozens of children playing soccer at recess and I began to plead, “Take me back to the mountains.”
We set off up a road leading out of town and toward the foothills beneath the jagged Eiger. The road narrowed into a trail that melted into a path through a field of flowers and led finally into a small forest cut through with a burbling stream. A weathered sign pointed the way to Abbebach Falls, one of 72 waterfalls that plunge from the peaks to the Lauterbrunnen Valley.
Our rumbling stomachs soon told us it was time to find a picnic spot. We left the forest and found a path leading back down to Grindelwald.
In a meadow just above town, we stopped and pulled out the brioche, cheese, yogurt and apples brought from Lauterbrunnen. As John handed me an apple, I dropped it and it began to roll down the trail toward town.
John began the chase, but the apple seemed suddenly to have a mind of its own – like something in a cartoon skit. It rolled down one side of the trail and slowed, but just as John caught up, it picked up speed, rolling this way and that down the mountain. It rounded the hairpin turn and kept going, John not far behind, laughing so hard he could hardly chase it, and I hot on his trail.
A little way down the hill, John stopped, thinking he’d never catch up to it.
“Keep running,” I cried when I caught up to him. “We didn’t get lunch until dinnertime yesterday, and I’ll be darned it I’m going to do without it again today.”
As we watched, the runaway apple finally rolled off the trail and into a pasture and stopped, bruised but unbroken.
“Eat it quick,” John said, “before it gets away again.”
That night as we packed to leave, we agreed on one thing: We wouldn’t trade our trip for all the sights in Heidiland.
If it hadn’t been for the blister, the contact lens left on the meadow near Gimmelwald and the runaway apple, Switzerland might have been just another hike in the Alps.
Sally Macdonald is a retired reporter for the Seattle Times. John Macdonald is retired Seattle Times travel editor.
INSIDER’S GUIDE
The best thing about hiking in the Swiss Alps may be that the striking mountain scenery is available to all whether you’re a high-altitude rock climber or one who strolls the meadows below.
Roaming the Swiss mountains is a year-round activity – with skiers going from hut to hut along snow trails used for centuries and summer hikers crossing high-plateau meadows under snowcapped peaks and walking past quaint farmhouses and grazing cattle wearing the large traditional bells.
Primary hiking season is mid-May through October, with mid-August to October considered the best. Almost anyone can do it. On our early June visit, we encountered hikers in their mid-70s on the same paths as a mother pushing a toddler in a stroller. Many pathways are paved. All are well-marked not only with the difficulty but the distance and how long it should take the average person to get from point to point. There are even designations for biker-friendly trails.
While there are a number of organized hiking tours, making your own plan and setting your own pace is easy. Train and bus service between the valley communities is the usual high Swiss quality and adds to the whole experience. You likely won’t need a car.
Lodging ranges from basic mountain huts to fancy hotels in the valleys. Hut-to-hut hiking is popular. Or, hikers can explore a region like spokes in a wheel, returning to the same lodging each night. Local tourist offices can advise on routes once you’re there.
Numerous guidebooks are available that speak to most any kind of hiking or climbing in alpine mountains. Two of the most widely used are by Lonely Planet publications (lonelyplanet.com) and Rick Steves (ricksteves.com). Both offer maps and route suggestions.
The Swiss tourism office offers information on all styles of hiking and climbing, as well as suggestions on transportation, lodging and food (myswitzerland.com).
