Atzmannig Circular - December
Not-so-panoramic walk (given the low cloud), but good nonetheless, heading up and round the ring of peaks above Atzmannig.
The walk started with a good climb at the start to get warmed up, followed by coffee at bergstation Atzmannig. As one of the locals put it "a great view of white".
We continued on around the loop, walking through some pretty impressive hoarfrost on the trees. We stopped in the Restaurant Chrüzegg for a rather good schnitzel for lunch before continuing the loop back to Atzmannig. We rather suspect that on a clear day the views would be spectacular, and we're definitely planning on coming back to try the snowshoeing, and to do the walk in better weather.
All in all the walk took us 3hrs (not including lunch) for the 9.5km, with 640m vertical gain/lost. We'd rate it 4/10 for difficulty, and the GPX plot of our route is here.
Walking Wald to Steg November
For our first walk in Zurich, Jules and I headed south-east to try a recommended walk between Wald and Steg, easily accessible by public transport from town.
The excursion turned out to be a lovely panoramic walk taking in the views of the Zurich See and the spectacular snow covered mountains in the distance. The weather was very kind to us - bright blue skies and the first snow of winter underfoot.
Overall, we'd rate it 6/10 and 4hrs for 15.7km and 790m vertical gain/lost. We stopped for a rather good lunch at Restaurant Bachtel-Kulm - Rosti with bacon and egg for yours truly, and a barley soup with wurstle for Jules).
Walking Wye Circular - July
With a slightly changable weather forecast, Jules, Andy, B, Derek, and Janine headed over to Kent to do Time Out walk # 53 - Wye Circular. This turned out to be a very pleasant stroll through the North Downs, with lovely views across the patchwork fields.
The weather was much better than we'd feared - definitely more sun than anything else, and only one shower of rain, that lasted less than a field's width. The walk itself was very pleasant, with quite easy navigation (just one minor detour), and not too strenuous, but enough hills to make the walk interesting. We stopped for a good lunch at the Compasses Inn in Sole Street, complete with chickens running around the garden, generally looking for scraps and sunning themselves.
Overall the 11.25 miles took us 4hrs 20 of walking and probably a couple of hours of breaks, given a lazy lunch. We'd rate it 6/10 for difficulty.
Walking Wendover Circular - June
For a bit of a stretch of the legs, Jules and I headed back to the Chilterns to do Saturday Walkers Club route # 140 - Wendover Circular for the second time.
The weather was very kind to us - bright and sunny for the whole day (in contrast to last time we were here), and the route was as good as we remembered.
We stopped for a cup of tea in the cafe in the woods, and also we were held up a little whilst we stopped to pick some delicious wild raspberries, and some fresh peas en-route. Lunch was an excellent roast in the The Old Swan in Swan Bottom, where they managed to find something for us to eat, despite us arriving about 30 minutes after the lunch service had finished - top marks guys!
Overall the 11.7 miles took us 4:15 of walking, and we'd rate it 6/10 for difficulty.
Walking Berkhampstead - May
Flying in the face of the weather forecast, Jules and I headed off for a random wander around Berkhampstead. It was an unexpectedly pleasant day, bright and warm and mostly sunny - not what we'd expect from a bank holiday weekend at all.
The route we followed was ... shock, horror, not from a book or website, we just downloaded the MotionX maps and went for a wander, without even an OS map (wonders never cease), but that turned out pretty well. We saw some spectacular bluebells in the Ashampstead Estate - about 10 minutes walk from the Bridgewater Monument.
Overall the route was a tiny bit over 12.1 miles, and took us 3hrs55, not including a stop in the Bridgewater Arms for a bowl of chips and a drink, and we'd rate it 6/10 for recovering ferkels. The GPS plot is here.
Walking Box Hill - March
For the first walk of the year (in March, to our slight surprise), Jules and I headed out to Surrey to do a variation on walk #139 from the Saturday Walker's Club - Tadley via Headley Heath and Box Hill.
This turned out to be a very pleasant walk through the rolling hills of Surrey with lovely views from the top of the downs. We stopped for a welcome (and huge) lunch in the Smith & Weston American style diner for some great ribs and a huge pile of coleslaw to set us up for the rest of the afternoon.
Overall the ca. 10 miles took us 4hrs30 (including an hour for lunch) and we'd rate walk 5/10 for toughness.