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Stop “wining” and get moving

Here is something I have not yet shared with you. This is a snippet of a page in our GPS guidebook – aka the impetus for planning each day of our trek. We receive a brief synopsis of where we are to walk that day, provided to us by the tour company called “InnTravel”. Here is what our synopsis looks like for today:

Day 10: Leukerbad to Salgesch

Route info: 13.5km / 4 hrs 15 mins; total ascent 355m, total descent 1175m

Route profile:

Overview:
This route follows part of the Kulturweg Dala – Raspille, a cultural route along the
Dala river and on to the Raspille river (the river which marks the official linguistic
divide within the canton of Valais). The way includes parts of the old Leukerbad
railway (which ran until 1967) before heading out of the Leukerbad valley and
rounding an impressive cliff wall before descending into the vine terraces
around Salgesch in the Rhône valley.

The walk heads W out of town to traverse S on paths and tracks, descending the
valley from Leukerbad. The way exits this valley through cliffs where the path
climbs steeply (the only significant climb of the route); the path is never narrow,
nor does it come close to an unprotected edge so vertigo sufferers should have
no problem if you’ve happily completed the preceding walks on this trip.
From there on, the way follows a traversing descent through forest on good
paths and into the vineyards near Salgesch, following some ancient man -made
irrigation channels (bisses ) along the way.

Food & drink:
You will need to pick up provisions for a picnic before you leave Leukerbad.

A climb through steep cliff halfway through the walk is the one potentially nerve-wracking and/or hazardous point – the risk comes from possible stone fall, so don’t linger on this short section (but don’t be too concerned – it’s not ‘bomb-alley’!); the path is also exposed but it’s of no consequence compared with other points on the trip.”

Lynn has the printed copy of the guidebook and Rebecca and I have digital copies on our phones. Each night, during dinner, I read aloud to the girls a description of where we are going, what the terrain will look like, and what hazards we may be facing that upcoming day. Rebecca then does a deep dive on weather conditions to make sure we’re not going to get hit with an electrical storm (literally), and we talk through what gear we’re using and packing. We then commit to an early start and make our way to bed before 9 (usually 8:30 or so!).

This particular elevation profile is a dream come true! I was downright giddy that day. Normally we are hiking 7 hours per day, and our ascents have been phenomenal! The trail today promised to be easy and sounded like fun. I’ve never explored the Rhone Valley before.

This trek was truly spectacular. So entirely different from the landscapes we had navigated before. Another treat that greeted us along the route was that locals set up honor shops along the way. An honor shop is a large wooden box loaded with goods that have a price tag, and there is a piggy bank inside the owner's box for one to drop their coins and bills. I contributed to the local economy by purchasing a straw hat, promoting my favorite Euro grocery store: The Coop. The Coop is my fave stop in any town, and I highly recommend you purchase your lunches there. You can get hot rotisserie chicken, fresh vegetables, and delicious salads all at a fraction of the cost of a lunch at a hotel or restaurant. The Coops also have shampoos, conditioner, band-aids, whatever you need – they’ve got it!

We passed a few more honor shops and then had the pleasure of being greeted by cute ceramic gnomes, magically placed along the tree-lined trail. Everything on this day felt magical and special, and then… the big reveal appeared: VINEYARDS! Green vines cascaded down the mountainsides and filled the landscape as far as we could see. The weather was perfect, and we were three happy trekkers, simply skipping our way to our next stop.

We literally skip/hopped through this beautiful valley. We were so happy, so grateful, so excited for the next gentle turn in the road. The skies were sunny, the breeze was light. Everything in the world was good. And I’m not even going to drop a bomb about a bad turn of events. The trek this day was picture perfect.

I mean, come on! Are you kidding me?! Wow wow wow.

And, as if things could not get any more magical. Our first few steps into the valley, we saw this…

A tasting room on the side of the road! The Rhône Valley in Switzerland’s Valais region is the country’s largest wine-growing area, with roughly 4,600–5,000 hectares of vineyards spread along steep, sun-drenched slopes above the Rhône River. About 400 wineries operate in Valais, producing wines from around 55 grape varieties, including local specialties such as Petite Arvine, Cornalin ( WE LOVED THIS ONE!), Humagne Rouge, Fendant (DELICIOUS) and Heida.

Valais contains about one-third of all Switzerland’s vineyards, making it the undisputed heart of Swiss wine production. Approximately 3,000 kilometers of dry-stone walls support the region’s dramatic terraced vineyards, some of which cling to extremely steep mountainsides, as you can see. Perhaps most impressive is the fact that the vineyards near Visperterminen reach about 1,100 meters above sea level, placing them among the highest vineyards in Europe and giving their wines a distinctive alpine character. I imagine pairing a wine from this region with the cheese from the Alps is a win-win for you when you do this trek after me. I’m not much a wine lover, but my intrepid hiking companions were in heaven here.

We dropped our hiking sticks, packs, and hats on the floor and grabbed a seat in the open-air tasting room. Our hostess, “Chenny” came to our table and offered us 3 tastes for 8 chf. We said yes and the fun began. Chenny was a consummate professional who first questioned us about our own tastes. Did we like sweet or dry? Terroir or fruit? Light or heavy? All 3 of us had 3 different answers to each of her questions, and I’ll be darned if she did not remember every single answer and recount our responses back to us as she offered hand-chosen wines to match our particular taste.

Chenny offered us fresh fruit and a charcuterie board as part of our tasting experience. You know what I am about to say: the fruit! Wow! The flavor! Wow. The grapes were crisp and crunchy and exploded in our mouths upon impact. The pears were sweet and firm. Oh my! This was a delightful day indeed.

We were very cognizant of the fact that we still had miles to trek to our next stop, so we held ourselves to 3 small taste pours as we lingered and rested for an hour or so. Then it was time to hit the trail again. We gave a fond goodbye to Chenny and hit the trail again. What is the saying “No rest for the wicked”. Onwards to the next stop – one foot in front of the other, and someone’s pack may have become a bit heavier with the addition of a bottle of pinot to their pack. (Clearly, not me, as I am not taking on any other impediment to my trek time).

The Rhône Valley in Switzerland’s Valais region has one of the oldest wine traditions in the Alps, with viticulture dating back at least to Celtic times, long before the modern Swiss wine industry developed. Over centuries, growers learned to cultivate grapes on steep, sun-facing mountain slopes, carving the landscape into terraces supported by thousands of dry-stone walls and using traditional irrigation channels called bisses to carry glacier water to the vines.

Today, Valais is Switzerland’s largest wine-producing region, with around 5,000 hectares of vineyards and approximately 73,000 individual vineyard plots (WHAT?!!!) What makes the wines especially interesting is the extreme variation in altitude, soil and climate: vineyards stretch for more than 100 kilometers along the Rhône Valley, from roughly 372 meters to about 1,100 meters above sea level, creating dozens of different microclimates in a relatively small region.

Pinot Noir itself was introduced in the mid-1800s and became one of the region’s most important grapes. Lynn and Rebecca were swooning over the pinot. Beginning in the late 1980s, however, Valais winemakers deliberately revived nearly forgotten indigenous grapes, helping turn the region away from high-volume production and toward distinctive, terroir-driven wines that cannot easily be replicated elsewhere.

One of the biggest wow factors that will strike you when here is the sheer difficulty of farming: many vineyards are so steep that much of the pruning and harvesting must be done by hand, sometimes with workers carrying crates of grapes down narrow terraces. And unlike many famous European wine regions where the appellation dominates the label, Valais wines commonly identify the grape variety itself, reflecting how proud the region is of its extraordinary diversity of grapes.

As I highlighted above, the Cornalin and the Fendant were two faves of my wine-loving companions. We’re eager to see if we can locate these wines in the US and are already talking about a reunion for the 3 of us with the 5 lb wheel of cheese Lynn has been packing since the first week of our trek and our hope to find Cornalin or Fendant pinot in the US. We slept well that night with no “wining” at all. Tomorrow we head to Gruben, an area accessible only via trail. We have had the luxury of our luggage arriving before us at each stop; however, tomorrow we say goodbye to our luggage for 2 days and carry what we need on our backs. Here we gooooooooo!

With kindness,

Kathleen Hayes

HERStrength Founder & CEO