08/19/2024
Crossing the High Alps through Switzerland and Italy, this 210km hiking route unravels some of the region's most intriguing human history.
As I stopped to rest, the deep tolling of cow bells echoed across Alpine meadows bright with the blooms of wildflowers. I took in a lungful of fresh mountain air, half-wondering how on earth the Walser people managed to walk this same steep trail with their livestock and worldly possessions, and pushed further along the ancient mule track that led up and out of the Binna Valley beyond the tiny hamlet of Fald.
I was in Switzerland to tackle the first stages of the newly inaugurated 210km Walserweg Gottardo long-distance hiking trail, which officially opened in May 2024. While the natural beauty of the trail is enough to attract hikers from across the world, the route has a deeper purpose. It seeks to unravel some of the region's most intriguing human history: the little-known story of the Walser, who migrated through the Alps from Valais to Grisons for still unknown reasons during the 12th to the 14th Centuries.
Predominantly shepherds, cattle breeders and subsistence farmers, the Walser have long been an under-appreciated part of Swiss culture. They are indigenous to the Canton of Valais in south-western Switzerland, but now mostly live at altitudes just below the High Alps, so-named because their extreme height makes permanent human habitation impossible.
The High Alps have traditionally not been celebrated but feared. The Romans, known for their military might and impressive engineering feats, called the area terra maledicta or "cursed earth". Nevertheless, the zone immediately below the High Alps is exactly where the Walser migrated, founding small settlements further and further east on multiple occasions over many generations.
