The Sibe Hängste is a mountain in the Entlebuch-Emmental region, an area that I've come to love for its selection of interesting, "day hike sized" mountains and for the great views on the transition from Mittelland into Berner Oberland. Though there are no official hiking paths on the Sibe Hängste, the traverse of the whole...

Throwing in the following three ingredients... 1) Anxiety to finally properly start the 2015 hiking season 2) A good weather forecast for the whole weekend in the south 3) My intention to do some treks with bivouacs this year ...an ambitious plan was created: a two day hike from near Lake Como in Italy over the...

The Stockberg (the one near Siebnen at the entrance to the Wägital) has been described about as often as can be expected here on Hikr. With a modest altitude of 1212m and no particularly interesting ascent routes, the alpine hiker rather looks higher up the valley where many fabulous mountains await. The Stockberg has two massive...

Wat Phu Tok is located in the Isan region in eastern Thailand, near the city of Bueng Khan. It is a sandstone outcrop that rises some 100m above the plains in a spectacular fashion. A temple was founded on the hill relatively recently, in 1968. Ever since, the monks have been building and maintaining a spectacular set of wooden...

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...

This report has been lying around since the 21st of December. What should have been the first day of winter, turned out to be one of the last days of summer. Sunshine, hardly any snow, and even the forecasted strong wind was nowhere to be found. A great day for a solo hike across the Entlebuch summit Beichle. --- I've hardly...

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...

It's always satisfying to do a hike connecting two points, between which there are no roads whatsoever. This concept becomes even better when start and finish lie in two different countries. With this in mind, I planned this hike from Malbun in Liechtenstein to Gurtis in Austria. With the Galinaspitz, we could even include a nice...

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,...

Yorkshire was my home for almost four years. Nicknamed "God's own county", Yorkshire has some stunning landscapes on offer. It has become better known this year, being number three on Lonely Planet's top regions to visit in 2014 and successfully hosting the start of the Tour de France. Still, Yorkshire is a disgracefully empty...

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....