BULLE (Switzerland), Aug 7 — Cathy and Patrick relish describing how they found each other: through a message left on a Swiss mountaintop.
“It was just a beautiful way to meet,” said Cathy Rotzetter during a recent hike in the Pre-Alps of the western Swiss canton of Fribourg.
Sick of online dating sites, the 58-year-old said she was thrilled to discover an analogue alternative, with a Swiss twist: “Mountain Tinder”.
Last October, she clambered up to the Wandflue peak, at an altitude of 2,133 metres, and jotted down her information in the red notebook she found there.
Rotzetter recalled the message as she sat in a mountain pasture, her arm laced around Patrick, with the Wandflue towering behind them.
“I wrote that I liked relaxed hikes, and also to have a drink afterwards,” she told AFP with a laugh.
Patrick, who is also 58 and who declined to give his surname, found the message a week later, and was charmed.
Nature ‘a good filter’
Monney said he felt “proud” when hearing from couples who met through the notebooks.
It is nice, he said, “to make someone happy”.
The notebook on La Vudalla is filling up fast.
“Passionate about mountains, skiing and climbing,” one message reads, while another is seeking someone who “likes sports, metal and tattooed women”.
“The idea is very simple,” Monney said.
“If you contact someone, that person has also reached the peak, and probably likes nature and mountains. You already have something in common.”
Rotzetter agreed.
“The shared love of nature... is a good filter,” she said.
Her first date with Patrick last winter was a long scenic walk, ending with a picnic.
Rotzetter said she loved that Patrick brought along food and drink for her, and noticed that he kept pace with her.
“I wasn’t looking for someone I had to run after,” she said, adding that walking makes for a perfect first date and provides good insight into the other person’s character.
“You can see if they adapt their pace... or if they charge ahead.”
Patrick added: “It is very revealing.”
Mountain ‘algorithm’
Monney said he preferred his system to the online dating apps he stopped using a decade ago.
“I didn’t like the idea of choosing a person based on a picture and swiping left or right,” he said.
Others have congratulated him for liberating dating from algorithmic dictates.
With Mountain Tinder, he said, “you have to reach the peak. That’s the only algorithm”.
The peaks also naturally filter for age and physical ability.
La Vudalla, at an altitude of 1,669 metres, is one of the easier peaks to reach, allowing older or less fit people to leave messages there.
But Monney said only the fittest will make the technically difficult climb up the 2,376-metre Vanil de l’Ecri across the valley.
He has himself found love, not by leaving messages but still thanks to his notebooks.
“She saw me on television” speaking about Mountain Tinder and “got in touch”, Monney said of his partner.
“Now I am happy.” — AFP
