I'm just trying to walk myself home.
Browsing Tag
Picking Blackberries I get so excited when I start to see berries on the trail. And it’s even more fun when I am walking with someone who shares my enthusiasm for picking them. This past summer, we found blueberries, blackberries and raspberries on the Via Alpina. And blackberries were absolutely everywhere along our summer hikes …
Life Goals Taido and I say to each other all the time that we want to keep hiking well into our old age. Then this summer, only a few days into the Via Alpina, I was starting to think thoughts like: I think this might be my last serious mountain climb. It’s time for me …
No One Feeds You Like The Swiss The Swiss Mountain Hut Breakfast might be my favorite Swiss Meal. A close cousin to German breakfast, the offerings are both predictable and plentiful. There will always be muesli, which is kind of like granola, but without any sweetener. A staple of the Swiss breakfast table, muesli …
Counting Steps on the Via Alpina I know I’ve mentioned it once or twice but the hiking trails of the Via Alpina (and really throughout Switzerland) are impossibly steep. Here’s how most days of our Swiss hiking days unfold: You crane your neck all morning looking up at the next pass, hiking the relentlessly uphill …
MINI WALKING STORIES Mini Walking Stories is a project I’m doing this month to catalog a fabulous year of walking. Every day during December, I’m going to choose one photo and invite you to come along with me for a few minutes on one of the walks I took in 2022. Read more stories here. …
MINI WALKING STORIES Mini Walking Stories is a project I’m doing this month to catalog what has been an AMAZING year of walking. Every day during December, I’m going to choose one photo and invite you to come along with me for a few minutes on one of the walks I took in 2022. Read …
Hiking in Switzerland: Before we moved back to the US, we spent two weeks hiking in Switzerland together as a way to wrap up our four years in Europe.
Well, my month of posting about Switzerland has come to an end, and next week I will be turning the page on the summer and begin sharing all the fun from my latest adventure of walking Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Trail with my friend, Diane. But my memories of Switzerland would not be complete without …
Our last walk in Engelberg began like so many others. Heading up, up, up into the forest. Morning light catching the forest floor and making me wonder if I was going to be too warm in my long sleeves. Then we would emerge from the forest and be up high, where we could see a …
I mentioned yesterday that we walked to and from the village of Engelberg several times every day. Sometimes we went for groceries and other times to the visitor center to use the WiFi. Most days we walked through on our way to another hike in the area or to reach the local abbey to buy …
Because this hike was the closest one to our house in Engelberg, we did the walk to Fluhmatt several times, and often as the beginning or ending portion of another hike. For that reason I almost did not do a blog post about it as its own walk. But then I decided to go ahead, …
One week in Switzerland the rain seemed to settle into our valley with no intention of leaving, so one morning we got up and drove the incredible Swiss tunnels through the mountains to a different valley in search of sunshine. And we found it. In Unterschachen, which was up the road from the town of …
After hiking so many trails right from our front door, you would think we would have run out of walks to do in Engelberg, but Taido always managed to find us another one. Sometimes they would begin the same way, with a steep hike up the town stairs and a view overlooking the village, but …
I think it’s probably clear by now that while we were in Switzerland, we were so taken with Engelberg that we would have been happy to never leave our little mountain home, but we decided that we should spend at least a few days seeing some other parts of Switzerland. Also, Taido was very keen …
Here’s the thing about choosing a favorite walk in Switzerland. It’s kind of hard because the whole month of walking the Swiss Alps is my favorite. But this walk to Stefali. Well, it was very special. Maybe it was the bright blue sky, or the crazy rushing waterfalls after several days of rain. Maybe it …
One of the most difficult hikes we did from the village of Engelberg was a climb up to this gorgeous alpine lake. Trubsee. It had rained the day after Peter and Whitney and our cousins went home, so we sat around the house and moped. They left from the train station in Engelberg with all …
The walk to the End of the World or to End der Welt was our last walk with our cousins before they left town. It was a hot, sticky day in Engelberg, but the skies were clear and the views of the mountains unobstructed. We walked from the village, past the Engelberg Abbey into the …
We spent one lovely day in Lucerne while Peter and Whitney were still with us in Switzerland. It is truly one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen in my life. I mean come on! If it’s not enough that it has mountain views and is situated on a gorgeous lake, but hello …
While we were traveling this summer, almost every time I posted a picture of Switzerland, someone would tell us that we HAD to ride a certain cable car or take a certain train. All the guidebooks and blog posts say the same thing. But here’s the thing. They are really expensive. A lot of them …
Our first walk in Switzerland was to a waterfall. All the signs said “Wasservall” so we kept saying we were walking to a “Wasservall.” Which reminded us of The Willoughbys. The Willoughbys is a favorite book of ours that we’ve listened to over and over again, and a little boy in the book pretends he …