Mountain-birding in Switzerland

By: Steph Davis

By KAVU

September 10^th, 2024

Summer in Switzerland

It’s been a few years, so Ian and I decided to head to Europe and do some wingsuiting! We started off in Lauterbrunnen, because it’s a great launch point for so many incredible spots, and offers some cable car access for when you first roll in with jet lag.

Jumping from the mittel Jungfrau exit has been high on Ian’s dream list since he injured his feet in 2019. It’s a beautiful jump with a 3.5-hour hike to reach the exit, and it was one of the things he set as a goal to be able to do again during his recovery. We were both pretty surprised that he crushed the hike and felt great and got to fully enjoy every second of the long flight down!

We celebrated that with some other long hikes in the Kandersteg valley, a heli jump over the Eiger, and then headed over to the French side of Switzerland to a little village called Les Diablerets.

This area is known for a cable car that goes to the top of a 3000 meter peak, providing access for skiing in the winter, and also for a great wingsuit jump, Scex Rouge. Although the cable car is pretty expensive, even by Swiss standards!, it’s a good option when the weather is a little questionable, because it’s pretty easy to ride up there, scramble down 5 minutes to the edge of the cliff and wait to see if the clouds clear—knowing you can always ride back down if it doesn’t work out.

Though we’d been extremely lucky with the weather for most of our trip, it did get rainy and cloudy for the last few days, so Scex Rouge was a practical option.

We were pleasantly surprised that we got some holes in the clouds to jump on all but our last trip to the top—which just goes to show, you never know if you don’t go….

You may just find a truly KAVU day!

This wasn’t the longest trip we’ve ever done to Switzerland, but it was one of the sweetest, and I’m hoping not to let so much time go by before the next one!