Hello everybody,
Well, a very exciting day yesterday as I finally climbed my Swiss Alp. By
way of background, this trip had two of my bucket-list items on it: 1. Visit
Auschwitz and 2. Climb a Swiss Alp. So yesterday, after careful planning and
preparation, I set off from camp to climb an Alp nearby. Having a healthy
awareness of my lack of alpine experience and current fitness level, I picked
the route marked with a pram (!) which, although the longest path to where I
wanted to go also meant that the gradient would be least on the way up. This
path turned out to be the road up the mountain, which gave me additional
assurance as there was a fair amount of foot, cycle and vehicle traffic and was
well signposted so I could be sure not to get lost.
In the spirit of randomness which you have all come to expect from me, here is a photo of a gnome with a lamp and a brass bedstead, complete with mattress and pillows, which were under a tree by the side of the road on the way up the mountain.
The climb up took about 4.5 hours, but was pleasant enough if I took it
in stages. I stopped often to admire the view or to watch cows, goats or sheep
munching away on the sweet alpine grass, and I spent a lot of time mentally
recapping the story of Heidi, which I loved when I was little, imagining it all
coming to life around me. I finally made it up to a place called Ristis, which
was where the cable car from town ended, but still feeling pretty fit decided
to push on a bit further to the top of the chairlift which left Ristis for a
place a little further up the mountain and just at the treeline. This last leg
was pretty tough as it was a lot steeper than the road, but I made it just the
same.
Stopping to admire the view.
And being admired in my turn by these curious babies.
And being admired in my turn by these curious babies.
I was greeted at the restaurant there by a bloke playing an alp horn
which was pretty cool. After a short stop to refuel I decided I was still
feeling OK, even taking into account the long trip back ahead of me, and also
that I was a bit bored – the path the whole way up had been either road or fire
trail. I looked longingly up at the peak, but these were unreachable without a
climbing harness, bugger it. A
consultation with my map showed a short trail which traversed the mountain I
was standing on before heading back down to town, and with a higher level of difficulty
than the other paths I’d taken. There was still a lot of light and a lot of
foot traffic, so I decided to give it a go, knowing that if I found myself
unexpectedly tired I could catch the chairlift and cable car back to town.
However I was fine and so delighted that I’d decided to give the
mountain trail a go – it was so much prettier than any of the other paths I’d
taken, being surrounded by wildflowers blooming in all their summer glory –
daisies, lupins, bluebells, and others I’ve never come across before – and with
such a view! At the height I was at now I was just above the start of the snow
on the mountain opposite me (there wasn’t any on the one I was on, as I was on
the south-facing slope). As I came around a corner I could just see the camp a
long, long way below me, and I was so proud that I’d climbed up all that way. I
may or may not have been singing “Climb Every Mountain” (in my head, I am not
completely mad) at that point.
Mountain hiking trail.
I decided to start back down the mountain and decided that, as I knew
where I was going (basically any route that headed down would take me back to
Engelberg), I’d try one of the shorter trails, which would halve the time for my
return trip. This was much nicer than the route up, passing through woods and meadows
in which I often had to try to shoo cows off the path (they wouldn’t usually
shoo, funnily enough, so I generally ended up walking around them). However the
trail was also incredibly steep, and at one stage I had to walk down steps made
out of stone worn smooth by hundreds of pairs of feet. By now it was drizzling,
and this smooth stone proved frighteningly slippery, especially given the
steepness of the mountain you were likely to plunge down if you lost your
footing. There was no one else around just then so I ended up getting down on
all fours and crawling down, thinking that the time saving I was making by
taking this route might prove to have been very expensively bought. Fortunately,
once over this one little slippery bit, the rest of the route was much easier
and with what glad eyes I finally encountered town!
Nearly there!
By the time I’d walked back to camp (20 minutes beyond the town) I was
footsore and weary – I had just enough energy to take a shower (best shower of
my life, by the way) and make some pasta for dinner before crawling into my warm
and comfy little nest, still with a warm glow of pride that I’d managed to
cross this item off my bucket list.