Doorway to the Alps: Behind this door, you will find the Alps adventure

Beatrice Kampf is the smiling face of the Beatenberg sports shop. Although the shop is owned by her family, 34-year-old Beatrice runs and manages it almost single-handedly. Her smile is not just online marketing. She opens the door for every customer with Bernese grace and helps him or her find just the right mountain adventure.

The problem for Kampf is that Beatenberg, known as Europe’s longest village, is dying. Centuries old quaint wood and brick buildings sit among the flowers and trees growing out of the mountainside. Several hotels sit shuttered. Most of the buildings are in dire need of maintenance, and very few shops remain open. Those that do have very restricted hours and most close at noon and remain closed in the afternoon. Though Beatenberg experienced its heyday in the “Belle Epoque” of travel in the early 1900s, these days most tourists have moved on to better situated locations leaving shops like Kampf’s unsure of their survival.

One particularly sore spot for Kampf is the lack of a restaurant for locals in the town. The few establishments that exist are for the tourists.

Just before the lunchtime closure, there is a rush of last-minute customers. Although the shop is filled with impatient hikers, she casually attends to everyone with graceful calm.

“I think this is good for me,” says a middle aged lady with a tan and holding a little blond girl as she steps into the fitting area. A colourful light hiking shoe in her hand. Beatrice gently persuades her to try on a duller version of the exact type of shoe she is holding.

The blonde lady’s eyes light up as she takes a few firm steps through the store. She exclaims in German and happily springs off with her daughter and smiling husband in tow.

The smell of fresh leather and synthetic plastic in the sports shop is strong yet oddly pleasant, a hint of the promise of adventure that lies ahead once a satisfied customer steps through the back door into the mountain trails.

Customers come from all over Europe to buy hiking shoes and sports gear in the summer and to buy or rent ski equipment in the winter. And so the store opens all year round.

Kampf’s customers are mostly Swiss, German and Dutch. And she sees the same faces with clockwork predictability every season. “Mostly, they are the same people, only this time the children have grown a little taller.”

Beatrice is originally from the town of Sigriswil in Switzerland and the only child of her parents. She has a boyfriend, but no children. When she’s not trail-running, alpine skiing or Nordic skiing on weekends, she visits her parents in Sigriswil. She dreams of travelling and wishes she had more time to do so.

“I cannot close the shop for the three or four weeks that I need to travel. I can’t be away for more than a week because the shop has to be open all year round,” Kampf says.

In Beatenberg, it's not only the businesses that are dying. Faith is also a casualty. Kampf says most people in Switzerland follow the example of their parents, and hers did not believe in God. “I don't know him, and I don't understand what you mean by Jesus either.”

That’s ironic and disappointing in a country where historic churches are as iconic as the mountains

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She knows many people at Sigriswil who have been Reformed Castle Church folks for as long as she can remember. But that is about it.

Beatrice is still young and might still have time to travel to Canada, Sweden or Norway.

And the world around her and the shop is changing rapidly too. The swissinfo website has an article on mass tourism which estimates that tourism has grown tremendously in the Interlaken region. From 1990 the number of visitors in the town’s hotels has skyrocketed from just over 600,000 to over a million every year.

If that rate of growth is sustained, the probability of a restaurant opening in Beatenberg for the locals, or volunteers coming to help her out in the shop in exchange for learning how to ski or trail run is high.

But until then, her smile remains undefeated as she turns at the chiming of the bell to welcome every customer. The sports shop is one of Beatenberg’s last thriving small businesses. Every morning at 8:30 am prompt, the glass and steel doors of the little store on the Bernese Alps open up to welcome strangers from all over Europe into a great adventure. The magic is getting the right kit from Beatrice and stepping out the back door to see the sunrise kiss the snowy caps of the Jungfrau mountains.

Olalekan Raji is from Banjul, Gambia He attended WJI Europe 2024.