Sorry for the quietness recently! Let’s do a cheeky wee life update, just to catch you all up on where I am after a year of travel.

Upon arriving home from the TA (and the best time ever), I spent the next small while pondering what to do. I settled on applying for PhDs and seeing how that went, before moving on to applying for jobs if I couldn’t find a PhD. I had a couple criteria for PhDs. Firstly, I wanted to live abroad, somewhere close to mountains with hiking possibilities, and for the PhD to be in a field of physics that I genuinely find interesting. I can tell you now, I achieved this.

I got offered a PhD at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland for four years. This is a top twenty worldwide university, top ten for physics (OK, depending on where you look. Point is, it ain’t too bad!). My PhD was within the group ‘Laboratory of Quantum Magnetism’ (LQM), the exact area of physics that I find fascinating! My thesis title is ‘Exotic Properties of Filled Ices under Extreme Conditions’. What does that mean? Well, you can incorporate ions within the structure of water ice that give it weird, exotic properties. These ‘filled ices’ are found in nature. Most interestingly for us, on the Galilean moons of Jupiter (Ganymede, Europa, Io, Callisto) and the moons of Saturn (Enceladus, Titan etc.). These moons have liquid oceans and crusts of ice which are all filled with ions of differing species. And as such, have interesting properties. Take Europa for instance, it has an anomalous magnetic field which cannot be explained with our current understanding of the Jupiter and Europa system. One proposed explanation however is these ‘filled ices’ providing a greater conductivity within the icy moon, leading to a larger induced magnetic field etc.. This project is actually kinda important because there are several space missions (JUICE, Dragonfly, Clipper etc.) that are all heading out to these icy moons to study them, so it is important to have an idea of what they may measure when they get there.

So, long story short, I have landed on my feet. My PhD started on 1st September and so I had all this time, Spring and Summer in the UK to fill. I spent that time doing a spot of hiking (EHW, Skye Trail, Affric-Kintail Way) in Spring before spending the summer with my family and friends before moving abroad. Did I practice and learn any French in that mean time? No. Did I touch up my physics? Nope. Did I brush up my coding? Also no. I spent the summer reading pretty much.

Speaking of which, I read a whole bunch of books, and have a mountain load hanging over me to read as well. OK, well, not ‘hanging over me’, but there are so many books I want to read! One of the most absorbing reads of that summer was One Hundred Years of Solitude. Niv, if you read this, I can see why it is your favourite book. It was so good. Currently though, I am reading (and finishing by the end of this year maybe!) the Wheel of Time series. I am currently on book 10/14. And each of these books is close to a thousand pages long. Yeah, gonna be a long time reading for sure! But the story is so detailed and the world so alive! On top of that, I am also reading Prisoners of Geography, The Great Patagonian Express (which is very slow, I won’t lie) and some other small books in between.

I moved to Switzerland on 23rd August, my Grandpa’s birthday. How, you may ask? A road trip! We caught the overnight ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam, before driving the Land Rover (with all my stuff in the back… Which isn’t actually that much. A couple backpacks, shoes, jackets and my horn) to Lausanne with a stopover in Echternach, Luxembourg. Drove through five countries to get here! I am not actually living in Lausanne proper, but the commune of St Sulpice. My parents then dumped all my stuff out the car, saw the university, and then drove off.

So what is Switzerland like? So good! It’s a blend of French, German and Italian cultures I feel. Thoroughly European. I am taking French classes and my understanding of the language is growing each day. So that is a life goal going to be ticked off, to learn another language! I am taking horn lessons (I discovered that not playing for a year can be detrimental) with the aim to audition and apply to the joint city and university orchestra. I believe I am good enough. Time will tell. I am currently learning some Liszt and Chopin on the piano too, but no piano lessons this time since they are rather pricey… The first piece I played when I got to my new place (which has a piano) was Clair de Lune. The veranda doors were open, overlooking Lac Léman and the Alps. The sun was shining. Dreamy. I am also very tempted to join the sailing club and take that up again. There is also a climbing gym ten minute cycle away from me, so I will be joining that too and going with some people from my lab some days of the week. It’ll be fun! And then I also have my eye on the squash club (bit far away for now…) and possibly a chess club…? But a bit uncertain about that at the moment since a lot of my time is being taken up with my PhD. Essentially, I want to be as busy as possible. Being busy is just the best.

I still have to take courses (OK, a single course) and on top of that, I am teaching some labs! That is fun! Third year undergraduate labs. RMN and EPR experiments. They have to do these experiments from 08:00 – 17:00 on a Friday! That means I have to be there at the same time too! Pffff. And then, of course, I have my own research and presentations to do. I am going to Grenoble soon to the large scale facilities there (ILL, ESRF) where we have some beamtime booked to do some neutron and X-ray scattering experiments. So pumped.

Music I have been listening to recently? Cat Empire on repeat, naturally. Their latest album is the anthem of Switzerland for me so far. But also, like, heaps of indie stuff. If I would suggest anything right now, it would be Caamp’s first album, called Caamp haha

OK, but you’re here to hear also about the hiking plans and goals for the next wee while? Yeah, this is what is exciting me too. So, I already have made several forays into the Alps and it has been so good. So so good. I actually wrote one of the trips up underneath, so read on to hear about that.

Next year, I am planning on tackling the Haute Route (200km odd). Chamonix to Zermatt. Or, if you prefer, Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn. I am planning on section hiking this at the weekends so that I don’t have to take up holiday time for it. My idea is to do each weekend with a different person, you know? That could be fun. I reckon it’ll be about ten weekends worth of hiking which would be great! The Via Alpina 1 (400km) is also on my radar and again, I think I am going to be section hiking this. Probably in the second half of the year. But there are also some smaller trails I want to do. Tour des Dents-du-Midi (50km) for instance. Or Tour de Chartreuse (100km). Or GR54 (180km). We’ll see how it goes.

And then there are some stuff I have planned back at home. My sister wants some company on the Cape Wrath Trail (330km), so I would be very tempted to join her on that! And then I also really want to do the Hebridean Way (350km) with my brother. But, I want us to try it bikepacking so it takes up less time, and is also an easy introduction to bike touring and packing. Well keen for that.

And then, I have some other goals too. Mainly, some running ones. I think I will enter the Zurich Half marathon, and then do the Lausanne full marathon. I think that would be awesome. But I also want to get into trail running. I have my trail shoes of course (neon lemons) and a running vest, so my strategy is to join the university trail running club (requirement of being able to run 10km under 50 minutes to do so) and then go from there. So currently training to up my running fitness again. Joints and muscles are all feeling well oiled.

So yes, life is full at the moment, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Probably not many posts coming out for the rest of 2023 after this one (unless I do something super cool) but it’ll all kick off again next year for sure! I hope you are all well and please get in touch if you are in the area!

Cheddar cheddar,

Al


Gstaad to Anzère | Day 1 | 22km

OK, with these Swiss adventures, I am going to try and not go into massive amounts of detail. That being said, I probably will end up doing that anyways. Let’s see how it goes, eh?

I woke up at a stupidly early time (for me, I am not a super early riser by habit) and after a quick breakfast in the pink morning light, I headed on out to Lausanne-Gare, the main train station for the city. It was heaving with hikers, bikers and runners. I hopped on the 08:21 train which left precisely when it said it would (Swiss trains are the best) before swapping to my connection in Montreux. The Golden Panoramic, or something like that. It was a beautiful train ride. Firstly, the train had windows on the ceiling, so you could look up and around at the mountains as the train zig-zagged its way up a steep mountain slope, and then through some high Alpine valleys to the town of Gstaad. There was a French guy opposite me, and a Spanish family across the aisle who actually were so distracted by the views, they missed their stop. Oops. There were heaps of old, abandoned trains on the side of the track and the views across Lac Léman were stunning in the sunny morning haze.

In Gstaad, I got out and met Matt at the station. Long time, no see! Last time I had seen him, he was getting on a train at Waikanae after we had walked through the Tararuas together! He was well, having just finished the Camino de Santiago. Ten minutes later, Maarten arrived, having come from Zurich. The last time I had seen him was at dinner in St Arnaud!

We walked out of Gstaad together. It was a beautiful town, but also incidentally, the most expensive Alpine village in all of Switzerland. The reason for this is because lots of A-List celebrities live here for the skiing season and have their ski chalets here, perched up on the mountains around us. There was also the Gstaad Palace which was a fancy and famous resort hotel thing.

Ignoring all of that, we walked out along the main street, past the palace and onto the back country roads that slowly led us into what Maarten called “the Pre-Alps”… They seemed pretty much like the Alps if you asked me! We trundled along the bottom of a valley for a while, slowly climbing. We passed massive amounts of farms and remote houses. There were cows everywhere, their bells tinkling in the sweet, fresh mountain air. We passed farms that had little fridges next to the track, an honesty box (but in a fridge) selling cheese! Naturally, we had to buy some. It was hot weather though, must have been mid to high twenties!

We eventually turned the corner at the end of the valley and started climbing some serious altitude. Oof man, it was steep. I was really concerned that I may not be fit enough. I mean, Matt had just walked the Camino and Maarten does this every weekend pretty much! What had I done in the last six months and a day since finishing the TA (well, OK, three other trails, but still)?? We raced up this steep hill in the “pre-Alps”. We spotted people mountain biking, trail running and ridge running and of course our fellow hikers too. We got to the top, a small pass and my gosh, the true Alps spread out before us. Layers upon layers of mountains spread like wings to either side of us. Snow capped a lot of the higher ones on the distance and there were glacial tongues, poking out between mountain caps. Just stunning. A blue sky above us with little white clouds skudding across on the breeze also helped the idyllic nature.

From here, we ridge walked along. Beautiful alpine valleys spread to either side of us as we made our way along. Little signposts were at every junction in the trail. This place was ancient, having probably been walked and lived in for the last three thousand years (citation needed). We passed limestone pits and scree slopes, green grassy “Sound of Music” valleys and small farmsteads. Cows were littered across the landscape and the air was filled with their tinkling bells. We refilled our water bottles and pushed on to our camp spot for the night. Wild camping in the Alps is a hazy grey zone apparently. You can’t camp on nature reserves, where there is cattle or near a building… But how “near” is too near to a building?

As such, we camped about a kilometre away from Wildhornhütte, a hut as the name suggests. That seems fine. The camp spot was an absolute treat though. We were perched on top of a rocky outcrop, looking down at a glacial lake loch (gotta put that Scottish language in somewhere. Might start calling it Loch Geneva. That would be funny), aquamarine and turquoise colours shifting in its depths. I think this loch was called Iffigsee. After stashing our bags, we walked that last kilometre to the hut where we replenished our water supplies and drank a disgustingly large amount of sugary water (I had coke, but Matt and Maarten had Swiss fizzy drinks. One of them was made from the run off liquid from the process of making cheese!) and chocolate cake. Yeah, Swiss huts are unreal. Unlike NZ, Aussie or Scotland where a hut/bothy is just four walls and a roof, here there was a fully equipped kitchen and flushing toilets. The kitchen had those massive, iconic pots where they would cook dinner for everyone who was staying at the hut, and they had several chocolate cakes in the back. The cooks themselves had hiking clothes on, with an apron on top. They had clearly hiked up here themselves! I know that all the food is helicoptered in before the cooks put it together into the meals! Isn’t that crazy! You could probably do a good long multi-day tramp through the Swiss Alps and not have to carry much food yourself if you committed yourself to staying at huts along the way!

Anyways, after this excursion into a vague sense of civilisation in the mountains, we headed back to our packs and made camp. I fully pitched on a fifteen degree slope. Spoilers, I did not sleep well.

Gstaad to Anzère | Day 2 | 14km

I said I was going to get up at 06:30, but really, that was when I woke up. I got up a little bit later than that… We weren’t in any rush! But yeah, after we had packed our bags, we were on our way before long, heading past Wildhornhütte and towards the glacier at the end of the valley. Today, we would be heading to Anzère (and back home) and we would be crossing over three 2600m+ passes along the way. Fun times!

The steepness got real immediately after the hut. Scree surrounded us and only after we had climbed over 200m did we spy the glacier, Tungelgletscher, that was promised to us. This was actually a big shame to me, this glacier used to be allllll the way down by that hut, but climate change and the warming of our planet has shrunk this glacier so that it is hiding, cowering, at the top of this mountain, as far from us humans as possible. We reverently made our way around this glacier and then on up to our first pass of the day, just underneath Schnidehore. Capped out at 2755m. Not going to lie, I think there is an effect of altitude at this height. Like, I know myself fairly well, I shouldn’t have been that out of breath despite not having done much in the last six months. Matt agreed with me, he too was feeling the effects of the altitude. And then Maarten confirmed our suspicions, his blood oxygen level was lower than it usually is! So yeah, not all my fault why I was feeling tired.

But yes, this pass… Man, it opened us up to just more spectacular views. Snow capped mountains, the ones over 4000m, were just across from us. It was still a hazy early morning and it seemed that the peaks of these mountains were floating since the base of them were hidden in the shade and haze of the day. It was a crazy optical illusion and it was just stunning.

From here, we bombed our way down the other side of the pass to another glacial loch, Lac de Téné. Here, we lay on the rocks around the loch, drying off the sweat. Matt wisely dried his tent out as well whilst Maarten popped himself into the loch for cheeky cold water swim. Not for me, no thanks.

Before long, we got going again and instead of heading directly downhill, we headed to our right, west, and started heading uphill again towards the next pass. Fighting gravity, throwing punches. This was a long climb up to the next pass and it felt like an absolute slog. Matt and I laboured our way up whilst Maarten shot off ahead of us. The first bit was fun, it was rock hopping over some granite or some other hard rock that would totally tear up our shoes if we spent all day on it, but the second bit was the majority of the uphill, just making our way up through some scrub and dirt, majestical mountains surrounding us.

We got ourselves to the next pass, situated at 2646m above sea level. A yellow sign post is on top of every pass by the way, it is such a welcome sight and objective to aim for, mentally. We got there and once again, views into the surrounding valleys welcomed us. Mountains upon mountains. This is the dream place to live if you enjoy this sort of place for sure! We made our way down off of this pass, switchbacks following switchbacks, dusty and full of loose gravel. We emerged at the bottom at a swampy area, wet, with a running through it to Lac des Audannes. Beside this loch was another hut, another sanctuary in the mountains.

We found ourselves a bench outside and then headed on in to find some food. Matt and I grabbed some soup and tea before sitting outside, breathing in fresh, thin air. Inside, the hut wardens were playing a squeezebox and singing songs in French whilst trail runners, hikers and a whole bunch of outdoor enthusiasts walked by, heading in different directions. What a feeling. A small breeze flapped the flag of Valais (the canton we were in) and the squeezebox made jolly sounds as we sat there, eating our food, in the sun. Winning.

Before long, we cracked on. One final pass and then down and back into the transactional life that is civilisation. This time, the climb was long but it didn’t feel as much as a slog. Maybe because we had just lunch? Yeah, that’s probably it. The geology changed too so we were in a red Martian landscape all of a sudden, just for this climb it seemed. Don’t get me wrong though, it wasn’t an easy climb and I got to the pass, La Selle, after Matt and Maarten feeling very out of breath. All good though. From here, after appreciating the view for a while, we turned and headed down the valley, heading towards the gondola at Pas-de-Maimbré. Along a small plateau, then down over a steep cliff that was vaguely reminiscent of Sunset Saddle (just without all the scree) before walking along a contour line towards the gondola that would take us down and back to earth.

We got there in the end and after a last drink at the café, we hopped into the gondola and headed on down to Anzère. From here, we caught the bus down to Sion and to the train station where we split ways. I headed back to Lausanne, Maarten back to Zurich and Matt was staying put since he was walking from here into Italy. Hardcore. Definitely need to be doing more of this in the future for sure.


I don’t think there will be many more posts for this year, what with me getting busy with life and all, as well as winter coming. However, as mentioned above, I have some exciting projects to be tackling next year which I am itching to get started on. Until then, have a good winter and I will see you in a couple months time!

Comments (5)

  1. Liz Murison

    Reply

    Delighted you are back sharing your adventures Alasdair, keep them coming!
    So jealous of you living in Switzerland- enjoy every second. Liz xx

    • Al

      Reply

      Thanks Liz! Switzerland is awesome, really enjoying it here. Looking forward to seeing you again. I’ll bring some Thomy!

  2. Ishbel

    Reply

    Forever in equal part jelous as I am happy for you! Mountains and mountains and mountains! So beautiful xxx

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *