I would be a great outdoor explorer, a mountaineer, a true backwoods trekker, but it all seems to involve getting up so damn early in the morning. Thank goodness I live at the foot of the Alps or I'd never see any of it. As it is, I still have a hard time getting my act together before noon, so I've spent the last two years finding some of the most amazing late-afternoon hikes in the Lac Leman (aka Lake Geneva) area. The people of the Alps, being eminently civilized folks, long ago improved upon the ancient sport of mountain hiking with a couple of inventions: The funicular and the mountain-top beer garden. Toss in a distinctly un-Swiss approach to the whole affair - a leisurely morning - and, suddenly, Alpine hiking becomes as rewarding as your troop leader always claimed it was.

Now you too can hit snooze one more time, loiter over the Sunday paper, have that second cup of coffee, and still feel like Sir Edmund Hillary by sunset. Here are my three favorite lazyman hikes in southern Switzerland:

Hauts de Montreux
Less than 20 kilometers away from, and 800 meters above, the swanky "Rivera of Switzerland" (though the only thing I've found Rivera-like were the prices), Hauts de Montreux is a lazy hiker's dream. Take your time, sleep off that pub crawl in Bern or all-night clubbing fix in Lausanne, the mountain will wait.

Leaving Geneva just after noon, I managed to get to Montreux, get lost, buy a map, and grab one of the crazy little cog trains leaving from the main Montreux station. And by 1:30 I was huffing up a gorgeous alpine ridge, acrophobic-ly high above the lakefront sprawl. On a good day you can see to Geneva in the west and Bern in the east. If you look hard, you can even see the sparkle of all those flashy watches and dripping diamonds on the rich old people shuffling around the muggy lakefront.

The "MOB" or "Montreux-Oberland-Bernois" train line (but isn't "MOB" just so much cooler?) can haul your laziness up to the very top of 2000 meter Rochers-De-Nayne, lord of the Vaud pre-Alps. There are a number of multi-day tickets billed as "Golden Pass" something-or-other, but they look a little complicated so you probably want to just stick with the one-shot tickets. Note that the trains stop running to and from the top around 6pm but they'll shut down early if the weather's bad, so don't count on one to haul your ass out of a sudden early evening rainstorm (guess how I found that out).

The mountains around Hauts de Montreux are threaded with forest trails, suddenly isolated villages, caves, grottos, and wildlife. Rochers-De-Nayne itself is home to an odd little compound called "Marmots Paradise" where marmots from all over the world live in an observable system of underground burrows. Kind of a rodent UN or something. I wasn't sure what to make of it. Any of the train stops will lead to several hiking options. For a real hiker's hike, tackle the four hour, 1000 meter climb from Caux to Rochers-De-Naye. Saner folks might want to get off at Dent-De-Jaman, just below the peak, where you can enjoy the views and fresh air with out the huffing and puffing.

Another cog train/funicular combo leaving from the MOB station leads into the nearby Les Avants wildlife area, more of a Sound of Music pretty scenery than the OhMyGawd drama of some of Rochers-De-Naye's vistas. Pretty much anything heading North and/or East of Montreux will lead to some combination of charming Swiss villages and invigorating Swiss landscapes. Despite the heavy Golden Pass advertising scheme, most of the visitors are small groups of locals, not the hordes of tourists you'll find in near-by (but hard to get to) Chamonix or Interlaken. Many of the mountain-top restaurants double as 'buvettes' - something between a refugee hut and a hotel - where you can stay the night, often for much less than you'd pay for a lakeside hostel.

Interlaken
Waking up in Interlaken, whether it's 6am or 2pm, is stunning. You feel like you've already accomplished something just by managing to get your shoes on and stumble onto the deck of the hostel. Despite the hordes of tourist in the summer, despite the well worn trails and over-priced food, despite the obnoxious presence of Switzerland's one and only Hooters restaurant, Interlaken just can't be missed.

From downtown Interlaken there are no less than 45 kerbillion hikes ranging from 20 minute nature loops to 7 day treks. My favorites are wandering around the car-less high Alpine town of Wengen (pronounced "Vengan") and the day and a half hike to Fist. Any hotel or hostel worth its fondue can set you up with several maps and a couple of good suggestions depending on the weather, season, and your level of ambition. Keep in mind that there can be snow on the ground from October through the end of June on some of the high trails. Other Interlaken activities include parasailing, canoeing, sky diving, river rafting, ice climbing, rock climbing and shopping. I'm not sure if going to Hooters counts as a recreational sport or not, but it's there if you need it.

Leukerbaud
Leukerbaud is not quite the walk in the park, falling off a log, simple metaphor of your choice, excursion that the other two are. It does take a little planning and more than one train change coming and going. But it makes up for it with the one thing I may like better than either sleeping in or beer - yes, you heard me right - hot water. Not just any, soak-your-tea-bag-here hot water. Big old minerally bubbly, boiling, thermal hot spring water. The kind that can beat the tension out of you like a French chef goes at a veal scaloppini with a mallet. I don't care if you've been on vacation for two years and swear you don't have a tense bond between two electrons in your body, this water will find tension and it will expel it.

Now there are two ways to approach this water. The first is the ninny way. You are a ninny if you do it this way. But don't let ninnitude stand between you and hot springs if that's the way you want to go at this. Catch a train to Leuk from anywhere in Switzerland (it's on the main Montreux-Brig line) and the hourly bus from Leuk for the 15 minute ride to 'erbaud (no one actually calls it that, I just made it up. Don't try and use it around the locals thinking it will make you sound hip or anything) and there you are. You ninny.

The non-ninny way is a little more round-about, or over-about actually, but it will put hair on your chest and pink in your cheeks that everyone will notice and think to themselves "Now there is a person who is not a ninny." Don't catch a train to Leuk. You want to catch a train to Kenderstaag, which is also easy to get to from anywhere in Swytz. (less than hour from Bern, for example). Now there is not much in Kenderstaag except for this huge Boy Scouts compound which gave me the willies, but the few little hotels it does have are friendly as can be. Most of them will pick you up at the train station and many have really nice local restaurants as well. So arrive the night before you want to get to Leukerbaud, have some of the excellent local fish, hoist a few beers with your good Swiss-German hosts, and crash out early.

The next (late-) morning, catch the funicular to the top of Gemmipass where you get to stroll across the amazing, and almost completely flat, high mountain valley. Up almost 2000 meters and you're still dwarfed by the towering mountains to either side. The adventurous and insane can follow some well marked hikes up into the mist or deep blue sky, depending on the weather. The rest of us will stick to the gravel path. After about an hour is the Schwarenbach Berghotel, and old customs house when this was the border between Canton Bern and Valais and being a travelling salesman sucked (they didn't have funiculars back in those days, dontcha know). On the other side of the hotel and restaurant is another hour or two, up a bit, past the Alps highest lake, Daubensee. Meandering to up a few hundred more meters, the trail ends at another lodge and restaurant, perched oh-so-dramatically above Leukerbaud. At this point you can have a beer, admire the view, and then funiculate yourself down to the aqua therma, or you can be a big overachiever and hike down the frickey-wickey zig-zag trail.

Even with the final down-hill leg thrown in, the whole hike takes no more than 4-5 hours (factoring in a half hour for beer and food midway). After soaking yourself and maybe a massage or steambath, crash out in one of the many little hotels in town, or catch one of the hourly buses to the train station at Leuk on the Montreux-Sion line.

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