A Weekend Hike at Mettmenalp

by lisa | 29 June 2013 09:24

Hiking in the mountains here is probably my favorite thing about Switzerland. It really is breathtakingly beautiful. We recently went hiking at Mettmenalp, which is about an hour from where we live. Mettmenalp is the oldest wilderness preservation area in Europe. We’ve hiked there before, but never this early in the year. The last time we went, we were able to get all the way up to the Leglerhütte, which is a Swiss Alpine Club hut that you can spend the night at. The trail is still too covered with snow to get up there without some winter hiking footwear so we didn’t go as high as last time.

Alpine lake along the hiking route

It may be late June, which to many of you seems like summer, but here in the mountains it’s still spring and the snow melt run-off is in full force. There is water pouring down from everywhere. The hiking trail was a bit like a river and all we could hear all around us was the sound of water.

Spring run-off

And the spring flowers were beautiful. This is why our cows are happy.

Spring flowers

Growing out of the rock face

Love these ones

We hiked up to the “Alp” hut. An alp hut is where the farmers live with their cows high in the alps during summer and make cheese. Last time we were here, there were cows everywhere grazing on the hillsides and you could stop at the alp hut and buy cheese. There are over 100 alp huts in Switzerland.

The alp hut

Still closed for the winter

An alp hut always has a few pigs around in addition to the cows. The pigs eat the left over whey that’s produced during the cheese making process. You can’t just dump all that whey out into the fields and streams so they keep pigs around to eat it all up.

I found this little wooden cow in the dirt by the hut

Ready to bale some hay?

The hillside didn’t have any cows yet, but it was beautiful.

Mr. Swiss Paleo

Here is our picnic lunch. Left over marinated flank steak, apricots, red peppers, cherry tomatoes and cashew nuts.

Lunch!

Don’t judge, but our hikes often include a little bit of laying around. We have a blanket that we take on every hike. Mr. Swiss Paleo has found the perfect spot to spread out the blanket so that we can soak up some Vitamin D.