After last year’s big vacation to Thailand, I picked something less extraordinary as summer vacation: A hiking trip in the Alps. More specifically, a friend of mine and I went on a five day long hiking trip in the border region of Switzerland and France, the so-called Tour de Ruan. Instead of doing several day trips like we did two years ago, this time we chose one big round-trip tour where we stayed in refuges over night.

We started at the Lac d’ Emosson at nearly 2.000 m. From there on we went to the highest point of the tour, the Cheval Blanc (2.830 m) right on the first day. The three refuges were located at about 2.000 m and in between them we either hat to walk through valleys or over passes. Luckily, it did not rain while we were in the mountains. It did snow a bit on the first day, though. In addition to several snow fields we crossed, we even walked through fresh snow on the way to the first pass on our last day. Apart from experiencing beautiful views to the surrounding mountains we also saw various animals, like alpine ibexes (Steinböcke), chamois (Gämsen) and marmots (Murmeltiere).

While we originally planned to do a four day trip, we spontaneously decided to stay one day longer at our third refuge, the Auberge de Salanfe. There we could just enjoy the peaceful atmosphere and at the same time let our joints recover from the previous strenuous days. With renewed strength we then could complete the fourth stage of our tour which brought us back to our starting point and the end of this wonderful hiking trip.