travel – Vanie's View

Macun Lakes

March 14, 2025 by vaniecastro, posted in hikes, Travels

The Swiss National Park is a wonderful place to hike in autumn, when trees turn yellow and the ground into different shades of brown. Among the 21 hikes in the National Park, one of the most memorable I did (and there was many!) was the hike from Zernez to Lavin through the Macun Lakes (21 KM, 1550 m up and 1600 down, 8 hours, white-red-white).

As the technical details suggests, this hike is long and hard, but as with many hikes like that in Switzerland, it was all worth it. We started from our hotel in Zernez one fine sunny Friday morning. I read later that you could take a taxi to reduce the hike up, but we were too cool for that. Somehow, my hiking mate needed a mnemonic to remember our path. He came up with “Sir Nez had an affair with Avril Lavigne”. I guess it was effective because we still remember it now.

The walk up starts through meadows until we passed the tree line and then it’s pretty much rocky terrain until the top. It’s very easy to get lost in this part, so make sure to keep an eye on the white-red-white markings. Close to the top, there were chains to assist you to pull yourself up, but nothing dangerous that I could recall. On a few occassions, you might need to use your hands. The highlight of the hike is the colorful Macun lakes viewed from the highest point of the trail. Overall this hike is long and there’s no other trail that could make it shorter, but it was fun, pleaseant, and passes through various terrains.

There’s almost always a view to enjoy in this very long trail, and enjoy them we did. We took an unreasonable amount of photos that it took us more than 9 hours to complete the walk 🙂 We were lucky to have fantastic weather with us, and as it was a Friday, we only saw one other pair at the beginning of the hike. It did feel like we had the whole mountain to ourselves. The colors were amazing and unforgettable.

We did the hike on October 1, 2021, more than 4 years and X kilos ago 🙂 Norman took the train from Berlin a week after a very long phone call and after realizing I needed company. We went for a hiking-therapy long weekend in Engadine and took the steepest funicular ride to Pilatus. Until now, I have yet to return him that favor.

Aletsch Glacier

March 3, 2025March 3, 2025 by vaniecastro, posted in hikes

If you visit me and don’t have any preference where to go in Switzerland, you most likely will be taken for a hike to see the longest glacier in Europe – Aletsch. I have hiked and camped with family, friends, and colleagues to see this UNESCO World Heritage site 11 times! The views amazes me every time. Not to mention the SBB Day Pass or Coop Tageskarte includes the gondola rides, which is mostly not the case everywhere else. Now that I think about it, it’s probably the main driver why I take guests here. 🙂

There’s plenty of trail options in this area, but I always do a variation of this Summer Hike starting (more often) or ending at Fiescheralp.

Technical details: 17.54 KM, 1044m up / 840m down, Time: 05:52 (not including breaks)

Depending on the appetite for the day, we may end at Riederalp or Moohsfluh if we started from Fiescheralp. We did an overnight stay at Bettmeralp when we did the walk above. Though if one starts early enough, it could be done as a day trip from Basel. This hike includes a 1 KM long, usually very cold, foot tunnel which leads to Märjelensee. Don’t ignore the small ponds in this area, they make for interesting photos. Aside from the tunnel, it’s mostly walking under the sun, so make sure you are up and prepared for that.

During autumn, there are wild blueberries along the way. I also somehow associate alpine roses with this hike. My favourite lunch or snack break is somewhere along the trail just above Märjelensee where you can enjoy a view of the glacier connecting to the surrounding mountain range. On a clear day, you can see Matterhorn from the trail (it’s very small though, but still very recognizable). Also from Märjelensee, there’s a there and back trail that would take you to the glacier level where you can be close enough to touch it. It’s a red trail, but I found it not safe enough to take everybody (myself included). It’s a bit slippery and the trail is not always obvious. Do this only if you know what you’re doing.

In winter, we took the gondola to one of the view points and walk from there to Riederalp through Riederfurka or simply to one of the closer gondola stations.

One thing I’d like to try in the future is to do one of this Glacier Tours. Note to self: suggest the idea to the hiking best friend.

Kesch Trek++

February 26, 2025February 27, 2025 by vaniecastro, posted in hikes

Taken very close from Fuorcla Pischa on the way to Chamanna d’Es-cha

For the past 9 years I’ve been living in Switzerland, I estimate to have done more than a hundred hikes. In the early years, I would join hikes organized by the Hiking group of the Bank or friends including some when I would have been picked up in the morning in Basel and returned on the same spot in the evening. In the last couple years, I’ve been planning more of the hikes I do with friends and family. This process takes a couple of hours, sometimes days! What I realize over the years, is that there’s not a lot of content in English about hikes in Switzerland. Inspired by Wander We Go, I’ve decided to document the hikes I’ve done, if not for my future self, perhaps for someone who is need of ideas for what to do the next sunny weekend.

I will start with a week-long trip I did with my best friend on September 2024 at one of my favourite areas in Switzerland – Engadin. I found Kesch Trek on Wander We Go’s website but added a day to do the Joriseen lake hike and changed the last day’s hike. Spoiler: we didn’t manage to do see the lakes due to the unusual winter conditions in the area the week of our trip in September!

I summarize our plan below including the planned but had to cancel days. Note that the time mentiones below does not include breaks and photo ops 🙂

Day	Accommodation	Activity	Technical Details
1 – Planned but had to cancel	Flüela Hospiz, Passhotel	Jöriseen Lake Hike (Swiss Family Fun)	10.8 KM 750m up / 750m down Time: 05:05
1 – Actual	Alpine Inn Davos	Touristic activity and short winter hike from Weissfluhjoch to Höhenweg	Too touristic for technical details 🙂
2 – Planned but had to cancel		Hike from Flüela, Ospiz to Grialetsch Hütte	10.9 KM 1037m up / 885m down Time: 04:47
2 – Actual	Grialetsch Hütte	Winter hike from Dürrboden to Grialetsch Hütte	4.2 KM 558m up / 19m down Time: 02:27
3	Kesch Hütte	Hike from Grialetsch to Kesch Hütte	13 KM 857m up / 788 down Time: 04:37
4	Chamanna d’Es-cha	Hike from Kesch Hütte to Chamanna D’Es-cha	14 KM 1044m up / 1080 down Time: 05:26
5	Home	Return from d’Es-cha to close-to Porta d’Es-cha then down to Zuoz	10.66 KM 377m up / 1277m down Time: 04:38

Kesch Trek is a multi-day hike which have been marketed recently even outside Switzerland. In fact there were four other Dutch groups/couples doing the same path as us during our trip. We wanted to start with a bang by visiting the Jöriseen lakes and walking up a 3000-der peak on the way to the first hut of the trek – Grialetsch Hütte. We instead had to take a short but very interesting hike from Dürrboden. There was knee-deep snow in some places and I wished I brought my gaters. Otherwise, I was pleased to know that I could hike comfortably in these conditions using only my summer gear.

The Kesch Trek is for sure one of the most interesting hikes I’ve done in Switzerland. The views are fantastic, the trail include unbelievably beautiful valleys, rocky terrains, breath-taking, and sometimes very steep passes (Fuorcla Pischa). We saw cows (of course), horses and lots of marmots in the valley. The trail difficulty is between T2 and T3.

All the huts we stayed in were renovated in the last 5 years or so and offered basic amenities including showers (not for free though). The huts were in fantastic locations, super clean, and the food we had was hearty and delicious. The weather during our trip definitely made it more special. At Chamanna d’Es-cha, we even met two of few mountain uni-cyclists in the world!

On our last day, instead of walking down from the hut to the train station, we did a return trip up to close to Fuorcla d’Es-cha. It’s officially a blue trail but I think only if you do the pass, which some crazy people did! It was not advisable, again because of snow on the pass. We walked very close to it until we didn’t see any reasonable path to continue on. Either because it’s a blue trail or a weekday, not many people were there. In fact, we only heard voices from the pass but didn’t really see them. The terrain up there is rocky and the view down is amazing on a sunny weather.

The Kesch Trek is designed such that you end at Preda, but we took Wander We Go’s advise and walked down to the closest train station instead. This way we could spend the time to do the return trip to the pass.

The toughest part of the trip for me was the uphill climb to Fuorcla Pischa. It was steep up and rocky, but I didn’t feel it was dangerous. It’s really more that you have to have the stamina to continue walking until you reach the windy pass. The view from there is definitely worth the effort. Otherwise, the rest of the trail was relatively easy and enjoyable although I should mention that whenever there’s an option to walk on a valley or a single-lane-path carved on the side of a mountain, we consciously chose the less exciting but much safer valley walk.