Ascension Thursday is a holiday in Switzerland. Because Jonathan had to work on Friday we couldn't take a longer weekend trip, but we did make the best of his day off in the middle of the week by driving to Sixt Fer-à-Cheval for a family hike.
We drove through the little town of Sixt Fer-á-Cheval to the park Cirque du Fer-à-Cheval (4 Euro to enter the park with a car). There are 3 loops of varying length and difficulty (however the difficulty varies only from "very easy" to "easy"). We opted for the longest route, La Balade du Bout du Monde. The downloadable walking guide suggests this route is about 2 hours and 30 minutes, however it took us about 3 hours and 30 minutes with several stops along the way for photos, picking up and throwing stones in the river, looking at the flowers and counting how many waterfalls we could see at once. The walk was manageable for Eliana (5 years old) with the exception of one bridge where she needed assistance to cross. Lucas intermittently walked about an hour of the walk and spent the rest of the time in the backpack child carrier.
A few things to note:
1. There are a lot of streams on this hike that require you to cross - most often by stepping on larger rocks. We all ended up with wet feet in the end. We found it refreshing on a hot day, but I imagine if the weather were cooler it wouldn't have felt as nice. The upside is that Eliana got to practice her balancing skills quite a bit while crossing the rocks.
2. There is a bridge that crosses the river at a rapid area. I don't think I would cross it again with young children. Instead, I would cross the river earlier in the loop off the trail to avoid this bridge:
The bridge is essentially 2 boards side by side that you put each foot on as your walk across holding the metal ropes. There are only 2 ropes on each side which made me nervous as a child could easily slip down/off the side.
3. There is an icy area where the ice still hasn't melted (not sure if it will because we were hiking on a very warm day and it has been warm (above 70) for at least a few weeks now). This area is not very slippery, but there are some divots in the snow/ice that require you to be able to keep good footing. The photos below show Lucas walking across it at the beginning, but he needed to be carried as it became thicker and thicker ice/snow.
We stopped at the Buvette on the way back around the loop. It was nice to rest our feet for a bit, get a drink (for the adults) and ice cream (for the kids). The buvette has a few food options, however beware that they run out. We arrived around 3:00 and they were out of food at this point. Fortunately, we had packed bananas, nuts and cucumbers for our walk so we weren't famished, but we would have appreciated something small...I guess next time!
And afterwards, you are guaranteed tired children who will sleep just about anywhere...
We drove through the little town of Sixt Fer-á-Cheval to the park Cirque du Fer-à-Cheval (4 Euro to enter the park with a car). There are 3 loops of varying length and difficulty (however the difficulty varies only from "very easy" to "easy"). We opted for the longest route, La Balade du Bout du Monde. The downloadable walking guide suggests this route is about 2 hours and 30 minutes, however it took us about 3 hours and 30 minutes with several stops along the way for photos, picking up and throwing stones in the river, looking at the flowers and counting how many waterfalls we could see at once. The walk was manageable for Eliana (5 years old) with the exception of one bridge where she needed assistance to cross. Lucas intermittently walked about an hour of the walk and spent the rest of the time in the backpack child carrier.
A few things to note:
1. There are a lot of streams on this hike that require you to cross - most often by stepping on larger rocks. We all ended up with wet feet in the end. We found it refreshing on a hot day, but I imagine if the weather were cooler it wouldn't have felt as nice. The upside is that Eliana got to practice her balancing skills quite a bit while crossing the rocks.
2. There is a bridge that crosses the river at a rapid area. I don't think I would cross it again with young children. Instead, I would cross the river earlier in the loop off the trail to avoid this bridge:
The bridge is essentially 2 boards side by side that you put each foot on as your walk across holding the metal ropes. There are only 2 ropes on each side which made me nervous as a child could easily slip down/off the side.
3. There is an icy area where the ice still hasn't melted (not sure if it will because we were hiking on a very warm day and it has been warm (above 70) for at least a few weeks now). This area is not very slippery, but there are some divots in the snow/ice that require you to be able to keep good footing. The photos below show Lucas walking across it at the beginning, but he needed to be carried as it became thicker and thicker ice/snow.
We stopped at the Buvette on the way back around the loop. It was nice to rest our feet for a bit, get a drink (for the adults) and ice cream (for the kids). The buvette has a few food options, however beware that they run out. We arrived around 3:00 and they were out of food at this point. Fortunately, we had packed bananas, nuts and cucumbers for our walk so we weren't famished, but we would have appreciated something small...I guess next time!
And afterwards, you are guaranteed tired children who will sleep just about anywhere...
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