Alpenüberquerung

This trip wasn’t just a point-to-point traverse; it was a way of living in the mountains for two months. Here's a glimpse behind the scenes—into our outdoor philosophy, the values we aimed to follow and share through our story, the logistics behind it all, our true highlight, and how it felt to slot back into our “normal” lives afterward.

When Hugo and I had to take a break from our ski traverse of Switzerland due to illness only ten days into the trip (see part 1) we were not quite sure how our epic 7-week adventure of ski touring through the Swiss Alps could keep going on. Camping in a tent, suffering through all sorts of weather and knocking on people’s doors in posh ski resort towns in hope of finding a place to crash had all taken a toll. But after a one-week break during which I managed to recover decently, we were ready to give it another shot and met again in the Sagliains train station in the Inn valley.

Seven weeks of ski mountaineering: waking up, suffering through putting on your frozen boots and packing up the iced-over tent. Seven weeks of taking the weather as it comes – spending entire days in complete whiteout, being blown over by 120 km/h gusts of wind, and waiting out storms in alpine huts or (more often) on people's couches in the valley. But also seven weeks of being amazed by the ever-changing scenery, of being stunned by the beauty of snow-covered mountains every single day. A trip shaped by incredible encounters and people’s hospitality, depending on the kindness of strangers and meeting inspiring individuals. Seven weeks of raw adventure - this is "Crossing the Alps", the story of Hugo and Linus traversing Switzerland on skis.

In 18 days from the Watzmann to Lake Geneva. Four main ridge crossings, 50,000 vertical meters, 1300 km route, 16 times over 2400 m and 8 times over 3000 m. These are the pure facts of a crossing of the Central Alps by bike. Trudging along hiking trails with an 18 kg bike and 14 kg of luggage are rather unsuitable conditions for such a sporting record hunt. However, the fun factor is record-breakingly high. The fact that "coincidentally" half of the uphill meters can be done with climbing aids naturally also helps

The sixth day of our trip takes us further west from Merano...

Still in the light of our headlamps, we head west down into the Valle dei Concei early this morning. The descent is brutally steep in extremely narrow forest. Due to the enormous snow load, hundreds of trees have fallen and require constant climbing maneuvers...

Today our SKITRANSALP takes us past the Cevedale via the Casati hut to the Suldenspitze with a subsequent descent to Sulden. The weather is now really extremely bad. The high altitude storm is so strong that we sometimes struggle to stay on our feet. In addition, visibility is extremely poor and temperatures are again between -15° and -18°C...