A brief paddle on Lake Geneva, and a hut trip in the Alps!

The friendly cows we passed on our way up to the hut. What a perfect Swiss view!

When we recieved an invitation to Tanya and Ken's wedding in Switzerland, I jumped at the opportunity to go on another kayaking and hut trip in the Alps! My first kayaking trip in Switzerland, on Lake Brienz, was (and still is) one of my most beautiful paddling experiences, and I hoped to recreate it on another Swiss lake. We planned to attend the wedding on Saturday, do a hut trip on Sunday/Monday, and go kayaking on Tuesday before flying out Tuesday evening - busy to say the least! Before building it up too much, I'll warn you that the paddling experience was a bit disappointing, but the wedding and hut trip were wonderful! 

We spent a first short night in a small B&B in Geneva before getting a ride with one of Ken's friends (in a blue striped mustang) to the wedding in Sion. The wedding was threefold: a ceremony at the town hall in Sion, followed by a party at a ski resort at the top of a mountain (via gondola!), and a cozy evening with a super-Swiss raclette dinner at a winery (?) close to Tanya and Ken's new house. We spent the night in a beautiful B&B in Grimisuat before getting up very early to start our hut trip... Scroll to the bottom of this post for some pictures from the really scenic wedding!

I just had to include the large picture of the raclette...

A brief paddle on Lake Geneva

However, I'll start with the kayaking, since this is a kayaking blog... After an intense two-day hut trip (described below), we were ready to relax a bit in Morges, a small city on Lake Geneva near Lausanne. Passion Nautique in Morges was the only kayak rental I could find on the lake. I was hopeful, as the website says they have "advanced equipment," and the rentals were only 18 euros/hour (though I now realize I was given the 12 euro rate, so apparently they thought I was younger than 18...). I made a reservation by email, which only required giving my name and phone number - it took them a few days to respond, but that wasn't too much of an issue. 

​​The morning of the rental, we walked 20 mins with our very sore legs to the rental shop, only to realize upon arriving that we were at the shop rather than the rental base. Oops! That was my fault. At some point I had been aware of this discrepancy and had saved the correct location on my phone. But in my morning laziness I simply typed Passion Nautique and blindly followed the directions. We then walked another 30 minutes along the lake (nice views, at least) to the rental shop, which was adjacent to a city campground. 

​After having walked up and down the lake twice, we weren't so optimistic about the paddling scenery being much different. The lake is huge, and the big mountains line the southern shore.  After standing at the Passion Nautique desk for a while and finally approaching one of the employees who seemed to be ignoring me, I asked one of the high schoolers running the rental stand if she could recommend a destination. Her response wasn't particularly enlightening. She pointed me to city parks in each direction along the shoreline. By this point, Henk had bailed for a more relaxing afternoon sitting in the park. Still determined to have another Swiss paddling experience, I signed myself up and picked out the most sea kayak-looking boat available. 

A hazy summer day on Lake Geneva - the Alps in the distance.

​Off I went! I paddled a short distance west, sticking to the shoreline. As expected, it wasn't particularly interesting - similar to paddling a short way along the more developed parts of e.g. Conesus Lake in New York (+big mountains in the distance). However, there was one castle, so that was a bit of a highlight (see below)! It was pretty and green and there were plenty of swimmers out enjoying the day. I watched as a few ferry boats made their way from Lausanne to Geneva and back. 

Worn out from the previous days hikes, I returned after only an hour. However, it was still nice to get on the water. It was pretty and blue and clean enough for Henk to jump in for a refreshing swim. I've put the stats and map at the bottom of the page, past the hiking write up!

2-day hut trip in the Alps! (the real reason I'm writing this post)

The morning of the hut trip we awoke early (~6am) to catch the first bus down to Sion from Grimisuat. From there we caught another bus to Chalais, where we took a very old-fashioned telecabine (gondola) up the mountain to Vercorin. In Vercorin we bought some lunch supplies before catching another telecabine up to Cret du Midi! Even before starting the hike, we'd experienced an elevation gain of 1775 m (5800 ft). *Cue foreboding music...* In Cret du Midi we had coffee at a scenic ski resort before starting our hike along the ridge to the hut. 

Henk making his way along the ridge

Ah, ridges, always so pretty...

The hike to the hut was a gradual uphill along a ridge, with a fairly steep section towards the end. The views were breathtaking, and we got lucky with the weather (rainstorms waited until we reached the hut).  In every direction we could see snow capped mountains. We passed a few other small groups of hikers, but mostly had the trail to ourselves. 

Our hut, Cabanes Becs de Bossons, in the distance.

​There was still a little snow in shady areas at high altitude. By the time we got to the hut, we were tired but not too terribly worn out. Thanks to all the gondolas, we only had about 5 hours of hiking to reach the hut.

Cabane Becs de Bosson in the evening light

When we arrived we checked in with the cook, who seemed a bit exasperated. His fellow hutkeeper had deserted him for a resupply, and he asked us to wait a while until they came back. He spoke essentially no English, so I had a chance to practice my French! With the exception of a couple visiting from Taiwan, all other hikers seemed to be quite local. When the other hutkeeper came back, he gathered everyone into the common room and explained how the hut was organized. Most memorably, he described the bathroom situation, which was a simple system that separated pee from poop. This separation only works if you properly position yourself on the toilet, with the pee going through a grate at the front, and the poop going straight down into the put below. We also couldn't drink the water, so we were required to buy water, at 10 euros/1,5 L. In the end, we spent 40 euros on water for one night! I didn't see others buying as much water as we did, but they sure drank a lot of wine! Tough Europeans... 

View from the Cabane des Becs de Bosson, at sunrise.

At dinner time we all went to our assigned tables and had a large meal of bean salad with some sort of potato/cheese/tomato/beef casserole. By this time, Henk and I were both getting a headache. Initially we thought it was dehydration, but quickly realized we had ascended from essentially -2 m to 3000 m above sea level in 24 hours. This proved to be true as our headaches only worsened throughout the night. We also got stuck with the top bunk, which meant we were cooking. I did descend the scary ladder in the middle of the night to open the window... but then couldn't fall asleep because I was worried someone else would close it!

After a fitful night of sleep, we were happy to drink coffee the next morning! We didn't stick around the hut long, as we both wanted to descend in elevation asap. The descent followed the beautiful Vallon de Rechy - a wide green valley dotted with wetlands, rock features,  and spectacular views. The trail followed a creek, which formed just below the hut and grew along the way. Flat expanses ended in steep drops and waterfalls, followed by more flat open wetland areas. It was gorgeous! 

Vallon de Réchy, a little ways down from Cabane Becs de Bosson

To make the rest of the (long) story short: we ended up deciding to hike all the way down to the bus, rather than taking two gondolas. The lower part of the trail included steep forested hillsides appearing to be on the brink of a landslide (we got through that part quickly), then eventually a long, steep, dirt road along a number of uninhabited huts and vacation homes. Our knees and soles were not happy with us... We finally hobbled to a busstop and caught a bus to Sion, where we had dinner at a tasty falafel place run by a Syrian(?) refugee who had lived in the Netherlands for 4 years and spoke Dutch! 

Here are some more pictures from the wedding and the hike... 

Stats & Maps

The Paddle:
Date: Tuesday, August 21st, 2018
Distance: 5 km
Duration: 1 hr
Weather: hot and super sunny, breezy

The Hike:
​Dates: Sunday & Monday, August 19 -- 20th, 2018
Distance: ?
Duration: 5 hrs on day 1, 8 hrs on day 2
Weather: hot and sunny, a bit cloudy later in the afternoon