High Times in the Swiss Alps : Hiking Inn to Inn in the Bernese Oberland

My trekking companions looked at me as if I’d had too much Alpine sun when I gasped a confession on the fourth day of our up-and-down ramble through a bucolic slice of the Swiss Alps:

“I really don’t like to hike much.”

Uh oh, I thought. What a silly thing to say after we’d trekked together some 30 miles the preceding three days, up alp and down alp, gaining and losing more than 15,000 feet of elevation. I tried to rationalize:

“I love being in the mountains, but hiking up into them can be a real drag.”

That seemed to help explain it some, but not much.

What I really meant was that my previous mountain hiking experience had consisted primarily of trudging, out of condition and overloaded, up hot, dusty, sagebrush-lined trails to reach the sparkling high country of California’s Sierra Nevada. I love the region at timberline and above. But getting there is not even a fraction of the fun.

And in part, my anti-hiking declaration was an excuse for not taking seriously enough the admonition in the brochure from Ryder-Walker Alpine Adventures that YOU NEED TO BE FIT to really enjoy this inn-to-inn trek through the pre-alps, or high foothills, of the southwestern Bernese Oberland.

Literally, the Oberland is the “upper land” of the canton of Bern, an east-west escarpment rising from the north bank of the Rhone River. To adventure travelers today, the word “trek” connected with mountains connotes Nepal or Tibet or Greenland or Antarctica, pushing into virgin territory, exploring the unknown, and often suffering at least some hardship and certainly inconvenience.

But trekking the Alps? Hannibal crossed them in 218 BC and Mt. Blanc was climbed in 1786. There are vast stretches of the California Sierra that have had less exploration than the Swiss Alps. They are forested with cable-car towers. They have hotel-like huts on virtually every major mountain flank. There are hydroelectric projects and even hideaway Swiss Army redoubts.

Even so, the Alps can provide an adventuresome wilderness experience and outright danger to the unwary. As in the Sierra, it is easy to find isolation by wandering a short distance from the most popular tourist sites. At the same time, the compactness of the country and the location of villages in high mountain valleys make it possible for the trekker to combine the daytime enjoyment of a stark wilderness with the conveniences and pleasures of first-rate hotels and restaurants.

But you do need to be fit, as the Ryder-Walker brochure cautioned. Swiss trails can be quite strenuous, often more so than those in the Sierra since they often shoot nearly straight up an Alpine slope while U.S. trails tend to ascend more gently up switchbacks.

I paid for my inattention to the fitness admonition more in bruised ego than any real physical punishment--other than normal weariness at the end of the day and moderately sore muscles. The three days up to the time of my hiking slur had consisted largely of my huffing and puffing up Himalayan-scale hillsides while the figures of my companions grew smaller and smaller in the distance ahead. Sheep munched grass and mocked me with their “baaaaaas.” Swiss cow bells clanked, “slowpoke, slowpoke.”

I would finally drag myself up to a rest spot, red-faced and sweat-drenched, just as the others stuffed their water bottles back in their packs and turned, happy and refreshed, upward, bounces in their steps.

I swear somebody actually was humming, “The hills are alive with the sound of music. . . .”

My nonstop Swissair flight from Los Angeles touched down in Geneva on a late Thursday afternoon in August. The train from the airport to the city center took me to within a block of my hotel. Up Friday at 6 a.m., I took a commuter-hour train along the

shore of Lake Geneva through Lausanne and Montreux and past the castle of Chillon, made famous by Lord Byron’s 1816 poem, “The Prisoner of Chillon.”

The alternating urban-suburban-rural lakeside evolved into pastoral valley and vineyard beyond the eastern end of the lake, with fleeting glimpses of the snowy peaks of the Mt. Blanc range off to the right. After another hour eastward, up the Rhone, I transferred at Brig for the short trip up the Lotschen Valley and through the tunnel to Kandersteg, arriving at the starting point for our trek in less than three hours from Geneva.

Officially, the trek began with a cocktail-hour meeting and get-acquainted session on the patio of the four-star Hotel Doldenhorn. The hotel is set back against a forested hillside a mile from Kandersteg, a tourist and farming village of about 1,000 residents situated on the Kander River.

Fortunately, the patio of the chalet-style hotel had a roll-down canopy because a drenching, booming thunderstorm arrived with the beer and wine.

There were 13 of us--11 plus Karen and Peter Walker, the leaders who own and run Ryder-Walker tours out of their home near Telluride, Colo. The Walkers retain Ryder in their company name in memory of John Ryder, who was killed in a climbing accident in the French Alps just as he and Peter were embarking on their tour business partnership in 1975.

My fellow trekkers included several couples who were veterans of past Ryder-Walker tours. They had tuned up by making the previous week’s trek through the morefamiliar section of the Bernese Oberland to the east: Grindelwald, the Lauterbrunnen Valley and the high foothills of the Jungfrau and the Eiger.

Carrie, a realtor from Aspen, and her friend Joan, a San Francisco and London socialite, were on their third consecutive weeklong trek. They were the tigers of the group, always hiking in front and taking the hardest trails.

The three first-timers were Bob, a stockbroker from Florida, Randy, a lawyer from San Francisco, and myself. Most were 40ish baby boomers or 50-something professionals. All were interesting and companionable people. That all were in better shape than me was becoming grimly evident as they told tales of their recent hiking experiences and conditioning.

Peter, a slim rock-climbing/mountaineering type with a ready grin, stood by a patio table as rain drummed on the canvas canopy. Between sips of beer and grimaces at the weather, he outlined the days ahead.

Each would consist of hiking eight to 12 miles with elevation gains of 2,500-4,000 feet at heights of up to 8,000 feet or so. The pattern would fall into comfortable familiarity: breakfast at the hotel at 7 a.m. followed by shopping in town for lunch provisions, off at 9 a.m. to hike up to the ridge crest to the west, then down into the next valley and village, arriving most days at 4:30 or 5 p.m. Check into the hotel or inn, see if the local cable has CNN news (usually it did not), shower, dinner and bed.

At first, the schedule seemed to have a certain military rigor to it. But the Walkers, both in their 30s, provided considerable flexibility, patience and good humor. And lugging a lot of weight was not a problem: Our bags would be shuttled to the next night’s stop for us. We carried light day packs with jackets, lunch, water, cameras, sunscreen and lip balm.

From Kandersteg, the overnight stops were in the towns--all different and all delightful--of Adelboden, Lenk, Gstaad, Chateau d’Oex and Montreaux.

Each night, we stayed in a three-star or four-star hotel either used on previous Ryder-Walker tours or checked out carefully by Karen and Peter in advance. We ate supper and breakfast as a group in our hotels.

I am no epicure, but to me the food was consistently good to excellent. Generally, it was continental--not the heavy spaetzel and schnitzel of Bavaria, for example. Breakfast was standard continental: juice, muesli, sliced meat, cheese and rolls. For our picnic lunches, we shopped individually in bakeries and convenience groceries for bread, cheese, meat, candy and fruit.

Dinner conversation was lively and varied, from the hurricane that was hitting Florida that week to the falling dollar and troubles in the Middle East. Weary from that day’s hike and facing similar rigors the next, however, our group did not seek out much after-supper night life.

The first morning out, I began to discover that hiking the Swiss way had some pleasant advantages. I started to shed some of my Sierra-bred biases about mountain travel. There is, for example, no glory in grunting up a steep mountainside under a 45-pound pack stuffed with tent, sleeping bag and other gear if the hiker has access to affordable lodging wherever he or she wants to lodge. In Switzerland, that is almost always possible, depending on what you consider affordable.

The first steps on the first day were quite easy--onto the tram car that took us up nearly 1,800 feet to Allmenalp, a popular launching point for para-gliders. Another happy fact of Alpine hiking is that cable cars and ski lifts that work with Swiss precision and Swiss cleanliness whisk trekkers in minutes into wilderness that would take hours to reach on foot. Tip: Always keep your tram ticket. At every interim stop and on the return trip, a man, usually in drab green uniform, is there to punch it.

There were several times when I did not hesitate to take a tram while the others hiked. One such time, on the third morning, provided one of those exquisite experiences that become true vacation memories.

We all took the first stage of the tram en route to 7,000-foot Truttlisberg Pass separating Lenk’s Simme Valley from the three watercourses that ultimately join to produce the Sanne Valley of Gstaad (locally pronounced statt ).

Everyone else piled out and began hiking. I stayed on the cable car and rode another 1,000 feet up to Bergstation Leiterli, a virtually new mountain inn built in traditional Swiss style with overhanging eaves and carved wooden trim and shutters.

I used my extra time to wander the sparkling corridors and dining areas paneled in varnished knotty pine, taking in the wildflower prints, pottery and modern tabletop sculptures. Then I lazed on the outside balcony in the morning sunlight sipping coffee, soaking in the Alpine panorama and enjoying the luxury of watching the others hike up toward me for a change.

The setting was typical of our trek. The sky was a deep blue at this elevation. While it had been a dry summer, luscious green grass and wildflowers still came to mid-calf. The cable cars and alp-side inns would be prohibited in American mountain wilderness areas, but somehow fit into the Alpine scene without jarring the senses.

The hiker becomes accustomed to the cows grazing nearly everywhere (the German word alp means mountain meadow or pasture). Each day’s hike to the high country unveils a new panorama of high peaks still being sculpted by the glaciers that blanket their faces and shoulders. Glacier-fed streams drop to the lower valleys down stair-step waterfalls.

Swiss mountain trails are well-kept. There is no litter or graffiti. In fact, some critics complain that Switzerland is just too neat and clean, too quaint, too Swiss-precise and perfect, a Disneyland of a country, primarily for the benefit of the tourist dollar.

I have no such problem. I think it is that way largely by tradition and because the Swiss care about their mountain environment. It is expensive, but all of Europe is. One acquaintainance of mine suggested: “The Swiss have a remarkable way of taking money from you and making you enjoy it immensely.”

My trek mates finally joined me on the balcony at Leiterli and before long we continued our grueling 11-mile day that ended with a spectacular walk along and down the spiny Wasserngrat (“watery ridge”) into Gstaad.

The previous day, Sunday, had provided another special experience and helped to dispel more apprehensions about a group trek. This was one of those days where Peter and Karen offered us easier-harder hiking options. Most of the group followed Peter on the standard route between Adelboden and Lenk over 6,500-foot Hahenmoos Pass.

Karen led Carrie, Joan, Randy and me across the spectacular Engstligenalp, a mountain bowl about a mile and a half across at the foot of the flat twin peaks of the 10,643-foot Wildstrubel. From the grassy alp and packed dirt trail, the path steepened and became studded with limestone outcrops as we climbed to the wild, rocky Ammerten Pass (8,000 feet) in windy, chill, gray weather.

On the way up, we saw a red fox joust at a distance with a Swiss cow, which refused to give ground. The fox thought the better of this venture, turned and trotted out of sight up a gully. Then we heard a massive rumbling sound off toward the Wildstrubel. The weather was cloudy, but not the stuff of thunderstorms. Karen guessed the sound came from an unseen avalanche or rock fall.

Once on top, we spied half a dozen brown chamois, the nimble mountain goat of the Alps. Their heads popped up as they saw, heard or smelled us and they sprinted glacier-ward.

The route down to Lenk--a drop of 4,500 feet in a few miles--was equally spectacular. At first, the narrow, faint trail snaked back and fourth down the slope of rock and glacial debris beneath the 8,700-foot Ammertenhorn. After half a mile, the trail and the Ammertenbach stream spilled out into grassy slopes. The creek waters were frothy from their tumble over boulders and milky colored from glacial silt.

The tiger ladies and Randy raced ahead. By now, the sun had emerged, melting the gloom of the gray rock and gray sky at the pass. Karen and I sat in the grass by the roaring stream and in the shade of a chalet-size boulder to eat lunch.

Coming over the pass was the only time during the trek that we needed jackets to cut the cold, or because of the threat of rain. Otherwise, the skies were sunny with temperatures in the low 70s. We hiked in shorts and shirt sleeves, with sweaters or sweat shirts in the cooler mornings and evenings.

Just below our lunch spot, Karen and I had to lunge from rock to rock to cross the river because the Friday storm had washed out the bridge. The last rock tipped as I landed on it and sent me plunging into glacial water up to mid-calf. An elderly Swiss couple looked on, smiling, as I wrung out my socks.

Not far below our lunch spot, two other streams join the Ammertenbach to form the Simme River, which then plunges through a rocky gorge and rushes down a man-made channel through a misty forest--troll habitat for certain. At times, the trail follows the river (no fences to protect the unwary). At others, it meanders through the forest, around gnarled evergreen roots, among ferns and mossy boulders. In minutes, though, we come to the line between forest and valley, shade and sunlight, and the inevitable restaurant and bus stop. The last bus of the day was loading up for the four-mile ride into Lenk. I looked for the Coke machine and Karen noticed the bus was ready to leave. Carrie, Joan and Randy were crunched among the standees.

“We could try to get on the bus, or hike on into town. It’s a real pretty walk,” she said.

We hiked. Each slap of my boots on the blacktop was a jolt to a weary body. Unfazed, Karen chattered about hiking experiences in Switzerland and winter survival in Colorado. I mumbled an occasional assent to whatever she was saying.

But this day also dispelled more notions about hiking in Switzerland, which has an estimated 22,000 miles of foot trails. The system includes the graded, or even paved, wanderweg , the wanderer’s paths that often draw crowds of Swiss and tourists. But much of our travel each day was over the steeper, primitive and isolated bergweg, the mountain trail.

Crowds were never a problem, even though this was peak season. In the high country, we went hours without seeing other hikers. The terrain was always varied and became more pastoral as one balmy day blended into another and we moved westward. The leg from Gstaad to Chateau d’Oex leaves German-speaking Switzerland and enters the French.

Of the towns we visited, Gstaad, with an area population of about 7,000, was the largest, the most touristy and the most crowded--the only one with anything resembling a modern high-rise hotel to mar the Swiss-village atmosphere.

Gstaad is glitz, the rich and famous, winter kitsch and summer tennis and music festivals. The main street is gilded with Paris-London-New York store logos. It was the one place where our hotel had true European-style rooms, barely large enough to turn around in.

But Gstaad still has its charm. Our hike into town took us past one of the most perfect classic old Swiss farmhouses, with wood sides burnished amber by age and highlighted by brilliant red geraniums in window boxes.

After supper, I sipped coffee and cognac at a sidewalk cafe and watched a table full of Swiss Army men chatter and joke among themselves and flirt with the women two tables away. No glitz here, just young people enjoying themselves on a summer evening.

I took the next day off for morning shopping and sightseeing, caught a bus to Col du Pillon and rode the cable car up to the Glacier des Diablerts at 10,000 feet. I absorbed the glacier and peaks, and a view that ranged from the Eiger to Mt. Blanc, hiked part way down, and took the train on to Chateau d’Oex in time for supper with my group.

Twenty-four hours later, I was on Swissair’s DC-11 nonstop back to Los Angeles.

In all, the trek surpassed my expectations. One key was the pleasant, low-key manner in which the Walkers handled what could be a demanding clientele. If someone lagged behind the rest, one of them watched to make sure everything was all right. At the same time, there was no feeling of being coddled, shepherded or pressured.

Randy LeBlanc, the San Francisco lawyer, told me later he found the tour a perfect tonic for the stress of his professional life.

“On every other vacation I’ve taken, it always took three to four days for me to unwind,” said LeBlanc, 44. “This is the first vacation I’ve taken where I was relaxed and had basically forgotten where I came from in the first 24 hours.”

LeBlanc liked the region so well, he booked his family into a chalet in Lenk for a week of hikes and wandering about the Oberland this coming summer.

Would I do it again, or try a similar one? It depends. With the experience I gained from this trek, I might try to put together my own itinerary, splitting time between mountain huts and the villages, between climbing and hiking in the high peaks and leisurely wandering in the valleys.

The one point where Randy and I might differ is the town to use as a base camp. He chose Lenk, perhaps because it is a larger town with a few more amenities than, say, Kandersteg. I would pick Kandersteg, precisely because it is more rural and closer to impressive mountains. But it’s a close call.

GUIDEBOOK

Climbing the Matterhorn

Getting there: The skiing village of Zermatt, at the foot of the Matterhorn, is accessible by rail from both Geneva and Zurich. International rail connections link up at Brig for a 90-minute, narrow-gauge ride through the romantic, rugged Visp Valley to Zermatt; one-way tickets are $27 second-class, $45 first, double for round trip. Motorists can drive as far as Tasch, from which shuttle trains go the remaining three miles to Zermatt, with departures every 20 minutes. Free parking is available in Tasch, as well as in Visp, for motorists wishing to continue by rail; no motor-driven vehicles are allowed in Zermatt.

Where to stay: There are 110 hotels and pensions in Zermatt, most under local family management and in all price ranges, and 300 seasonal apartment rentals (called “holiday” apartments). We stayed at the centrally located City Hotel, with about 30 rooms and a scrumptious breakfast for about $100 double; from the U.S., telephone 011-41-28-67- 2071, fax 011-41-28-67-5686.

How to arrange a climb: A good first step is to call or write the Swiss National Tourist Office, 222 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 1570, El Segundo 90245, (310) 335-5980, fax (310) 335-5982, for a Matterhorn fact sheet. Potential climbers should plan to spend enough time in Zermatt to allow for climbs of other peaks, and the five or six days that it might take to arrange for a guide. Guides take only one client per climb. The Zermatt Guides’ Office does not book guides in advance from the United States; instead, check in at the office upon arrival there.

Costs: Most guides charge about $400-$450 plus a suggested tip of 10%-15%. That does not include costs of roughly $140, paid by the climber, for overnighting, dinner and breakfast at the Hornli hut. In addition, each climber must be insured for mountain accidents and possible rescue transportation. The half-day climb of the Riffelhorn with guide costs approximately $220. If the climb is completed successfully, a special certificate and handsome medal are available at the guides’ office for about $20.

GUIDEBOOK

Finding Bliss With the Swiss

Getting there: Swissair flies nonstop from Los Angeles to Geneva and from Los Angeles to Zurich. There is a current “winter sale” price of $548 midweek and $598 weekends, round trip. Delta offers connecting flights through London, Paris and Frankfurt for winter sale prices of $498 midweek, $548 weekends, round trip, with ticketing by Friday and travel by March 17. Thereafter, United joins Delta and others with a midweek fare of $748.

Kandersteg is reached from Geneva via Lausanne, Martigny and Brig, changing trains in Brig and then heading north through the nine-mile-long Lotschberg Tunnel. From Zurich, Kandersteg may be reached by express train to Bern, there transferring to the Spiez-Lotschberg-Brig train. On Swissair, baggage may be checked in Los Angeles to one’s final rail destination. Bags also may be checked directly to LAX at the railway station from which you begin the return trip.

Where to stay: On our trip, the Ryder-Walker organization booked the hotels. Generally, they were three-star lodgings and were excellent. The room charge and meals (except lunch) normally are included in the package price of such tours. Trekkers can arrange their own itinerary and book their own hotels by using the guide published by the Swiss Hotel Assn. Hotel rates in Kandersteg range from about $25 up to $200 per person, varying in quality from one star to five and depending on meals included, bath facilities, size of room and the like.

Trekking tours: One of my trek mates researched 30-40 different tours before deciding on Ryder-Walker. The treks most similar to ours include those of Mountain Travel/Sobek, 6420 Fairmount Ave., El Cerrito, Calif. 94530, (800) 227-2384, ranging from 10 days and $1,650 to 14 days for the strenuous Alpine Pass Route for $2,390.

REI Adventures, P.O. Box 1938, Seattle, Wash. 98390-0800, (800) 622-2236, has a leisurely moderate eight-day tour of the Austrian Tyrol for $1,275-$1,350, depending on the number participating, and a 15-day Alpine Pass camping trek for $1,295-$1,395.

Alpine Adventure Trails Tours, 783 Cliffside Drive, Akron, Ohio 44313-5609, (216) 867-3771, has nine two-week tours working out of base-camp villages and costing $2,592 each.

In 1993, Ryder-Walker is offering 13 tours averaging a week in length and running $1,550-$1,700 per person, double occupancy (singles pay an additional $125 a week for rooming alone). Ryder-Walker is at P.O. Box 947, Telluride, Colo. 81435, (303) 728-6481.

For more information: Contact the Swiss National Tourist Office, 222 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles 90245, (310) 335-5980 or fax (310) 335-5982.