… When you were able to go to the mountains, spend quality time with your best friend, calm your wanderlust down with sun and snow and finally complete some urgent tasks of your pretty long to-do list. Sounds pretty full on, doesn’t it? Well it was but hey no complaint! With only 24 days, 22 hours and 52 minutes left until I board a plane to Cancun, I definitely have to make the most of my time in Switzerland. Luckily the weather has decided to play along and he offered us another gorgeous day up in the mountains!

On Saturday, we jumped in a car, direction the Berner Oberland, to hike the Elsighorn trail. After driving on a very interesting scenic road (you gotta love windy and narrow roads, don’t cha?), we parked at Elsigbach. According to our GPS, this was the fastest way up, go figure. Fastest? Not sure but definitely an adventurous one as locals seem to drive like rally pros. On the plus plus side, we avoided some traffic but still had to sit a while in traffic.  We reached the free parking easily and boarded the cable car that runs fairly often and in less than 15 minutes, we were up and ready to snowshoe!

A peaceful and beautiful wonderland was waited for us as the trail led us through an unspoiled area. It was a great warm up to start with a flat bit before hiking up to Elsighore. As the wind picked up along the way, our steep ascent was made pretty challenging. When we reached the 2’341 meters top, we were happily welcomed by a wonderful 360 view over the mountains and the Thuner lake. A Siberian wind forced us to “hide”behind a hut to picnick. This did not help much, the wind was merciless and within 5 minutes, our hands started to freeze. Our gloves were useless! We were therefore extremely grateful when an old man offered shelter to us in his tiny (tiny tiny) hut, well not exactly a hut, more his office, as he was in charge of the T-bar. The wind’s rage did not last long, it was more like a tantrum and soon enough, we were able to enjoy the view and start our descent to the cable car. What a beautiful day! I would highly recommend this trail.

Quick facts:

• Difficulty level: blue and red
• Distance: 8 km
• Walking time: 3 hours
• Happy snowshoers: 2 (perfect group size for this trail as it can be narrow and very steep)
• Bonus point: it is very quiet. You go through protected wildlife areas

… After such a wonderful day in the mountains, on Sunday I agreed to a compromise with myself. It took a lot of negotiations and since I am a tough negotiator, negotiating with myself was tough.

Phew, glad it didn’t end up in a statu quo!

But I finally completed some boring administrative tasks. Boring but needed, if I want my backpacking time to be worry free. Nothing like reminders for a tax declaration, overdue invoices to ruin a trip! Common sense really…

Departure is getting closer and I believe that my brain is back on track. Welcome back buddy, I have missed you!

Happy trails and remember: Carpe Diem!

Travelling mountains snowshoe sun Switzerland traveling