Hiking

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I’ve made some good friends hiking up Le Salève!

Have I mentioned that I like hiking up Geneva’s local mountain the Salève? I like hiking up the Salève so much that I’ve done it 80 times. Yes, for some obsessive compulsive reason, I’ve kept count.

In past posts, like this one, I’ve chronicled my hikes up with various family members and friends. Most of the time, though, I’m alone. And because I’m kind of a friendly Gus, I am always on the lookout for potential hiking companions who are there to hike the mountain at the same time as me. Continue reading →

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Greg was here to hike for a week. It’s Game On!

My friend Greg came for a visit, and he came with just one objective. To better the record of my other friend Pat M. who was here a couple months back and hiked about 50 miles with me on his 6 day visit. Greg told me that he had been training for this week by hiking up and down stairs near his house along the nearby Mississippi River, which is the closest thing they’ve got to the Swiss alps.

So, here we go. Two physically fit, adventure seeking, hiking enthusiasts going mano a mano (albeit a month or so apart) for the undisputed title of “Top Visiting Swiss Sojourner Hiking Partner”. Continue reading →

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My friend Pat throws down the hiking gauntlet on all future visitors.

Meet my good friend and notoriously-slow-Snickers-candy-bar-eater Pat M. He was just here for six days. I’ve known Pat since we were teammates on a powerhouse third grade boys soccer team back in the late ’60s. These days, Pat spends much of his time working outdoors as a wetlands scientist so I knew he would be up for a solid week of hiking and exploring in the Swiss and French Alps. He did not disappoint. Continue reading →

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Death or Glory! We hike 2,100 meters up to snowy Piz Gloria on Schilthorn!

Followers of this blog will recall my affinity for the Lauterbrunnen Valley and the mountains of the Bernese Oberland region, including the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau mountains. I’ve taken virtually every visitor we’ve had to Lauterbrunnen, usually incorporationg the hike between Grutschalp and Murren, then down to Stechelberg and back to Lauterbrunnen through the valley.

But every time I’ve been there, when the weather was clear, I’d glance up the valley to the highest peak, called Schilthorn and say to myself, “Some day I will hike all the way up there.” I mentioned this to one of my favorite hiking companions, Patrick, who was in town for a visit, and the two of us decided it would be a great adventure and a lot of fun to hike it together. Continue reading →

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I took an epic solo hike along the south coast of the Portofino peninsula in Italy

I’ve written before on hiking the Cinqua Terra trail along the Mediterranean coast in northern Italy, an adventure I’ve done twice – once with Patrick and again with my friends Ken and Jane. This time, on a trip to Italy with our most frequent visitors Cliff and Ellen, we had the opportunity to explore a new stretch of the Italian Mediterranean coastline, the Portofino peninsula. Continue reading →

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If you come for a visit, I will take you to Lauterbrunnen.

We were visiting friends in Paris a couple months ago, comparing notes about places we’d been in Switzerland, when my friend asked me, “Have you been to Lauterbrunnen?” When I replied in the negative, he responded, “Oh, you’ve got to go to Lauterbrunnen.” The very next weekend, we got in the car and traveled the 2 hour 15 minute drive (which is a lovely trip by the way, past Gruyère, Bern, and Interlaken) to go and see how beautiful this area is for ourselves. Continue reading →

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Pat and Chris came to visit and we hiked our rear ends off, both literally AND figuratively!

As followers of this blog are undoubtedly aware, one of my favorite things to do here in Geneva and elsewhere across Europe is hiking. So when our two sons expressed an interest in getting a lot of hiking in during their 2-week visit, I was happy to comply. The best part, of course, would be the time spent exploring the great outdoors with the boys, but as an added benefit, we’d achieve a common fitness goal: to be in better shape after the two week vacation than we were beforehand.

Here’s a day-by-day rundown (with photographic evidence) of our hiking regimen during their two week visit to Geneva and points beyond. Continue reading →

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My first real Swiss hike: 1000 meters verticle up to the Rochers de Naye

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. Continue reading →