This past weekend was Martin's old lab group's annual horse hike in Switzerland. It was started by Niko (our crazy Swiss mountain militia friend who plans the most challenging hikes for us); he found a restaurant in the mountains in western Switzerland that served really big horse steaks and he formed a hike around that. The hike consists of an hour or so of really steep uphill, then stops at 4 restaurants to eat and drink with the final restaurant serving the horse steaks for dinner (none for me of course - I can't bring myself to eat horse). Then, an after-sunset trek back down to the bus stop in the dark. The entire hike is maybe 6-7 miles long with 600m of ascent so you're earning all the food and alcohol that you ingest throughout the day.
This was the fourth or fifth year of the horse hike, and this was the first time the weather was sunny and warm for it! It's always done in the fall so the weather is hit or miss - it could be sunny and warm, as it was this time, or cold and snowy/rainy, as it was last year.
Here we are just getting started on the hike. It took us 3 trains and 1 bus to get to the start of the hike - I'd forgotten how well Swiss transportation works. We naturally climbed up the large hill/mountain in front of us in the first picture below. Note these are not the Alps - this hike is in the Jura which is in northwestern Switzerland. The Jura are like rolling hills compared to the Alps.
There are several trails and even a road that go up to the first restaurant but Niko opts to walk up a riverbed - which, when it's raining, is an actual river. Thankfully this time it was dry but all the leaves we were trekking through were still wet and slippery. After the riverbed we walk awhile through the forest, sometimes on an almost-trail and sometimes not on any trail. Thankfully somebody knew the way!
We eventually intercepted a really nice trail and followed that the rest of the way up to the first restaurant.
The restaurant, our snack of ham and cheese with really fresh delicious bread, and my new best friend.
Fortified with beer and a snack, we headed out towards the second restaurant which is across the fields and through the forest on the left of the second picture below.
After getting to the top of the saddle, we got the most amazing view of the Alps to the east. This view persisted until we arrived at the second restaurant, which was closed for some reason. So we had to immediately continue on to the third restaurant - where we still had the gorgeous view.
Climbing a final hill up to the third restaurant.
As the sun got low in the sky it got chilly out, so I decided to try some of the warm drinks. Below is "teawine", which is red wine mixed with tea. It was ... interesting. This is actually on the menu here and some of the Swiss must like it?
And this is Martin's "coffee schnapps", which is about 10% coffee and 90% schnapps, with a sugar cube mixed in. You can tell from its coloring that there isn't much coffee in it! While I had never heard of teawine before, coffee schnapps is really popular in the mountains in Switzerland and we had had it several times before while hiking. Or at least, Martin had had it before. I don't like coffee or schnapps.
The view we had from this restaurant:
This picture is of the guy standing behind the two guys at my table. His name is Ueli and he owns the restaurant. He stands outside drinking and smoking all day long and he just looks like he lives in the middle of the mountains. Super friendly guy though.
And a few pictures nearing sunset as we motivated ourselves to walk to the fourth, and final, restaurant.
Here's Martin's horse steak. And, he and our friend Matthias digesting after finishing all that meat.
