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February 18th 2023

Hiking: of course in the mountains, but not only on the Via Alpina…

Let us hope that the year 2023 will be a year and also a hiking year as we have experienced in the time before the COVID pandemic… The good signs are there!

There are changes in the making ‘though, but in the field of the long distance hike “Via Alpina” itself: in the next years this long distance hike in the Alps through all eight Alpine countries, from Trieste in Northeast Italy to Monte-Carlo in the Principality of Monaco in the west, will be given another focus. Last year this long distance hike celebrated its 20th anniversary. That was then that the organising authority, the CIPRA (Convention Internationale de la Protection des Alpes) announced that the Via Alpina will be adapted: the aim of these changes was to make the trail more interesting and more challenging. In Summer 2022 a group of hikers, called the Via Alpina Explorers, have tested the new trail. When the changes will be implemented is at this moment still unknown, but they are quite fundamental. There will only be one Trail: the Red Trail starting in Trieste in Northeast Italy and leading through all Alpine countries to Monte-Carlo in the Principality of Monaco will be connected in Vaduz in Liechtenstein to the Green Trail from Vaduz to Lenk in the Swiss Bernese Oberland. In Lenk the trail will be following the old course towards Monaco. Of the 341 stages in the current version about 150 will remain.

Because of these limitations this “Red Trail new style” has become less interesting for me. That has been the reason why I have changed the title of my website into “Hiking the mountains – The Via Alpina as a guide”. I hope to continue hiking for a long time – and writing about it as well!