250km Bikepacking Adventure Across the Swiss Alps (Part 1)

Join me on an incredible bikepacking route through Switzerland on my MTB. Pedalling through the high Swiss Alps with endless remote singletrack and mountain villages was an incredible adventure. The bikepacking route is called Marmot’s land.

This vlog is in two parts. This part 1 starts from Zernez and finishes at camp over the border in Italy. Part 2 picks up there with a descent into Livigno, a bike park day and a return through Switzerland with UNESCO world heritage sites and some of the hardest climbs of the trip.

Link to Part 2 here 👉 If there’s no link yet, then the video is scheduled to go live on 14th September at 17:00 BST… so subscribe and hit the bell to get notified!

Along the way, I’ll be sharing my experiences, bike setup, camping spots and navigating the route. Whether you’re experienced at bikepacking or simply love outdoor adventures, this video will inspire you to explore the Swiss alps. Don’t miss the epic scenery, marmot wildlife encounters, and the challenges that come with bikepacking through this stunning part of the world!

Link to playlist of my Slovenia, Sweden and Scotland bikepacking vlogs: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsMsZiuYkp0sOWM6a68zIa0Jq29jnweUp&si=U2bKxOav-6ygFMOq

👉 My bikepacking setup: https://youtu.be/j9-puWufF-c?si=95sZYLDgLMD_KLoR

Chapters:
00:00 The Route & Travel to Start
01:58 Day 1
04:37 Small MTB Park
05:43 Camping
06:22 Day 2 & First Marmot Sighting!
07:23 Views & 1300m descent
08:13 Sweet Singletrack
09:19 Swiss National Park
10:49 Day 3 got gnarly!
13:28 Stunning remote views
14:40 Most unique singletrack
16:17 Camp and Sunset

Code: 3MPO4WOPS9Q78G7Y
#bikepacking #switzerland #biketouring #mtb #bikeride #endurance

[Music] Wow, this is gnarly. [Music] Welcome back from Zurich. So, we are in uh the center of Zurich at well at the airport. Arrived h last night for a week long bike packing trip. Flew in from Edinburgh through London. H fairly smooth flight. Fueled up this morning with a good breakfast and we are just getting the bikes ready to rock. So, if you watch the vlogs before, you’ll recognize Gav, our brother Conan. Angus is doing his first uh bike packing holiday as well now. So, it uh it’s going to be fun. The route looks like we’ve got quite a bit of uh alpine riding h going up to like 2,600 meters. H it’s 220 km roughly 7,000 m over I think we’re doing over like 5 six days. Um so we’re going to get going, get the train to the start point and we’ll be there this afternoon. All right, on the train got the bikes tucked in here. So just paid for bike storage, bike bag storage for the week, glo storage. uh and we can leave them there at the hotel and stay there again at the end. It works really well. So, it’s going to be a nice 30 plus° uh for started pedaling today. Strong start. Just arrived at the start point now in Zernz. Super easy in the train. Totally geared up for for bikes here. Uh pretty quiet. Uh super smooth. If you want to see my setup, I’ll pop a link to a video uh in the description below. Um and you can yeah see how I how I roll. And we’re just going to get started. About 1100 meters today. Scenery looks just incredible. You can kind of see it poking out in the corner there, but just stunning. So, let’s go. [Music] Oh my gosh. This is insane. We’re literally 10 minutes in. It’s beautiful. nature. Oh, so we seem to be just heading along the valley floor at the moment along by the river. It’s just beautiful, guys. We’ve come up a decent bit from the valley floor already. It’s so hot. It’s like in the 30s and it’s just like gross. So sweaty. There’s no shade here. It’s like all in the direct sunlight. First stop, um we’ve got some Swiss cider, German cider vine. It’s really nice. It’s like a cloudy cider. So, I definitely recommend that if you’re here. The view is spectacular behind Gav. Yeah. Is the beer good? Excellent. Yeah. Yeah. Savage. Absolutely savage. Back on the bike and we just done like 200 m climb. Super steep. I’m dying. The climbs are not easy here. So worth it, though. Look at that. Ah, I should pay attention where I’m going. So, it’s been mostly off road so far with a wee bit of uh we bit of road through some of the towns, but super quiet. Send it. I’m like a snail. Not going to fly away. Back on the hills, but but better. Shamona said they’re or kamona. I’m not sure. Sun’s gone down a bit now. Still climbing. So, we had dinner down there. Lovely we spot looking out to those views. Ah, and now we’ve got a decent chunky climb, a few hundred meters, but hoping for a lake stop tonight before bed. We have arrived at the the lake. Check out this uh beauty. I don’t think the swimming will be happening for some reason. Or maybe I was wrong. Oh, we have found some trails and some jumps. So, we’re going to give it a bash. [Music] [Applause] [Music] black here. I’m keen on the black. I don’t think it’s going to be too mad. Oh, I that is uh that is extremely black. All right, blue it is. Oh no. [Applause] [Applause] Oh, [Applause] that was good, actually. Yeah, I didn’t do it justice, but that was good. So, that’s us just pitched up for the night at camp. We’ve got the hills, mountains in the background. It’s so beautiful. pretty tired now. It’s coming on 9:00. It’s been a decent day. About 1300 meters and 40 odd kilometers. Don’t know if you can hear the cows up in the the hill there with the bells on. It’s really nice. Well, for those of us that have earplugs to sleep tonight, it’s nice. So, going to get a good sleep hopefully and catch you for day two tomorrow. Look at this morning, guys. Beautiful. Day two tuned for the swing. Set off. Saw our first marmet. Super cute and the views are incredible. We’re heading down 800 m now to town. Gavas skall. The biggest far from the vin. Oh, cool. Just found a spot for breakfast. [Music] Not bad. Oh, it’s been really tough. Like really tough. Single track steep rocks in the way. Come up from down there somewhere. But the end is in sight. Just up here. This is one of the nice smooth sections, but it’s been pretty pretty steep until now. Pretty done in. It’s just no shelter from the sun and it’s like maybe late 20s 20° and uh yeah just trying to drink loads of water to be honest. The top does not disappoint here. And now for 1300 meter descent into the town. It’s going to be crazy. And some northshore coming up. And then we’ve got uh cows to go through. Quite interesting. Yeah, the wall raid wasn’t as uh fun as I thought it was going to be. [Applause] Now the challenge is not to fall off the edge of this slope, which would hurt. Just going to take it easy. Decently wide. [Applause] A sweet single track. Bit roaded in the side there. Oh, that’s tight. Hope we were going that way. I don’t know if the path carried on there. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it’s actually getting a little bit technical. [Music] Nice. Oh, descending right down now into town. Getting down a decent bit. Definitely going to have some burnt rotors after this. 400 m into the thousand m climb. Huge landslide here. It’s really hard going. All thousand m in one go. [Music] Wow. This is us literally on the edge of the Swiss National Park here. Literally on the border. Explains why it’s pretty stunning. Still on the climb. Halfway in. 500 m to go. [Applause] So just had dinner in this lovely we town here. It was absolutely incredible. some local specialtities which were like spzel like pasta dumpling things. So tasty and the service everywhere is just so friendly. Now just off to camp. Couple more 100 meters. We’re already on 1700 50k and then we’ll pitch up our tents for tonight. Good morning from day three now. Camped here. nice flat spotish overnight and we’re heading through here and some uh single track ascent for a while. Looks be a bit tough going at the start at least and then we’ve got some sweet descent down into town for breakfast. But the highlight of today is going to be a big lake. So we’re going to do a bit of swimming later on before heading up to to camp tonight and then it’s Levveno tomorrow for some uplift x sea laps. So Angus has found us a blue trail and trail forks as an alternative to a fire road descent. So we’re just hunting for that shortly. Oh, it’s rather tight. Lovely. So glad I don’t have a saddle pack on. I can use the dropper. This is gnarly. Oh my gosh. I mean, flipping heck, riding this on the XC in general would be intense. Never mind with all this kit on it. This is a bit holy looking. Oh god. Let her roll. No. No. That was a driller. Hopefully just a scrape. Sweet. Thanks. That was that was good. I was skeptical, but that was good. And breakfast. So, we’re on well underway with the climb now. We’re just taking a break in the shade. It’s hard going. The sweat is just dripping. We’re having a bit of a snack from the shop. The views are pretty cool up. We’re going up there somewhere. I think we got another couple hundred to go. It’s like a 7800 meter climb again in one go as it is here. And it’s just so hard because again there’s just like hardly any shade. [Music] Wow. Everywhere is just stirring. [Music] I think that’s has reached the highest point now and it’s uh descent for a wee bit. immense. And we’re just heading down towards this lake, which shouldn’t be too far away now. [Applause] [Applause] Look at that. Jesus. That’s a picture. [Applause] [Applause] I’m just going to try not to slide off the edge. Phenomenal. This has to be the most unique mountain biking I’ve ever done. [Applause] Very cool. [Music] The lake delivered. So, we’ve had a really nice hour just chilling, swimming, refreshing, and we’re just getting ready to go up. I don’t know where we’re going up. We’re going up one of these hills. 300 m up. Gavin has decorated my bike. the sponsors will be happy with these lovely subtle stickers. Apparently, one’s been on said yesterday. I didn’t even notice. So, we’ve come from all the way down at the lake there. Just switch backing up. It’s pretty steep. We’re in Italy now, though. So almost uh getting towards Levveno tomorrow. It’s not sedimentally layers. I don’t think it still has to see where all the greenery is. Basically just setting up a camp here. It’s nice and flat. And tomorrow morning we’re going to descend into the town of Levveno. So we’re gonna get a day lift pass and go and just dump the bags at the hotel, get a day’s riding in, and then we’re going to stay in a hotel, treat ourselves tomorrow night. And it’s the final two days. I can’t believe we’re halfway in already. It’s been absolutely phenomenal. The last two days we’ll be ducking back into Switzerland and back up round to Zes. And that’s a wrap on part one. If you want to see part two, then just hit the link in the description below. Uh, you can expect a single track down to Levveno, a day in the bike park, followed by another couple of days through Switzerland, uh, with more amazing views, some of the hardest climbs of the trip yet, thunderstorms, and more.