When I was a kid, my family did a lot of camping and backpacking. I’ve maintained a real love of hiking ever since. This blog post describes my first real hike since arriving in Europe. Chris and I tried a hike in the Jura mountain range, which didn’t really materialize as we had expected, and we did complete a great “hike ” in Spain with Jose and Susan and family which was fabulous and which I will feature in a future blog post, but that was only about 2 kilometers each way, which doesn’t qualify as a “hike” in my mind.

This hike however, was different. I had about 8 hours to kill in Mantreux while Chris and Holly rode something called the “chocolate train” (no description necessary), so I found this hike in my guidebook called “Hiking in Switzerland”.  The hike started in a small village called Caux (near Mantreux) and features a 1,100 meter climb along a 6 kilometer (each way) trail up to the Rockers de Naye. Yep, all uphill on the way out, and all downhill on the way back. But keep in mind that a 1,100 meter climb is the equivalent of about 3,300 feet, or a 330 story building. Good thing I had 8 hours to complete the hike.

I aim for about a 3 minute limit on these blog posts. This one might be a little longer after you view the videos. But bear with me, it will be worth it, if your interested in the hiking possibilities in Europe. No kidding, this was incredible, as you will see. I’m going to let the pictures (and videos) do most of the talking on this post!

Starting here.

Here are some of the views I had on my way up.

Beautiful view of Lac Leman

View of A25 Highway through Montreux

Check this video out. This guy has a great view, but I wouldn’t want to have to mow his lawn.

Here’s me speaking French to some fellow hikers!

Here’s a look at the trail approaching the top.

The trail includes segments like this one through the forest

And here’s my moment of reaching the summit!

On the way back down, this video captures the awesome majesty of this hike.

Finally, I recorded this signoff as I descended the mountain. I screwed up the video, but the audio is the most important part of this one.