Zinal

Looking back towards Arolla

Friday September 12, 2025

La Sage

The food has been improving as I go along. It’s kind of funny, that bowl of pasta the hotel owner gave me was really excellent. The spices were not familiar to me, but it was a cheese based sauce. Then of course, the authentic Italian pizza. Last night I had chicken, again served with a sauce I was not familiar with. Lunch was the potato cheese bake. It is a local dish to this region of Switzerland. This morning was a great breakfast buffet. Whole milk served in glass carafes. I made my own pancake. No syrup, so had to settle for Nutella. And of course, the fresh baked croissants. Still warm out of the oven.

Today was a short day, so took my time getting going. It was 47 yesterday evening and 40 this morning. Sunny skies, so a great day to hike through the mountains. It still amazes me where they build these villages and what people do that live here. These roads are crazy for summer time. Winter must be something. There were several hotels in the town I stayed in, but no real town center. As I mentioned yesterday, there is a ski area.

I am figuring out the navigation. You need to know your waypoints along the way. In the pictures I have a typical photo of the directional signs you find in the towns. (On the trail they are not as detailed.) The main trail I am on is marked with red and white. You will see on the yellow signs that some of the directionals have the red and white as well. I walked from Arolla to La Sage today. In between were Lac Bleu, La Guille, Les Hauderes, then La Sage. My app also shows me, but I like understanding where I am in case my phone decides not to work. The signage was clear if you know the intermediate waypoints. The red and White route actually took a long cut today up through a pass. I took the “easy” way.

I realize that I only take pictures when the walking is reasonable. If it is a steep up or down, I tend to just hike and not take any photos. At one point today the views were 360 degrees. In the photos there is one looking forward, then I turned 90 degrees, and two more times. The views have not gotten old.

The little lake, Lac Bleu, is a popular local hike. I saw lots of people walking the 1 mile, 1,000 vertical feet up to it. There was an elderly couple, 80+. The husband was holding his wife’s hand for her stability. It is possible she was 90+ and it was her son that was helping her. Very impressive that she is still doing that hike.

At one point there was a barricade across the trail. The path was like an old logging road. I looked on Google and the actual translation of the signage was “Road Closed”. There were no other options, so I went past the barricade. About a mile further down there was a closed gate, with no easy way around. I climbed over the gate and there were warning signs, not sure what exactly they said, but danger, rock slides. I made my way through there. I am still not sure what we were supposed to do as there were no other trails in the area.

Saturday September 13, 2025

Zinal

The big change is that I am getting off the Haute Route tomorrow. I will play tourist for the week and fly home next Saturday. This hike has been good but not great. The real reason for stopping, yesterday morning I was about a mile into my hike when I heard/felt a pop in my left hip. It felt like someone put a knife into my muscle. I have never felt anything like it. So do I turn around and walk back one mile, or do I keep moving forward, 5 miles to the next town. I kept moving forward. I did not dare stop, as I thought the joint would stiffen up. It hurt to walk, but was bearable and not in the joint, so I felt it was safe and not causing more harm. When I reached town, I took a 30 minute break, got a snack and googled sharp hip pain with a pop. According to online it is not an uncommon occurrence when doing a repetitive activity, like dancers, runners and soccer players. I would say I have been doing a repetitive motion. Anyway – stretching and rest is the recommendation. I obviously finished the walk yesterday and did a lot of stretching last night. If I am not moving there is no pain. That said I did not sleep well because my brain was going 100 miles an hour, what is next? Today was to be a brutal day, only 13 miles, but with almost 13,000 feet of elevation change. 6,000’ plus up and 6,000’ plus down, with no towns in between. My first decision was that I will take a bus and rest today. Next decision, miss breakfast and catch a 7AM bus not too far from the hotel, or walk 1.5 miles to another town and catch a 9AM bus. I choose to walk so I could test how things felt. It hurt to start, but once things loosened up it was not all that bad. It was certainly not right though. Once I got to Zinal, my destination, I hopped on the gondola and went up 2,000 feet. I walked up another 700 vertical, then returned back down to the gondola. Each step was painful so I made the final decision to change my plans.

Initially I planned to play tourist after reaching Zermatt, now I will play tourist before.  I will stay here in Zinal tomorrow. Monday I need to find a place to stay. Tuesday night I will be in Grindelwald. Rooms in Grindelwald are $500 a night on Monday. I did find a single room for Tuesday for only $160. I will then be in Zermatt for two nights as planned. From Zermatt I will go to Zurich and fly home a few days early.

As long as the hip injury isn’t serious, I am actually fine with the change in plans.

One thing I keep forgetting to mention is there are marmots all over the place in the mountains. I have only seen 3 or 4, but you can hear them chirping/whistling all the time. They move fast and blend in, so no photos.

Last night was my first really social night. I had dinner with a young Brit. He has been doing 20 mile days. And a couple from Reno who are originally from China. After dinner here tonight I ran into a couple who was also at the same hotel last night. They are staying at the same hotel here in Zinal and taking the day off tomorrow. The Reno couple is also staying at this hotel tomorrow night as they are taking two days to cover the distance from La Sage.

Sunday September 14, 2025

Zinal

This is a great little town and a very nice hotel. I am happy with my decision to change up the schedule. The hip is feeling much better, but it still is uncomfortable to walk. I bought a Swiss Half Fare Pass. It gives me 50% off almost any transportation, busses, trains and gondolas. I bought a day pass for the gondolas here. I took the gondola to the top of the mountain. From there I took a cable car down to the neighboring town of Grimentz. That town is not on the walking route. I took another gondola up from there. At just about every top station there is a snack bar or full restaurant. It is quite a network of lifts. There are also lots of poma lifts and chair lifts that run only in the winter. This would be a skier’s paradise.

As I was getting ready to load on to the cable car to go back up I was told to put slippers on over my shoes. There were probably 15 people in a car that holds 50 people. I had come down in a different car. Anyway, the floor of this car was a frosted glass. Sure enough, after we take off, the operator made the floor a clear glass. So now you could look down and see the trees/rocks several hundred feet below you. It was pretty cool. As you will see in the pictures, the cable car takes off from the middle of town.

It rained most of the night and was cloudy in the morning. The clouds were around the mountains all day. It was fun being up high and watching them come up out of the valley. I did do some hiking. The top of the operating lifts is about 700 vertical feet from the very top serviced by a chair lift. I hiked up to that ridge, so I could see over into another valley with a big dam and a beautiful blue lake – Lac de Moiry. I also found a geocache while up there. I then walked about 2,000 vertical feet down to the mid station, where I got on the gondola for the ride down into Zinal.

From the cable car I did see some animals grazing. I think they were some kind of sheep or goat. I did get a picture, but we were pretty high over them. I saw another marmot today, but he was too fast, no picture again. I also was into pictures of clouds today.

“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzue