We trudge through the undergrowth, past a memorial stone. Here, on 20 February 1879, a charge of dynamite exploded, killing two stonemasons, a mother and four children. The old quarry is today a realm full of mysteries, adventures and finds – Roman coins were discovered here, and Mägenwil shell sandstone was used in the 17th century to rebuild Schloss Stein near Baden. “I spent half my youth here”, says Fredy Wiederkehr, 68. “We played in the quarry, sang, cooked and sometimes even spent the night here.”
Experiences like these fired his imagination. As a group leader in the Catholic youth movement, he dreamed up gripping stories for outdoor trail games: at each station, messages had to be decoded and clues followed – without cleverness and team spirit, you got nowhere.
Then came the serious business of life. Wiederkehr finished school, studied business administration, worked in the municipal administration of Diemtigen (BE) and became head of economic development for the Bernese Oberland. A secure job, a leadership role: by his mid-forties he had achieved everything he had set out to professionally. Yet somehow something had fallen by the wayside. More fulfilling was his hobby: in his spare time he organised outdoor games for children’s birthdays, even for hen parties. Wasn’t it the gleam in the players’ eyes when they solved his puzzles and saw through him, the sly fox?
Midlife crisis or not – in 2001 Wiederkehr took the plunge. Under the name “Foxtrail” he devised treasure hunts for adults, with the aim of playfully exploring the treasures of a city or region. At first hardly anyone took him seriously, but the pilot project on Lake Thun was a bullseye. Soon there were trails in Lucerne, St. Gallen, Basel, Bern, Lausanne and Lugano, and later abroad too – in Helsinki, Berlin, Rome or Paris.
Laying trails became a full-time job. To unwind, he sang bass in a concert choir – and there met his second life partner, a Bernese soprano. Shortly before retirement, when hundreds of thousands were completing his trails each year, he spontaneously decided to sell his life’s work. What would come next? “I never gave it a thought. I trusted that something new would come along.”
And indeed: shortly afterwards, the chance came to buy an old wine estate in Piedmont – complete with a guesthouse and four hectares of land. Wiederkehr said yes at once and, instead of retiring, threw himself into the next adventure: the boutique hotel Villa Giannino in Acqui Terme became his new playground.
The mischief has never left him. For a guest couple he staged a wedding at which the woman didn’t know that, in the end, she herself would be the bride. First came a puzzle trail, then her partner suddenly appeared on the balcony in a groom’s suit, a pastor was waiting, a band played – and the wedding rings arrived through the air, delivered by a drone. From his hiding place, the fox Fredy chuckled at his well-pulled prank.
This article appeared in MEN issue 1/23 (June 2023).
