Most university graduates celebrate their degrees with a beach vacation or a quiet family gathering, but 20-year-old Ali Rashed chose to tread a road not taken – solo hiking 426km across the entire width of Switzerland.
Fresh off his graduation, the Sanabis youngster embarked on the Via Alpina, a famed alpine trail that crosses 14 mountain passes across the country.
“Local Swiss hikers typically complete the route in sectioned stages over several years. I finished all the stages in a continuous 21-day journey,” Mr Rashed told the GDN.
“My rule was simple: from the moment I crossed the Swiss border until I reached the finish line in Geneva, I refused to step into a single motor vehicle, train, car, or even an elevator.”
Transitioning from Bahrain’s flat terrain to high-altitude mountain passes required six months of preparation back home. With his mind set on a fresh quest and no nearby hiking tracks comparable to the alpine mountains, Mr Rashed was eager to undergo proper training for his adventure.
“I did a lot of walking, trying to find inclined areas in Saudi Arabia like Tabuk, Hail and Judah.
“I also did zone two training, which is a low-to-moderate intensity exercise level.
“I’ve never hiked overnight before; I’ve done small trips in Saudi Arabia for leisure, but nothing as extreme as this.
One of his stops in Switzerland
Despite the training, the harsh alpine climate posed immediate challenges. During the three-week trek, weather conditions shifted rapidly from clear summer days to severe mountain thunderstorms, leaving him with no choice but to take cover in open terrain.
The highest point of his trek reached an elevation of 2,834 metres, offering views of Interlaken and the German landscape. “That was one of the moments that made all the exhaustion worth it,” the hiker noted.
Mr Rashed said that the expedition took a heavy physical toll. Carrying a full camping setup without high-end equipment, he burned between 4,000 and 6,000 calories per day, resulting in an overall weight loss of 6kg.
A map of the Via Alpina hike path
“Burning that many calories meant I had to treat food purely as fuel. All I could find was bread and cheese, which wasn’t enough to sustain me nutritionally.”
“The journey had many logistical problems. I relied partly on a 2016 guidebook, which I discovered near the end of the trip had several trails that had changed over the years.
“On what I thought would be a light four-hour walk on my penultimate day, a route calculation error revealed I had accidentally skipped a full stage in my planning.
“Adding an extra day of travel, I chose to combine both remaining stages into a nine-hour push to reach Geneva.”
In rural farming villages, Swiss residents were intrigued to meet a hiker who had travelled from Bahrain to complete the full national trail.
“An elderly man detoured from his own path to guide me past a dead end, sharing details about native mountain flora along the walk.
“I learned so much about flowers from that man. It was very sweet of him to help me to that extent.”
Reflecting on the achievement, Mr Rashed described the physical and mental isolation as a transformative experience that tested his self-reliance.
“It felt like a direct metaphor for life,” he said. “You literally go up and down mountain passes every single day. Unforeseen challenges appear out of nowhere. It taught me that big things are accomplished step by step.”
Despite the success of the expedition, he has no plans to repeat the trail or pursue traditional mountain climbing in the future, describing his approach as a desire to tackle new, extreme challenges once rather than repeating the same feat.
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