Hidden Treasures

Adventurer Dan Milner braves rickety cable cars and scantily-clad farmers, and is rewarded with remote virgin alpine trails in the heart of Switzerland

- By Dan Milner. Photographs by Dan Milner

How good is your knot tying? asks Michi Theiler, my local guide. I'd understand his question if we were sailing around the Balearics, but now, during a four-day mountain bike romp between towering Swiss peaks, I'm baffled.

But then I see the cable car we're about to board and all makes sense - I only wish I'd put more effort into getting my Cub Scouts knots badge. In front of us, gently (if a little precariously) swaying in its docking station, sits a tiny cabin suspended from a cable that soars impossibly upwards to disappear into thick forest. At a squeeze this aluminium bubble might fit four people, as long as any luggage - bikes included - is entrusted to its exterior rack. I look at the basic metal cage fixed to the outside, and the frayed bit of rope dangling limply above it - the only things that'll keep my pride and joy in place for the uplift ahead - and breathe deeply. It's the kind of needs-must contraption I'd expect to see in Nepal. It's not very Swiss, I laugh to Michi, only half joking.

Knots landing