These sustainable clothes make hiking even more fun

I can’t wait for my hik­ing boots to final­ly come out of hiber­na­tion! This year, it’s dragged on par­tic­u­lar­ly long due to the rainy weath­er. I’ve upgrad­ed my out­door gear: with sus­tain­able cloth­ing from the Swiss start-up This is Sheep. One thing is clear: With a nice out­fit, explor­ing Switzer­land is twice as much fun!

Two friends and I choose a hike to «Chrüzegg» moun­tain inn to test it out. We are spoilt for choice: Twen­ty dif­fer­ent tours take you up the moun­tain. Our start­ing point is Libin­gen. You can eas­i­ly reach this pret­ty ham­let in around an hour by pub­lic trans­port from Rap­per­swil-Jona, where the mod­ern youth hos­tel of the same name is locat­ed by the lake.

There’s only one way to get there…

As we begin the hike we are a lit­tle puz­zled. Rather than uphill, it starts by going down­hill. The extra metres in alti­tude as a result are def­i­nite­ly worth it: We pass beau­ti­ful water­falls and cross a small wood­en bridge. After that, there’s only one way to go: Up, on a steep path… our mood is grad­u­al­ly chang­ing…

If the route hadn’t been so var­ied with pas­ture trails, woods, hob­bit land­scapes and flow­er­ing mead­ows with mag­nif­i­cent views, we prob­a­bly wouldn’t have been able to get through it. This makes us all the more relieved when we reach our des­ti­na­tion, Gasthaus Chrüzegg, after a lot of sweat and man­ag­ing around 600 metres in alti­tude. We enjoy the view of Obersee Lake and the sur­round­ing hills.

Never again without my merino outfit

I’m super warm when I reach the top. But the amaz­ing thing is that my This is Sheep cloth­ing doesn’t feel wet at all. My two friends are almost a lit­tle jeal­ous. I decide to nev­er climb any more moun­tains with­out my Levi trousers, my Fri­da shirt, my cool Toni socks and my soft Fritzy head­band.

I can wear these clothes with a clear con­science. The two cloth­ing design­ers and tex­tile school grad­u­ates Alexan­dra and San­dra found­ed the brand in 2020 when they were forced to nix their trav­el plans. Their goal: rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing the tex­tile indus­try here Switzer­land! The cre­ative minds not only rely on extreme­ly easy-care, durable and microplas­tic-free meri­no wool, but also on small, local pro­duc­ers – in keep­ing with the mot­to «sup­port your local busi­ness.» For instance, the sock knit­ting shop is locat­ed in the neigh­bour­hood. 😊

The two only source the spe­cial, cer­ti­fied wool for the com­fort­able pieces from New Zealand. There is a sim­ple rea­son for this: Meri­no sheep need a lot of space, a dif­fer­ent cli­mate and a spe­cial diet that they can­not find in Switzer­land. I’m thrilled by the great busi­ness idea, which is also becom­ing increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar in Switzer­land.

Hiking fever has hit

Because the first hik­ing week­end in 2023 was so much fun, our next stroll is already planned for next week­end – of course I’ll be wear­ing my cosy hik­ing clothes again. This time, we’re going explor­ing in Appen­zell-Innerro­den. The beau­ti­ful hik­ing can­ton offers almost unlim­it­ed hik­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, most of which can be eas­i­ly reached by pub­lic trans­port from St. Gallen Youth Hos­tel.

After an enter­tain­ing train ride to «Weiss­bad» we board the Pub­liCar (be sure to reserve it in advance via the app or by tele­phone) tak­ing us to Gasthaus Lehmen. This is where our actu­al adven­ture begins: the Pot­er­salp cir­cu­lar trail, which we fol­low, but in the oppo­site direc­tion. My friend’s par­ents look after the cows at Alp Gross Berndli through­out the sum­mer, so we’re meet­ing them to bar­be­cue.

Flowers and mountain peaks

The first high­light of the tour is Leuen­fall. There, the thun­der­ing Berndlibach plunges into the depths in free fall. After mar­vel­ling briefly, we con­tin­ue our upwards jour­ney on the wide grav­el path through the woods. Time and again, we catch a glimpse of the tree­tops and see numer­ous tan­dem pilots in the sky. As we reach the edge of the for­est after a mod­er­ate uphill trek just over an hour, the colour­ful flower mead­ows and the impos­ing rock faces shine like no oth­er.

Once we reach Pot­er­salp, we fol­low the signs towards Schwiz­erälpli. Final­ly a bit of action on nar­row trails, over cow pas­tures, hill and dale with a mag­nif­i­cent view of the Sän­tis range. Once again, I con­sid­er myself for­tu­nate to live in such a diverse and beau­ti­ful coun­try.

After about 40 min­utes, we final­ly reach Alp Gross Berndli. It begins to rain hard for a bit. Luck­i­ly, we can retreat to the cosy chalet with my friend’s par­ents. Even the fire at the bar­be­cue with­stands the rain, so we can fill up before we head back down the val­ley, a walk of about 35 min­utes on an easy grav­el path. Once again, the sus­tain­able cloth­ing with­stood the many stress­es and strains and showed me why it is part of my hik­ing inven­to­ry!