On pages 92-93 in the SAC Alpinwandern/Gipfelziele Gotthard guide book, there is a collage titled"I (heart) Gotthard" with 16 pretty photos of different sights around the Gotthard pass in different seasons. When I first browsed trough the book, one of the small photos in particular immediately drew my attention. At there very...

The Wägital offers an unusually high concentration of exciting alpine hikes, and this just a stone's throw away from Zürich. As such, it's almost scandalous that I hadn't explored this valley much so far. The continued superb mountain weather this autumn and a confident hiking partner - Hikr's madu - provided an unexpected...

With extremely mild and sunny mountain weather for the weekend, I immediately went looking for regions with little snow. The Alpstein seemed to offer best conditions for an unusual late-November alpine hike. The only thing worrying me about the weather forecast: it was just too warm. I was hoping for hard snow in the morning,...

The Tichodrome via ferrata is closed each year from the start of January until the end of July to protect the birds nesting in the rock face. On the other hand, the route does remain open until the end of the year. The route follows a band in the wall that is exposed to the sun and well sheltered from snowfall. Hence it even...

I had to be back in Zürich by mid-afternoon, so I had to choose a relatively short hike this Sunday. I selected the Rigi Hochflue, taking advantage of the Urmiberg cable car, which was open for the final day this year. I wasn't the only one with this idea... ---- A queue isalready forming ten minutes before the cable car...

Through CouchSurfing I met up with Michaela enjoy the fabulous autumn weather, which is now lasting even into November. Michaela picked me up at the Ziegelbrücke railway station. We drove up the winding single track road to Matt, where we parked the car at almost 1100 metres altitude. ---- We follow the hiking path to...

I had met up with Eloïse and Patrick again, my companions from the via ferrata at Le Moléson. After a night out in Lausanne, we set out in gorgeous autumn weather for Leysin. Leysin has two via ferratas, one high up on the Tour d'Ai, the other one ("Plan Praz") near the village. Due to snow higher up, we stick to the second one....

"Wintereinbruch" and the definite end of the alpine hiking season? I wasn't having any of that. With less snow in the Valais, I even set my sights on an easy three-thousander: Le Toûno (3018m). With a heavy rucksack prepared for all eventualities (ice axe, crampons, emergency shelter...) I arrived in Saint-Luc early on...

If you wanted a quiet a quiet hike on Sunday, you might as well have walked up and down Zürich's Bahnhofstrasse. There could not have been many people left in the city, so many went into the mountains to enjoy the weather!   Back in July 2013, the Rigidalstock was my first Swiss via ferrata. It's also the first one...

With a fabulous weather forecast and not really feeling like doing another solo hike, an event on the meetup.com group "Zürich Hike & Outdoor" headed for the Engelberger Rotstock came at the perfect time. I signed up for the opportunity to meet some new hikers and do a route that was on my wish list anyway. In a group of...

Crossing the entire Pilatus range from east to west, from Stansstad to Gfellen, has been a project lingering in my mind for quite a while. I'd call it "Pilatus extreme and ultra long", except for the fact that Tobi already coined this term for a hike that's even twice as long as mine! Respect! Still, my 2600m of ascent and ca....

So... my first "official" T6. As always when taking things to a new level, there is the anxiety of the unknown: "how hard will it really be?" With T6 especially, there still seems to be a lot of variation in difficulty. Sometimes it looks "just like T5, only a bit more exposed"; yet other T6 routes appear more like "bloody...

Another sunny September weekend gave me the chance to tick some more via ferratas off my list. I made use of an open invitation on CouchSurfing from Eloïse and Patrick, a friendly couple living in Hauteville on the shores of the Lac de la Gruyère. Together, we made our way to the most famous mountain in the area: Le Moléson....

Enjoying the Monday off for Knabenschiessen, I was free to do my first solo hike in quite a while. Usually I get tempted to cover fairly epic distances on such solo hikes, when I don't have to take anybody else into account. This time however, I was still tired from a two day tour in the Göschenertal over the weekend, so I...

Thank god for September, trying to do its best to make up for a lost summer. Another fine weekend brought the opportunity to complete a two day tour in the Göschenertal that has been on my tick list for a long time.   ---   When David and I get off the train atGöschenen, our goal for the day is already on the...

The Tälli Klettersteig was, when it opened in 1993, the first real via ferrata in Switzerland. Through kletterportal.ch, I met up with Steffi to do this route, her first via ferrata, together. ---- The Tälli cable car starts immediately next to the Sustenpass road near Gadmen. Since you can see directly from the bottom...

For once, I left the organisation of a hike to someone else. I joined Konrad's suggestion of climbing the Mittetaghorn (or simply Mittaghorn), a mountain in canton Glarus that I hadn't even heard about before. With seven persons in total, we met up in Elm for this hike in the "Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona" UNESCO World Heritage...

With the Gotthard being the nearest location to Zürich where sunshine could be expected, it was a good opportunity to try out one of the routes in the recently published SAC guidebook "Alpinwandern/Gipfelziele Gotthard": Monte Prosa (along its south ridge) and Pizzo Fortünei. ---- It's a scary sight travelling through the...

The Jegihorn (or Jägihorn) Klettersteig is the highest via ferrata in Switzerland, summiting at 3206 m above sea level. Still, access is relatively easy, thanks to the Hohsaas cable car, or (as we did) with an overnight stay at the SAC Weissmieshütte.   First the bad news: the difficult "Zitterpartie" variation...

For my brother's initiation into via ferrata, we picked the Aletsch via ferrata. The route circles around the Gibidum reservoir (which received its water from the Aletsch glacier) without much ascent. A good thing for my brother, since he was still recovering from the MountainMan half marathon the day before.   ----...