06.19.2019

     I am sweating over a garden full of weeds…some kind of thorny milk-thistle. The shed next to me is full of odds and ends, every type of tool you’d need to manage this semi-sprawling property. An automatic grass-clipping robot hums away in the distance, making little circles and backing away from various detectable borders before returning to its charging station for a few minutes. In the tool shed a little bird has gone astray and can’t find its way out. It flaps and darts and bangs into different windows. It doesn’t understand. It doesn’t understand when my hand closes slowly around it and sets it outside in the shade. This has never happened to it before and the shock of the encounter has rendered it frozen with fear. It’ll be ok in a few minutes. I go back to the garden with my tools and keep digging.
     Saturday we made the early morning coffee. We had the bags packed the night before and I finally got a new sleeping pad with some Transa credit. I love these mornings. Off to Wiedikon or Hauptbahnhof…pouring the coffee on the train, doing a transfer or two before getting to the Wanderweg of choice.
     We got off in Alpnach and walked up through town. It’s the same morning energy I find everywhere in Switzerland.  A mix of tourists, locals, and weekenders all decked out in the appropriate garb for whatever the day has in store. We scan the streets for the yellow signs pointing up toward Pilatus way up top at the end of the steepest cog-wheel gondola in der Schweiz. The weather is iffy but we’ve brought rain gear just in case. Some storm is coming up from the south looks like it’s going to engulf most of the country but it’s moving fast and the red doppler will only hit us for about an hour so up we go.
     It’s the steepest sustained grade we’ve done so far and like I’ve said, much of the Wanderweg makes the PCT look flat in comparison. It’s a series of tight switchbacks until it branches off up a hill across some farmland. It’s so steep I feel like I’m the final stretch of some epic summit. The trail gets thin and overgrown with grass and all I can see in the distance is a little red and white blaze that goes in and out of sight as I approach. I don’t think I’ve carried a pack up anything quite this vertical before but it feels good. One step at a time. Sweat pouring. Mid-morning sun. That’s why we’re here.
     At the top of this hill I’m met with the familiar site of a working Swiss farm surrounded by electric fence that we unhook and re-hook. All the cows are out to pasture now which means they’re using the Wanderweg too. We hear their bing-bong bells echoing in the hills everywhere we go. They typically just stare at us and chew their grass when we walk by.
     Cows being out to pasture means there’s another series of jobs to do back on the farm. At this farm they’re busy spraying massive amounts of treated manure all over the fields which helps the grass…which means we have to walk through it. Of course, I’m used to the smell of cows. So much of the Wanderweg is farmland and most cows are raised for milk. In fact, with so many cows I was surprised to learn from Hanne’s dad that American beef is still considered ‘the good stuff’ even by Swiss standards-but this is a little gross. Flies swarm like crazed revelers, darting up in clouds while the the sides of our shoes become slowly saturated in manure. I think the farmer looking down at us from a quarter-mile away is secretly amused by the whole thing. It’s just a sweaty shitty mess by the time we get to the little road adjacent to the farm. I nod silently to the farmer and drop my pack. He’s dressed in overalls and a white shirt which is mostly brown. He calls back down to the other fellow down in the field who’s wielding a great fire-hose that gets sent out of the bowels of the main barn with a gas-powered pump. It’s pretty ingenious and it works. Year after year these families retain their perches high in the hills, keeping livestock and little cafes running for the tourists and hikers. I can’t imagine it’s an easy life. It’s common to run across massive stockpiles of chopped wood in remote areas that are kept for the harsh winters and brought up via tractor when winter is on the way. Some farmers have to contend with avalanches and epic alpine storms and it looks like most houses and barns are built for endurance.
     We edge along the side of the hills for a little bit before finding a spot for lunch. There’s ticks everywhere and I’ve already taken one off my shin today. Every hike ends with a final ‘tick check’ in the bathroom back at the apartment. I think they like Hanne a little more but I’ve had one actually dig in. The others I’ve caught in the act. They’re so tiny and black it makes it almost impossible to find in the middle of the hike. Other times I’ve come off the Uetliberg and watched them just walk across the tops of my hands while I’m typing. It’s a problem though. More tick reports come in every year and we’ve got a few friends with Lyme disease. The important thing is to get them out before they get settled. Today is cows and ticks before noon and we’ve still got to get up Pilatus.
    We come alongside the gondola path and I wave at some elderly tourists on the right while mountain bikers fly past us. Gondola after red gondola. Up and down all day. Only today they won’t get much of a view. After another series of insane switchbacks and a few patches of snow we get high into the mist. A long cloud has the entire mountaintop covered. It reminds us of the Cascades a lot…waking in the morning with the wildfires, trying to figure out if it’s mist or smoke or a combination of both. Or, the other day just outside Tehachapi where we met Yoga Bae dealing with some nasty shin-splints on the side of the trail. For hours we’d walked through foggy stretches of misty forest and field. I’m a big fan of the mists…the whole mysterious vibe of being able to see only a few yards ahead is one of those things that makes a trail a whole different experience.
    So we make it to the top of the mountain and climb the stairs to the lodge/restaurant and dodge the throngs of people taking selfies at the glass barrier with nothing but endless white fog behind them have a cider and a red wine with some comfort food in the little diner and stare out the windows into the clouds playing with the light.
    When we walk back out to the balcony it’s a virtual white-out and the tourists are all gone. We walk back down the stairs and trudge back down the switchbacks until we’re below the clouds again before branching off to the right and heading down the 57 Route through a green valley dotted with massive boulders and scree fields. The scene is unreal. Clouds dance to the east and dissipate in the sun against a backdrop of dark grey vertical stone. It’s always worth it. At some point in every hike, whether from an unexpected moment of awesome or exhaustion preceding that hot ramen, there’s always a moment of silent “Wow…”
      We pass a couple more farm houses alongside a little creek surrounded by wildflowers and happen upon a couple structures built for whoever, whenever with a sign saying it’d being finished sometime this year. Massive log supports and that typical Swiss engineering locked them together like giant legos with a heavy tin roof above two big picnic tables. Across the way another structure with a fire pit/grilling station sat in wait. In the corner of the main structure there were piles of cut wood, kindling, and even matches and newspaper to get a good fire going. This was all designed and created for use by anyone who happened to come by. No fee. No sign-in. Just a project that a few cool people decided to do for hikers. So we decided after the epic amount of ascending and descending we’d done that this would be a pretty sweet spot. We found a little flat area in the grass beneath a pine tree just three feet from the same creek and set up the tent. We got some firewood and got it ready for the post-dinner ‘tea and chocolate and staring at fire’ thing we usually did, and unpacked the ramen and other dinner items on one of the benches. It was looking pretty laid-back with the Jet-boil bubbling and big slices of cheese with hot mustard.
      Just as we were finishing up Hanne looked at the doppler again. The red blob was approaching fast but it’d probably just be rain hard for a few minutes and head north. Hilleberg makes a sturdy tent and we’d had our share of tests on the PCT. Some nights in California the gusts were so unrelenting that we couldn’t fall asleep. The poles bent sideways and the sides of the tent smacked us in the face over and over but it held until the morning. Hanne got it patched up when she returned to Zurich by sending it back through Transa to Hilleberg and they had it back in a week. Just a few little holes here and there, some which may have been my fault.
      Dinner was a standard cheese and ramen affair. I recently read about the founder of Nissin Ramen over in Japan. He became successful after World War II when cheap instant rations were difficult for the population to attain. He invented a type of ramen that you could dowse in boiling water for a minute, add some mega-sodium enhancement, and call it a day. He, like so many Japanese, lived to a ripe old age. His secret? “Chicken-flavored ramen every single day.” Ok. So, in the west (I should say in the US) we’re salt-phobic which is statistically unfounded when I did some cursory research. We just don't get 'real' salt. Not that MSG is real. It just tastes great after a long hike.
    Then the storm hit. What was a peaceful dusklight-n-birds dinner only moments before was obliterated within 30 seconds by sudden hurricane-force winds that started battering the shelter. We looked at each other with the “Huh?” eyes and then it got worse. Much worse. Lightning began flashing all around. Great glowing bursts followed immediately by massive thunderclaps. Everything went dark and it began raining. Everything happened at once and while I’d had my share of sketchy moments in the wild, I’d never been hit so fiercely by the elements so quickly.
    “The tent is going to blow away!” Hanne yelled over the roar. “The stakes won’t hold! We’ve got to get inside!”
     “Ok let’s go for it!” I yelled back. And on three we dashed from under our only real shelter and made for the tent. We fumbled with the zipper and dove inside, which only seemed to anger the storm more. Suddenly the winds took on an almost otherworldly howl, as if deliberately menacing anything in its path. I’ve heard this sound before. Raw nature. Earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, etc. I’d dodged and hid and retreated from her fury and admitted that I’m no real match for the ‘truer elements’ and this one had us spooked. I realized we were under an old pine tree but we didn’t know how many branches it had or if any were directly above us. I should have surveyed the periphery before we went for the tent. I looked at Hanne, who was now visibly shaken. All our adventures over the past year, the fords, the snow, the crazy passes and hail storms…and I’d never seen her anything but shrug. Except Smedberg Lake in the Sierras. That was pretty bleak.
     “Are you ok?” I yelled over the wind. She was shaking and trying to speak. “I’m. Scared.” She managed to say but it was a sort of mumble that happens when you’re actually paralyzed with fear which made me all the more shaken myself. I covered her as if it would do anything and said “It’s going to be ok. It’ll pass.” The reality was that we were facing bad exposure under a tree in a little tent with massive bolts of lighting coming down by the second. We had to get real shelter and save the tent in the process.
     “I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay in here!” I yelled. “I don’t know how stable the tree is and how many branches are up there! I think we need to get safe under the structure again, but let’s bring the tent over!”
    Hanne nodded. It was one of those moments where doing nothing wasn’t an option. The sheer anxiety of the battering and the tent itself, which felt like it was desperately trying to become airborne with us in it, was too much. We counted to three again and lunged. We ripped up the stakes and lifted the tent; cameras, bags, clothes et al and hauled off toward the shelter and set the tent on one of the tables underneath. At least we were were comparatively safer.
    The rain was blowing by in horizontal sheets and I guesstimated the bigger gusts to be around 60-70 mph. Thunder boomed from every side and trees bent and flung back into place. We looked at each other.
    “Holy *&^%!” Ok, so Swiss Doppler is just as reliable as everything else in Switzerland. I couldn’t believe our luck. We’d stumbled across the one shelter in one of the more remote parts of the northern Alps that was suited for the occasion.
     Two days later I’d rescue that little bird, watch its little chest puffing up and down. That feeling of being trapped in a situation you didn’t even have a reference point for. I thought: "To the bird, I am the storm. A force so much bigger than it that it couldn’t comprehend being in the middle of it. My hand closing around its wings is a crisis beyond its scope of imagination, even though it was safe the entire time." I see this in myself so many times. My phobia of bears on the trail…well, it’s just that being eaten alive is the last way I want to go. Maybe some past-life residuals...
     The lighting got closer and brighter. Orange, pink, purple. We moved the tent over by the wood pile where it was less inclined to become a sail and collected our bearings. We were safe. It was one of those moments where you can’t tell if you’ve over-reacted or not. We just responded the way any animal does when nature gets loud.
     We moved another smaller bench under the shelter and decided it would be a good place for the tent. We’d stay dry and out of the wind. It looked the the Doppler was changing again and it would keep raining for awhile. It basically looked like all of Switzerland was under one big storm.
     In the morning we woke again to the sound of birds and cows going about their business as if nothing could be more Swiss. Now I’d come to appreciate the Alps for what they were. Forget the Disney/Matterhorn pastoral stuff. They’re a massive dynamic range in constant motion. Permanent glaciers, avalanches, rock-slides, flooding, snow-melt, white-outs, and storms are each part of a system that’s no more apparent when you’re high up on the red-n-whites watching it all happen. I’ve got respect for these multi-generational families and farmers that tough it out year after year in their wood-stone cottages; hanging on the side of vertical pastures, working the land. We’re just passing through, looking for good spots to camp, but we’re a different type. Everything is semi-nomadic since the trail. It’s hard to define exactly what sort of life I’m living but as long as it involves mountains I’m good.
     We ambled back down into Alpnach to complete the circuit. An epic two days with some of the steepest trails yet. I find myself laughing at my assumptions all the time. It happened quite a bit on the PCT. All the hubris. All the ‘trying to appraise’ your situation or the milieu you find yourself in. All this “Well, Switzerland is like this blah blah blah.” It’s a study in contrasts when you move to a different country. There’s no real way to avoid it. Our minds are patterned for language and habit and when I first arrived, there was a element of uneasy surrealism to everything. The infrastructure. The engineering. The way things ‘work’ here. I recalculated how big Switzerland actually is and it’s only 1/7th the size of Arizona. Of course, there’s something to factor in with the ups and downs of the mountains, but so much is a matter of geography. Cultures rise and fall. Elements remain. Tools are implemented. When you have to be tough, you get tough…and the Swiss are tough. Like I’ve said in other blogs, half the trails we hike wouldn’t be open or available to the general public in the US. There’d be so much liability that at the very least you’d have to sign a waiver or get a state-issued hiking permit. It’s something I’ve heard a few Swiss poke fun at and I agree. We’re pretty coddled in the US. Our precious feelings are always on the verge of being potentially compromised so we sit indoors where it’s safe and watch actors having CGI adventures. Another broad assertion. I'm good at those.
    The red-n-white blaze basically means: “Ok, go for it. You’re an adult. These are the Alps. Use common sense. Have fun.” So, that what we’re going for. There’s been a few iffy situations but that’s part of the deal. We’re learning and we learn more every time we go out. Even though it’s 1/7th the side of Arizona you could spend your whole life exploring this land.
    We come home and throw the clothes in a pile in the side room. We put up a map of Die Schweiz and mark all our little adventures in a red felt pen. So many in the bag in four short months…so many to do. That week we received the keys to the VW camper. It’ll give us access to all the places the train can’t make it to. The higher passes. The deep Alps. Maybe that’s next week.
    -Will
    


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