autumn hiking in the swiss alps (verbier, switzerland)

Posted by torytolles | Filed under Switzerland

A few weeks ago, as a favor (!?) to the environmental policy lawyer I’m interning with, Chris and I brought her two dogs (Brit, 1 year old, and Tessa, 3) to their professional dog-sitter in the ALPS. Tough life, I know. Two trains and a bus ride later, we arrived in the picturesque skiing village of Verbier having wrecked minimal havoc with the two golden retrievers in tow. In the dark Chris and I tried to pick our way up the mountain path to the apartment… and we would have climbed for hours had it not been for Tessa, the older and wiser golden. She resisted my not-so-gentle tugging and nosed her way down a concealed trail to our home for the weekend. Thank you Tessa! We dropped our bags and returned outside to play in the snow.

After an hour and a half of running and wrestling, Brit and I were still having a wonderful time…

… but Tessa was ready to go in.

The next day Chris’ fellow interns from Shelter Centre [Shh! It's a secret! -ed.] joined us for an amazing hike. Snow had already accumulated in the mountains, as you can see above, and our “trail” quickly devolved into “wherever the group happens to slog through the knee-deep snow.” The village in the background is Verbier.

Mountains are tall in Switzerland! After Chris voted to not keep the dogs long enough for our hike, he complained all day about how much fun they would’ve been.

It got hot.

And sunny. This is our friend Simon. He’s from England. What a stud.

We made it to the top around 3PM and I felt like Johanna Spyri’s Heidi looking out across the valley. Simon’s girlfriend, Clem, and I had a wonderful trek down the snow-covered road while Chris and the rest took the more geographically direct - but chronologically longer - off piste expedition. They did not get down until after dark; I was a little nervous.

The next day we visited the Barrage de Mauvoisin, this crazy huge dam near Verbier. Sorry our photo doesn’t do it justice - it was also very cold and windy and pictures were not a priority. To give you a sense of scale, those are real people in the middle of the photo. Map below - see Mauvoisin in the lower right?

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Permalink | December 5th, 2008

7 Responses to “autumn hiking in the swiss alps (verbier, switzerland)”

Zdenko Juskuv Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Explain the whole snow and t-shirt thing. You guys are awesome.
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yeah, me again Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I am always so happy when I see you have a new entry posted!! The pictures are amazing; thanks for sharing the experience. Just wow.
xo mom
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dory Says:
December 6th, 2008 at 4:35 am
dogs = tiggidy tight.
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Able Parris Says:
December 8th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
That looks awesome!
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kcho Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 12:33 am
the dogs look like so much fun!
The snow! its snowing a little in NY right now! white Christmas?!
chris my final was freaking awesome. i donno. I was just like God thanks!
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