Dwight Peck's personal website

Winter 2013-2014

Dispatches from way, way behind the lines in Switzerland


You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

Settling in to Ollon: a short hike to Verschiez

It's 11 March 2014, and we're still only half-unpacked from our move to Ollon.

That's Ollon down there.

We can recognize our house, just to the right of the belltower, but it's too complicated to explain in a photo caption.

We're on a well-traveled hiking trail, called the Sentier de la Provence, at about 640m, bound for the hamlet of Verschiez, a suburb of Ollon.

We've plodded with a very conservative pace up through the vineyards to reach this path -- so now Kristin strides out enthusiastically.

Views of the river Rhône about 250m down the hill

An excellent path. It looked so familiar! -- I recalled that I must have been here before.

I later looked it up in my running logbook: I had a regular running route from Leysin, down to the Grande Eau bridge at Pont de la Tine, up to Plambuit and Panex, and along this very path down to Aigle (best time 1:37:23) -- I ran it 20 times between 1988 and 1992.

No wonder it looks familar!

The lower parts of Ollon village 220m below. (If you stand up near the top of the Dents de Morcle, you can literally look straight down on the river Rhône from two and a half kilometres overhead.)

The Little Critters have been settling in.

We're starting down soon.

The ASD (Aigle-Sépey-Diablerets) train wending its way up the valley of Ormonts towards Les Diablerets. (The AL train, Aigle-Leysin, wends of up the other side.)

The hamlet of Verschiez (547m)

Verschiez -- a working farm village, not yet gentrified

Leaving Verschiez

Lower Ollon, with the Grand Muveran and the Dents de Morcle on the horizon

2 km to Ollon

Ollon from the northwest

We're back.

An hour and a half's beneficial exercise, and now back to unpacking crates, boxes, and big plastic bags.

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Feedback and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative, . All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 8 April 2014.


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