# Montu

URL: https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu

> Swiss mountain journal, mapped from its GPX files

- Type: Commercial project
- Period: Mar 2026 - Apr 2026
- Live: https://montu.ch
- Source: private
- Stack: Next.js App Router, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, Sanity, Mapbox, Motion, Vercel, Base UI, Radix UI

Montu is a journal of Swiss mountain tours in German, from summer crossings to ski and splitboard tours, written and photographed by the friend I built it for. Each tour page is his account of the day, with the route, the figures and the way there and back alongside for anyone who wants to follow it.

## Montu, a journal of Swiss mountain tours

[montu.ch](https://montu.ch) collects a friend's mountain tours in Switzerland, summer and winter, each written up in German with his own photographs. I built the site for him, and he publishes new tours on his own, from a content editor in his browser.

![The Montu home page: the serif headline Faszination Bergtouren blurs in letter by letter over a misty forest photograph, then the slideshow crossfades to a hut terrace above a turquoise reservoir and on to ski tourers on a snowy slope](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/home-desktop.webp)
*The home page opens on a slideshow of his photographs.*
[Video](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/home-desktop.mp4)

### What he wanted

He wanted a place to keep his tours the way he remembers them. The site says it in its own words: the technical details are only «sanfte Wegweiser» (gentle signposts), and the whole thing is «mehr Tagebuch als Führer», more diary than guidebook. So every page leads with a photograph and his writing, and the figures follow for anyone who wants to go.

![Willkommen bei Montu.: a photograph of a boulder in a misty valley beside the site's introduction, which ends with the line mehr Tagebuch als Führer, and a button reading Touren ansehen](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/about-desktop.webp)
*The introduction, in his words.*

On the home page each tour is a large photo card with its region, its title, a short teaser he writes for it and a row of three figures: metres climbed, distance and grade.

![Die Touren im Überblick: rounded photo cards of a mountain reservoir and of ski tourers on a snowy slope, each with a region label, a serif title, a short excerpt and a row of figures](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/home-tours-desktop.webp)
*The tours on the home page: photograph first, figures last.*

### A tour page

A tour reads from top to bottom:

1. The title photograph, with the kind of tour, its grade, the region, the height range and the date.
2. His introduction.
3. The key facts, the elevation profile and the map.
4. The stages, one after another.
5. Links to the huts, lifts and other places along the route, where he adds them.

![Scrolling the tour Linthal - Muttsee - Kistenpass - Brigels: from the title photograph of a hut terrace above a reservoir, past the introduction, the key facts, the elevation profile and the map, down to the first two stages](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/tour-hero-desktop.webp)
*A tour, from its title photograph down to the stages.*
[Video](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/tour-hero-desktop.mp4)

### The stages

Each stage has its own photos to page through, each with a caption, next to its own figures and text. Where part of a route can be skipped, for example by taking a cable car, the stage ends with the alternative in an orange note.

![The first stage, Linthal bis Bergstation Chalchtrittli: the arrows beside its photo page from a chain-secured rock path to a valley view and a signpost, next to the stage's figures and text, which end in an orange note describing the alternative by taxi and cable car](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/tour-stage-desktop.webp)
*Paging through a stage's photographs.*
[Video](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/tour-stage-desktop.mp4)

### Map and elevation profile from one GPS file

A GPS watch or a phone app records a tour as a GPX file: the route as a list of points, each with its altitude. He uploads that one file to the tour. The page draws the route on a terrain map, with a green pin at the start and an orange one at the end, and plots the elevation profile from the same points. The profile picks its own scale, so a short ski tour and a long crossing both read cleanly, and pointing along it reads out the height.

Grades follow the Swiss Alpine Club's scales:

| Tour           | Scale                                              |
| -------------- | -------------------------------------------------- |
| Hiking         | T1, an easy walk, to T6, difficult alpine hiking   |
| Ski and alpine | L, easy, to EX, extremely difficult                |
| Snowshoe       | WT1, an easy walk, to WT6, a demanding alpine tour |

Hovering over or tapping the grade on a tour spells it out, names the scale and links to a description of it.

![Eckdaten der Tour: hovering the grade T3 opens a popover that spells it out as Anspruchsvolle Bergwanderung and links to the SAC scale, then the pointer runs along the elevation profile while a tooltip reads out the height](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/tour-elevation-desktop.webp)
*The grade explained, and the profile read out.*
[Video](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/tour-elevation-desktop.mp4)

The map is a live terrain map, so a visitor can zoom into any part of the route. Beside it he adds how to get there and back, and the minimum equipment to bring.

![The terrain map below the profile, with the orange route from a green pin at Linthal to an orange pin at Brigels: it zooms in twice and is dragged along the route past the reservoirs, beside notes on the journey there, the journey back and the equipment](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/tour-map-desktop.webp)
*Zooming in along the route.*
[Video](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/tour-map-desktop.mp4)

### Design

The headings are set in a serif, the text in a quiet sans, and the photographs run large with rounded corners. The menu is a small glass panel in the corner that names the section you're in, and it holds the switch between light, dark and the system's setting.

![The tours section of the home page: the menu in the top-right corner opens with Home, Über Montu, Touren, Info Eckdaten and Info Planung, the page switches to the dark mode from its Modus control and back to light, and the menu closes](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/theme.webp)
*The menu, and the switch to dark.*
[Video](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/theme.mp4)

### What he edits himself

The site is built with Next.js, and everything a visitor reads lives in Sanity, a content editor built into the site. A tour is one form, split into tabs from the general details to the route and the logistics. The grade is picked from a list rather than typed, so the label on the page always matches the scale, and a stage only asks for an alternative once he marks it as skippable.

The home page is edited the same way, from the slideshow photographs to the text about the project. When he publishes, the site picks up the change on its own, without a developer.

![The tour Piz Titschal (2550m): ski tourers climbing a snowy ridge under a blue sky, with Splitboardtour and L – Leicht labels, the title and a line reading Surselva, Graubünden, 1344m – 2550m, 15. Februar 2026](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/titschal-desktop.webp)
*A winter tour on a desktop.*

![The home page on a phone: Faszination Bergtouren over a misty forest photograph, with the button Eintauchen & Entdecken and the slideshow's dots](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/home-mobile.webp)
*Home on a phone.*

![Eckdaten der Tour at phone width: four figures in a two-by-two grid, the elevation profile and the terrain map with the route between a green and an orange pin](https://sola.ysz.life/projects/montu/tour-stats-mobile.webp)
*Profile and map on a phone.*