Hiking the mighty Alps

1,200 mile trek latest adventure for American couple

An American couple are preparing to trek 1,200 miles the length of the Alps through eight countries on the newly established Via Alpina - and you can follow them on their blog.

Travel author Brandon Wilson and his wife, Cheryl will be hiking at altitude, covering the equivalent of a marathon a day for four months, staying in huts, supported by the packs on their backs.

Wilson is the author of three books on adventure travel, including Along the Templar Trail in which he treks across 11 countries and two continents on a peace pilgrimage from France to Jerusalem, braving a war while he's at it; Dead Men Don't Leave Tips, in which he and Cheryl travel from London to Cape Town overland; and Yak Butter Blues in which they become the first Western couple to complete the trail from Lhasa, Tibet to Kathmandu.

Wilson says he is incurably addicted to adventure. "It's a sweet rush. It has led me to travel across some of the wildest, diciest parts of the world for many years, traveling light - often on foot.

"It started when my wife and I traveled from London across the length of Africa to Cape Town over seven months aboard anything that moved, including our own two feet. This journey exposed us to daily adventures, including a breakdown for two weeks in the Sahara just north of Timbuktu, a climb up 'Kili' that almost lived up to its reputation, hopping the 'gun-run' across Mozambique in the midst of the civil war, shakedowns at remote border crossings, white-water rafting down class V Zambezi rapids, hunting dik-dik with pygmies, photo-stalking mountain gorillas in the jungles of the Congo, and braving Soweto as the machetes were flying. But," he says, "that was just the beginning."

Via Alpina officially opened in 2005 after years spent trying to link together the numerous trails crisscrossing the mountain ranges of Europe.

For more information and to follow the Wilsons' trek, visit: www.pilgrimstales.com and www.via-alpina.o