Climber John Harlin continues Swiss border adventure.  [...]

Most people wouldn’t think of climbing even one mountain let alone an entire mountain border. But John Harlin III has resumed his attempt to do just that.  [...]

What does it take to circle Switzerland on foot following its mountainous border?  [...]

It's almost surreal for me to accept this so quickly, but as I look off the porch here in Leysin I can see with my own eyes that my journey is finally done.  [...]

Today brought me up to half-speed in the electronic age. Sure, I've been using a computer since the beginning of time, but I've never had a smart phone, which is what these daily reports will be filed from.  [...]

Today I hopped a ride from Leysin to Bern to visit with swissinfo.ch and the people who have worked to make this adventure happen.  [...]

This has been a tough day. It started off well enough with a couple of nice TV interviews as I packed up and hiked out. But it didn't take long for the tendons running up from the outside of my knees to flare up.  [...]

It's very late and I must get up early for a big day tomorrow. Because of my knee and maybe also the scale of the enterprise, I'm behind schedule.  [...]

The border ridge I was following cliffed out and I couldn't get down. I had to backtrack uphill and finally found a very steep grassy gulley.  [...]

The sun rose brilliantly over Les Diablerets, a peak I used to ski on as a youth. Little could I have known then that 45 years later I would be rising early to commence a huge day, the fifth on a journey that seems to be getting bigger with each step.  [...]

Ah, sometimes it's nice to rest. No wonder vacations were invented. I should also apologize for a dirty laundry photo you’re about to see.  [...]

Today was a day of big changes: From the comforts of civilization at the Hotel Suisse (too much food and plenty of good Swiss fendant wine) to tundra and snowfields.  [...]

I’m typing this in a tent well above 3,000 meters in the rain, having watched all the cliffs and slopes above avalanche with water-logged snow.  [...]

One step forward, two sliding back: even off the snow the going was slow.  [...]

Just took a big fall. Maybe a broken rib. Waiting for helicopter rescue.  [...]

John Harlin is airlifted to hospital in Sion after a bad fall.  [...]

Thank you to everyone who has been interested in my progress. How differently things turned out than expected.  [...]

You might think that after 54 years of navigating life in and out of the mountains, I'd have a pretty good idea of what I'm getting myself into. But mountains, like life, often throw up surprises.  [...]

The wind is howling and the river is full and fast.  [...]

We paddled an entire country today! Okay, so Liechtenstein is only about 24-km long, but it's impressive in many other ways besides its diminutiveness.  [...]

It's unfortunate that my first official Border Stories interview had to delve into one of the darkest episodes of European history, from which the Swiss do not escape. So I'll begin on a brighter note.

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Lake Constance was as smooth as glass and our boats were pointed to 280 degrees when church bells pealed through the fog. First from one town, then several.  [...]

Where Lake Constance pinches together, divided only by the gently flowing Rhine, one of Europe's most historically important cities should have been Swiss. Instead Konstanz is German.  [...]

Today begins and ends with kayaking, but now I'm sitting in a farmer's field with a bike on which I've been lost countless times. It’s been a peculiar day.  [...]

Today I was going to report on how these strange border deviations came to be. But my feet are soaked and cold, my ankles are lacerated, my knee is bruised, it's dark and I'm hungry. So I'm more into whining at the moment than explaining history.  [...]

How do you get out on the wrong side of a bivouac sack, one of those weather-proof wrappers for a sleeping bag? Not sure but I must have done it this morning.  [...]

What a day. Dawn broke on me in a farmer's field high above Rafz and the fog-filled Rhine valley. A chilly descent plunged me into the gloom, but by the time I reached Konrad and Jean-Pierre by the river, the sun started lifting the fog and with it our spirits.  [...]

Today has a completely different feeling, as the river once again changes character, and with it the peopled landscape around it.  [...]

Last night Konrad and I paddled an hour side-by-side in the gathering darkness. The glassy smooth water and gentle pace allowed us to enjoy the outlines of hills, the fluttering of heron wings, the comforts of conversation.  [...]

I'm sitting here in a restaurant with a picture window looking out at tram railcars clanging by, a tangle of narrow streets, and people, people, and more people. I'm in shock.  [...]

It really feels like I've seen the two extremes of Switzerland now. Last June was high, wild, glaciated and dangerous - now it’s low, tamed and well travelled.  [...]

It's hard to believe my luck at having the rain move in for the weekend. Most people don't think that way, of course: weekends are for sunshine.  [...]

At last I've had a chance to hike a section of the Swiss border with an actual Swiss person, and what an educational treat that has been.  [...]

Okay, neither of us has been knighted (yet), but Peter Schibli and I have been riding on routes long used by knights to a castle once inhabited by such warriors.  [...]

When I started this project, my plan was to always stay within a "stone's throw" of the border, and I meant it literally, not metaphorically.  [...]

It seems we've caught a couple of days of glorious weather, which is a marvellous way to welcome friends from my hometown of Hood River, Oregon, who have come to bike the Jura mountains with me.  [...]

This has been an amazing ascent of the Doubs River, with gorgeous tracks through the woods, gravel roads, and occasional pieces of pavement.  [...]

We decided to take the morning off from biking to visit the Grandes Forges de Vallorbe, which is now a museum on Vallorbe's iron making and railway history.  [...]

The Risoux, Dominique explained, is where they take you to get lost. Or at least to practise your compass skills and compete in orientation competitions.  [...]

When Jay asked David Barney at Cern what he hoped to learn from his current experiment, he replied "Life, the universe, and everything."  [...]

We decided to try to knock out the entire border around Geneva today. The weather will soon be changing for the worse, so I'm eager to get started.  [...]

We could not have had a more glorious day to begin this paddle.  [...]

It seemed that despite my paranoia about the changing weather we were condemned to yet another day filled with glassy smooth water, mild temperatures, and glorious fall foliage.  [...]

While I remember Lausanne from my youth, as it is the largest city in Canton Vaud and we drove through it frequently...  [...]

Today the northern borders officially end for me. I'm basking in the moment as I head back up to Leysin for a celebratory dinner with friends.  [...]

This is the end of the beginning, but far from the beginning of the end.  [...]

It's great to be alone again. I wouldn't have traded Andrea's company for the world.  [...]

The rain on Thursday got heavier and heavier and by the time I reached the pass to Austria a squall was blowing.  [...]

Crossing over to the massive glaciers on the Swiss side of the Silvretta group.  [...]

The weather gods smiled on us and we managed to make it up
Piz Buin on Saturday.  [...]

In a remote high meadow we hiked up to someone who had just found a gigantic eagle feather. "This is lucky!" he exclaimed.  [...]

The Dreiländerspitze was a beautiful little climb ...  [...]

When I first saw my "sleep in the hay" farm accommodations, I was a bit taken aback.  [...]

Couldn't see a thing all morning.  [...]

I came to Val Müstair for the monastery, but stayed at the distillery.
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Well, maybe none of this fits the theological definition of a miracle, but ...  [...]

Camping in the rain is cozy fun until you wake up with your feet in a puddle of water.
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What does it take to circle Switzerland on foot following its mountainous border?  [...]

I had hoped to see wildlife but saw something even rarer instead: edelweiss.  [...]

Woke up this morning to a crust of ice inside my tent. Each gust of wind flapped the walls, causing ice to shower down onto my bag.  [...]

The people here are finally speaking Italian. Only I'm in Switzerland.  [...]

I have a big problem with beautiful days in the Alps.  [...]

The border guard had been tracking me for days on the internet. He finally pounced while I was having coffee at the Albergo di Stazione, my weekend rest stop in Campocologno.  [...]

It appeared in the forest. Suddenly I noticed that the trail underfoot was more than a trail.  [...]

“As I reflect back on the last couple weeks on the Swiss border my thoughts tangle between the weeks themselves and the year that led up to them,” John Harlin writes.  [...]

"Here you must breathe deep and then move fast, said Beno as he nodded toward the giant icicles hanging above us. "No helmet will save you from those."  [...]

You never know what the mountains will give you. Or the rest of life, either.  [...]

They start 'em young in the Alps.  [...]

"We call people who drop rocks killers."  [...]

You wouldn't believe how spectacular this trail is, but I'm still racing to put it behind me.  [...]

I may have been tired when I arrived in Val Begaglia, but at least I didn't bicycle into the river, like Hermann Buhl did in 1952.  [...]

I knew something was coming, but I didn't imagine it would be like this.  [...]

"There is an energy here, you will feel it. You will fly up the trail."  [...]

A couple of years ago lightning created a magnetic field that enveloped the dam of Lago di Lei.  [...]

Yesterday I was scared.  [...]

I really, really wanted an umbrella. I'd been wanting one even before my trail entered a village where everyone but me had one.  [...]

Glaciers come and glaciers go. It's been like that for ages before man. It's sad to see the glaciers go this time around.  [...]

Yesterday the borderline contained some of the finest ridgecrest hiking ever.  [...]

Harvey Manning, a wise if curmudgeonly guru of Northwest American hiking, had a wonderful motto: "The slower you go, the more you see." How very true. Partly.  [...]

Last night our waiter spoke to us wistfully as he served the polenta.  [...]

Monte Generoso it's called, and it's been a real treat for me, tourists and all. Yesterday afternoon I hiked up from the south shore of Lago di Lugano.  [...]

An American in Europe never quite gets used to the mingling of centuries, where today's amenities live comfortably inside medieval buildings and modern cars squeeze onto roads built for walking.  [...]

Biking up the hillside toward Monte Lema, we noticed chestnuts on the ground.  [...]

There is a very good reason people use guidebooks and recommendations to choose their routes.  [...]

This morning we were looking at banana trees, palms, and agaves, among hundreds of other tropical plants.  [...]

This morning I woke up in Bordei (geologically Africa) and this afternoon I dined in Comologno (very European).  [...]

A few weeks ago I crossed a pass north of Val Bregaglia and couldn't believe what I saw.  [...]

Here in Bosco-Gurin the old is trying to survive.  [...]

Life on the trail is of two parts: what your body is doing and seeing versus what your mind is thinking about.  [...]

There's the actual summit of the peak at the head of the Binntal Valley, which I lingered on for nearly an hour yesterday afternoon before descending to the first green place to pitch my tent.  [...]

"The people here really love their little lake," Irene said when I asked about the name of the accordion band we were listening to last night.  [...]

Today I spanned many periods of history while traversing one of the great passes of the Alps.  [...]

Jürg Stüssi explained that there were three great periods in the history of the Simplon Pass.  [...]

My friend John Bird from Utah arrived last night all jetlagged and anxious.  [...]

Decisions have consequences, some more serious than others, or they just set things in motion with results that won't be known for some time.  [...]

It was a long haul, but eventually we made it to the Rifugio Regina Margherita, the highest hut in the Alps.  [...]

Traversing the long ridge-peak of Liskamm was one of the most spectacular things I've ever done.  [...]

Way back on the border of Liechtenstein in early July, people asked where I was headed. "To the Matterhorn!" I replied.  [...]

The storm arrived 12 hours early, anouncing itself with an ear-splitting crack at 3:20 am.  [...]

John's health has returned and the journey resumed with a rainy walk back to the Schoenbiel hut.  [...]

Among ski mountaineers the world over, there is only one tour that everyone knows the name of, and everyone wants to do.  [...]

You see the box to the right of this report that says the Swiss border is 2,000 kilometers?  [...]

Tonight we have the tiny bivouac hut to ourselves. Can't imagine why.  [...]

It seems ironic that the pass named for a saint – more than that, the official patron saint of the Alps – makes the history books primarily for the passage of warriors. And dogs.  [...]

Over the last two months I've used the word "alpage" quite a few times, especially in photo captions. But what does it mean?  [...]

It is the night before summiting and all through the hut not a climber is stirring unless it's to snore.  [...]

As we started up Mont Dolent on Monday it was hard to know if our launch was wise or simply ambitious.  [...]

It's almost surreal for me to accept this so quickly, but as I look off the porch here in Leysin I can see with my own eyes that my journey is finally done.  [...]