Hiking to Rotondo Hütte Day 1

I will start by introducing you to Nikko. He planned our excursion. Never let him take you on a hike!!



Yes that is all snow behind him.

We have just spent two days hiking somewhere in the middle of Switzerland with Martin's lab as part of their annual group outing. Every year they do something outdoorsy or adventurous like hiking, white water rafting, or caving. Usually the hikes are not that difficult and Martin's adviser, Erick, is able to bring his young son along. But this year Nikko arranged the hike. And I'm pretty sure it will be ranked as the most challenging group outing ever and it will also ensure that the group never goes hiking again.

So Friday morning we got up at 4:30 and caught a train and a bus to Furkapass, which is around 2500 meters in elevation. The hike started out okay but there was already a good amount of snow to hike through. It turned out that the hike had 5 variations of terrain: steep snow fields, streams/rivers, steep uphill climbs on loose rocks, steep downhill climbs on loose rocks, or fairly flat areas with loose rocks and sheer drop-offs to one side where if you fell, you would die. We hiked over ridges that were completely vertical. I would just look up and not believe we would be going not only to the top of the cliff, but over it and down the other side. It was exhausting!

We hiked to the Rotondo Hütte which sits in the middle of lots of steep mountain ridges:



The hut is still in this picture and you can see us starting to hike down to it. We were so happy to finally see that hut!



So the picture above shows us hiking down to the hut on day one. On day two we left the hut and climbed up and over the ridge you see *behind* the hut. You look at it and think, you can't hike over that ... but you sure can.

We didn't take many pictures of the really dangerous bits because obviously we were not able to take out a camera while balancing on the edge of a precipice. But here are some of the pictures we did take:

Like I said, the hike was fine in the beginning. There was a little uphill bit after which we stopped for a light snack:



Then we walked down a super steep grassy bit, across a lot of rocks, across a steam, up a bunch more rocks, and then we had lunch. Here's the hill we walked down - across the way from Mattias standing there - we came up over the ridge in the middle, then went to the left and wound our way down to the river that you can't see in the picture but there is a deep valley inbetween the hill we're standing on while taking this picture and the hill across the way:



Then we crossed a little stream. Here is Erick crossing the stream. Nikko hiked with Erick for most of the trip to help him out:



Here's a picture of the valley in between the hills with the stream running through it. We ate lunch from where we took this picture:



After lunch we had some really steep climbs. Here is Mattias coming up the first bit of steepness. Actually, he had already climbed up it, gone back down to check on the others, and then come back up again. He is a mountain goat and was definitely in the best shape of all of us. And yes we did just wander across all those snow fields down below. This was definitely not the most scenic hike.



But when we got to the top we realized we still had more to go (can you see the blue and white smiley face on one of the rocks? We think the smiley faces mean "keep going! you're almost there!"):



So we got to the top of the second ridge and then we got to come down the rocks and snow you see here:



Then we went down to the hut. And had many beers to celebrate a long day of hiking:



But not too many beers because we knew the next day's hike was longer and more difficult.

Here's where we slept (this is the bottom bunk - there was another level on top of this one):



Next up: day two.