My hammock was my window on to the valley: a new type of walking trail in the Swiss Alps

The world’s first hammock hiking trail in southern Switzerland takes hikers into quiet corners of the Alps – with their beds in their backpack for lazy pit stops and overnight stays

It was a summer’s morning in the Lepontine Alps in Ticino, Switzerland’s Italian-speaking canton, and there was the vague threat of a storm on the horizon. I was already out on a trail through larch and hazelnut forest, backpack shouldered, aiming for a mountain pass. Up ahead, a herd of short-haired goats grazed, their bells chiming merrily, while behind me the peaks that tower over the Maggia Valley shuffled in and out of view from behind the clouds – each top grimacing, stone teeth chipped and bared.

I hike in Switzerland every summer, but this time I’d been drawn to a new adventure, billed as the world’s first hammock hiking trail, west of popular Locarno. Launched last year, it begins in the village of Bosco Gurin and appeals to those who like combining vertiginous hikes with the more horizontal pastime of lounging in a hammock. It’s low-key, low-impact travel, offering a chance to get to know one of Switzerland’s most extraordinary valleys.