Swiss Alps, Out Behind Grindelwald: July 14-19

We were extremely fortunate to have the chance to spend 5 days up in the Swiss Alps, staying in basic little huts with a friend who was making cheese. Our friend, Viveca, has spent several summers as an alpener (a cheese-maker on the alps) looking after the lovely dairy cows, milking them, making cheese and moving them on to greener parts of the alps from June to late September. This year, Viveca did a half season and we went up to visit with her boyfriend Tillman. We met both Tillman and Viveca at our friend, Michael and Rike’s wedding earlier in June near Hamburg (Tillman is actually Rike’s older brother) and we connected with both of them instantly. The time on the Alps was surely the highlight of our trip thus far and will be remembered fondly for a long time to come.



From Zurich, we took a number of trains, each getting subsequently smaller and the tracks climbing steeper and steeper up to the picturesque alpen town of Grindelwald, currently under siege by Japanese tour groups. Viveca met us there and we went higher and higher until we were right up against a rocky peak with glaciers. There awaited Walter, the slightly grumpy Swiss cheese-making maestro, in a fantastically simple, rustic hut with a magnificent view.



At dawn on the first day, we were briefly awakened by a beautiful chorus of bells as the cows came back in for their morning milking. The cow bells made a wonderful sound and you could hear a distant tinkle almost everywhere in the Alps. We fell in love with the cows, especially one friendly cow who had her space next to the door dividing the stable and the main room of the hut, and she liked to poke her head into the room and check on us all. This special cow we named “Lucky” as she had been stamped with the number 7 (see photo below of Zoe and Lucky). The cows were very curious and friendly. Initially they spooked me when we had a small picnic down by the river, and all the cows came right over to investigate. I also took a nap while Craig and Tillman tried to scale the peak to see a waterfall and awoke surrounded by drueling, gawking big cows who turned out to be harmless, good-hearted creatures.




The other days were like the first, all pretty perfect and anything we did (reading, napping, spacing out, chatting, going for a wander, cooking etc.) when set against that impressive alpen backdrop turned into an exciting endeavor.

We spent a few days taking in our surroundings, exploring the nearby river, glacier and valleys, letting time unfold slowly and openly, and enjoying our good company. I felt like something sort of unlocked inside me and the days felt wonderfully free, a marvelous childish silliness also snuck back into our lives.

We spent a couple of days helping out with the cows. Waking at 5 a.m., we walked up the dark, sometimes misty mountain following the sounds of the cow bells. Equipped with tree branches, which we raised as we yelled out some kind of cow-driving yelp, we helped drive the cows (about 90 cows from three different huts) down towards the stables for the morning milking. We had a go at milking by hand, though it’s all done by machine now, and poured milk into the big copper cauldron for the cheese-making.

The neighbors were all really great, and we often ate dinner together. They were all experienced alplers and we got a good taste of what life was like on an alp.

We were still up there when Tillman went back to Germany and it was time for Viveca, Walter, Lucky and the other cows to move to another part of the alp. All of the farmers came up and helped with the final clean of the stables after the morning milking, and then fitted the cows with special extra large cow bells worn when moving and for a festival. They moved the cows and all the cheese-making equipment over to another centum (cheese-making hut). We set out to hike to our new home, taking advantage of scores of great hiking tracks. We ended up walking for the better part of the day, exhausted we arrived at Viveca and Walter’s new hut. This hut was smaller and didn’t have space for us to sleep as well, so we stayed in another hut owned by the same farmer about a 45 minute walk down the mountain.


Breakfast in the second hut

One of our ways of helping out was to cook everyone dinner, so after dropping our stuff off at the new hut, we had to dredge back up the steep mountain to make dinner. We thought we would try hitching and were pretty surprised when the first vehicle, a pick-up with a horse/cow car attached stopped, and even more surprised when the farmer opened the back and we had to gingerly step around a lake of cow poo to weasel in next to a nervous, horned cow. The cow anxiously saddled up next to us and the whole ride up the mountain, we had to make sure she didn’t topple over on top of us or jab us with a horn, and that nobody slipped on the dung. We felt strangely exhilarated and liberated after this ride, and it made a great story.

It was lovely to have our very own hut, we went for another hike up a precariously steep track and I enjoyed gathering some of the many wildflowers that were in bloom everywhere.




The Alps was a very special place and huge thanks to Viveca and Tillman, and even to Walter, for allowing us to share it.