Imagine my excitement when a friend's sister (who lives locally) reached out to see if we wanted to go hiking on Sunday morning. YES! was my answer - hooray, a local who could show us where to go. After all, isn't that what you are supposed to do in Switzerland? Hike?

One problem: I've never really hiked in my life. She asked if we would be ok to climb up for 2.5 hours, then down and I replied we'd never make it. So she chose an easier route. She picked us up promptly at 9:30 and it was a short 30 minute drive outside of Morges. We'd never been out of Morges so this was a treat to sit in a real car.

Start point above: Col du Mollendruz. End point: Chatel

Greeted by cows with bells-music to my ears

I didn't know what to expect and it was a lot steeper than anticipated. I started to get short of breadth and wondered if I made a mistake. It was very deserted, passing a family every now and then (whose children walked faster than me), but after awhile the shortness of breath went away & I enjoyed the serenity.

I do confess it was scary at a few points, steep and rocky. I felt awful because we were slowing our friend down. She was very patient, easy to talk to and we really enjoyed her company.

WE MADE IT!

VIEW FROM TOP!

You can see Lake Geneva from the top

We begin our descent down

We took a different route down on the winding road (easier on the knees)-I would have been scared to death with a steep decline. When we got back down I looked up and couldn't believe I had been way up there on the top of the mountain. I wished I had taken a picture from below because I was so proud of myself for making it all the way up there.