High altitude day hike in Switzerland

July 17, 2017 8:35 PM

Traveling to Switzerland for meetings next week and have an extra day to do some hiking before coming home. As I'm currently training for Kilimanjaro, I would like to try to do a good 5-10 hour high altitude climb. Can anyone suggest a good day trip I can take solo?

Never been to the area. What peak should I attempt? Non-technical only ie. hiking boots and poles only. Meetings end in Lausanne on Thursday evening and I fly out of Zurich early Sunday morning.

Thank you!

posted by gillianr to Health & Fitness (3 answers total)

Best answer: 1) Take the train from Lausanne to Sion along the shores of Lake Geneva.
2) take the post bus from Sion to the Grande Dixence Dam. This is a huge dam that is very impressive.
3) Walk along the side of the Lac des Dix and eventually over the Pas de Chevres (about 10m of vertical ladders here just FYI.) The Pas de Chevres is 2855m in altitude. Walk back down the other side of the pass to Arolla for tea & medals and the post bus back to Sion.
posted by el_presidente at 11:43 PM on July 17, 2017

I have lots of suggestions, but I can't tell if you are looking for exclusively high altitude hikes, or maybe just good old fashioned strenuous hikes, perhaps with some real height exposure.

We walked up the Gemmi Pass, leaving from Leukerbad. It is pretty steep, but eminently doable for almost anyone. At the top it is then almost flat to the Hotel Schwarenbach- a real mountain hotel, not a hut. We then went over a route called the Rote Chummi, which was not as steep but much more wild and deserted. This ended in Engstligenalp, where we stayed overnight and took the cable car down the pass.
If it is real height exposure you are looking for , then take a Via Ferrata- Iron Way- walk. I took the one in Mürren, and while it is pretty darn safe if you follow the rules and stay clipped in with your rented harness and helmet, it might scare the pants off of you with an 800 meter drop under the aforementioned pants.
posted by Tunierikson at 6:17 AM on July 18, 2017

There are tons and tons of places you can go. The entire country is filled with well marked and well groomed hiking paths, including up to many mountains. I don't know a place that is exclusively very high altitude, but many high altitude peaks will still be snow covered and will most probably require actually mountaineering equipment. Still , you can do a ton of stuff without such equipment including many many many hikes. This website is filled with information about hiking routes: http://www.wanderland.ch/en/hiking-in-switzerland.html

I'd recommend that you surf through this site and read (in English!!!) about different routes near where you are staying or planning to stay and choosing one (or choose several). Many areas have tourist offices which can help you choose what you want to do which you should be able to call up as well. Say you want to go to Grindelwald? You can easily telephone or email the tourist office there and they'll be able to recommend several routes that fit your wishes. If you want to go to mountains near Luzern, the tourist offices there can recommend routes for you as well. The main problem you'll have is the absolute huge number of amazing options...

Good luck.
posted by jazh at 8:01 AM on July 18, 2017