Last year we rented a chalet in Verbier for New Years with the family, and I attempted snowshoeing for the first time. It turned out that I really enjoyed myself, drudging through knee-deep snow at sub-zero temperatures. I know, I was surprised myself!

In Switzerland there are people who, by the first snowfall of the season with no more than a whiff of icing sugar, rush to the train station in their clumsy skiing boots and skis carried across their shoulder. Half a year later, in April, everyone is pleading for summer to arrive and I brave a chilly spring day in flip-flops, silently urging the temperatures to adjust to my style of shoes, but they’re still awkwardly waddling to the train station with their skis.

Then there are people like me (admittedly only few) who do not ski, who do not even consider taking a lesson to learn. Truth is I really don’t like winter (and there are even fewer of those people), which is not a shocking revelation for anyone who knows me. I like to think that it’s more complex, in that what I don’t like about this season is what it implies 95% of the time. Pea soup fog for example, which can only be distinguished from the 16 hours of nighttime darkness, by its slightly lighter shade of grey, or differentiated from sleet, mist and rain by the size of the water droplets hanging in the air.

I crave the rare occasions when the sun breaks through the fog, clouds, or whatever obscures the view of blue skies and replaces the depressed, lonely looks on people’s faces with smiles (barring the ski fanatics of course, who also revel in the cold, black ice and snow). Almost every time that happens, I am reminded of a radio host in Berlin joking about a seemingly long lost yellow ball in the sky that was called the sun, just in case anyone had forgotten. This was sometime in March after six months of gloominess, so his comment was well justified. I used to like only one thing about that time of the year: the smell of winter.

Not only the scent of cinnamon, gingerbread and nutmeg, but also that of the bitter cold. I struggle to put the smell of snow and crisp air into words but a breeze of it drifting in through an open window as you’re snuggled up under a thick duvet is my personal definition of hygge. But a smell wasn’t enough to keep me happy six months of the year when I missed being outside and enjoying it.

Then, we went to Verbier, and in the heart of magical winter wonderland, I surprised myself with a newfound love for snowshoe hiking. As the name suggests one hikes through snow, quite a lot of it actually.

Now if you’ve ever tried that in normal shoes, or hiking boots, you probably sank knee-deep into soft drifts. That is quite tiresome and not very safe, which is why one wears snowshoes. Walking with these plastic platforms strapped to my hiking boots was a little awkward at first but once I managed to not fall over my feet, I loved the solitude and exercise in the fresh air.

A thick layer of snow covered the scenery like a white, fluffy down blanket and all sound was hushed, swallowed by a flurry of swirling flakes. While the skiing pistes struggled with overcrowding, we had this enchanted winter landscape almost to ourselves.

We followed the pink markers, in the shape of snowshoes, on official snowshoeing trails but often these trails had disappeared under a layer of freshly fallen snow. The pure surface of tiny ice crystals, and waterfalls frozen in long elegant icicles next to the path, sparkled in the sun like diamonds. A mountain panorama desaturated by a harsh winter stretched up both sides of Verbier valley, yet the palette of whites, blues and greens was anything but bland.

Contrary to my expectations, I enjoyed snowshoeing in Verbier last year and we returned for Christmas a year later. It being winter, this time around it rained most days and there wasn’t nearly enough snow for snowshoeing. Which was just as well for the small wooden chalet we rented up in the mountains, was much too cozy to venture outside anyway.