OK, the summer holidays have started. Jax and Finn bounded out of the school gates on their final day, ready and prepped to make our already stretched working lives significantly more stressful.
Fortunately, we had a plan.
Car loaded. Eurotunnel booked. Electric car charges (a ridiculous amount!) planned. Our drive to the Swiss Alps was under way.
Not many people know this, but for a pretty reasonable price you can stay the night, with half board, high up in beautiful mountain cabins dotted all around the European Alps. For a family of four, with basic catering, a typical mountain refuge costs about £200 a night.
That was our family challenge: a week of hiking at 2,000 metres-plus, in the hope of stumbling across some pretty epic wildlife.
Hiking with a 4 year old?
Let's tackle the obvious question first. Can you take a 4 and 6 year old hiking for a week?
Honest answer: it ain't easy, but yes.
After a few days, the boys are actually waking up and asking to go hiking. How? We always try to nail four principles:
Sticks. The boys are obsessed with them. Within minutes they've found their perfect walking stick, and it genuinely helps their little legs clamber up the rocky mountain paths.
Points. For wildlife, obviously. 10 points for a fox, 5 for a squirrel, 1 for a dragonfly. They love the game and keep score for hours.
Breaks. Lots of them. We go at their pace, about 15 minutes of walking, then a 5 minute break. It's incredible how quickly they recharge.
Bags. The kids love packing their own. They carry them the whole way and feel like little superheroes.
Finn sporting his carefully sourced stick
It's been amazing watching them fall in love with walking through nature. Over the last few days they've climbed three miles up a gorge, hiked four miles at 3,000 metres across a glacier, and paced up a 1,000-foot, one-mile climb to a stunning refuge.
Hiking at over 3000 metres
What about the wildlife?
Our efforts paid off. After a tip-off from a local guide, we waited patiently outside a marmot colony, rewarded with sudden, high-pitched whistles, quickly followed by the appearance of these brilliant little mountain rodents. (The photos aren't great, but we saw them!)
Heidi would have been proud!
Our most epic encounter was setting the alarm for 5:30am, bedding down the night before in a mountain refuge, then stumbling out onto the still snow-covered peak and coming face to face with a family of Ibex.
Ibex on the slopes in the early morning light
Impressive mountaineers
Don't get me wrong, we had our tough moments. The odd tantrum halfway up a mountain (quickly followed by an exhausting and fairly treacherous piggyback), over-tired kids who forget that some hikers come to the mountains for peace and quiet rather than argumentative shouting matches, and more requests for treats than we ever thought possible.
But it worked.
Is it worth it?
We've loved it. It's a lot of effort. A long drive. Pretty intense planning. But I'm so proud of the boys, and specifically their little legs. They genuinely love hiking, and I promise, not just to please us.
The Alps in summer are the perfect destination, and it can be done relatively cheaply, about the same price as a staycation back in the UK. We always pack picnics (as much as we’d love an over-priced cheese fondue) and focus on the free activities loads of ski resorts offer in summer, from mountain biking to swimming and ice skating.
The boys love the adventure of the mountains
A couple of specific recommendations
We base ourselves at Villars-sur-Ollon, about 90 minutes from Geneva, and like to hike up to:
Refuge Giacomini, slightly run down, but nestled right up high in the mountains, next to a couple of marmot colonies.
The beautiful hike up to Refuge Giacomini
Cabane des Diablerets, our favourite, run by Céline and her mountain dog Alec. Right on the edge of a mountain peak at over 2,400 metres. Rough and ready, but the morning view is hard to beat, one of the best places in the Swiss Alps to find and photograph Ibex.
Cabane des Diablerets at 2,400 metres
The boys making themselves at home at Cabane des Diablerets
The morning view across the Alps
This isn't quite a wildlife experience on your doorstep, so get in touch if you have any questions about planning your own trip to the Alps.
We'll be heading back next year.
What we're loving at the moment
Probably not news to most of you, but the AllTrails app is brilliant. We spend hours exploring and planning new hikes, and the boys love following our progress as we complete a route.
It's worldwide, with a database of over 500,000 trails across 190 countries, for £25.99 a year, it feels like pretty good value. We're up to 7 hikes and counting (and we often combine walks with geocaching).
Photo of the fortnight
An Ibex from earlier this week. I love this style of photography, lots of negative space, capturing the wildlife small within its epic habitat.
What's next?
We're heading down to Provence tomorrow.
The plan is to immerse ourselves with the working bulls and hardy Camargue horses that roam the wetlands and marshes of the south of France. We'll let you know how it goes.