Burning legs and burning fires.

Thursday was one of the more epic days of my life. And I have had a lot of epicness lately. I don’t know what’s going to happen if I keep this up…maybe I’ll end up rock climbing or something. Nah I don’t think so; someone would have to pay me a lot to do that.

I started the day by waking up late at Dondi’s home in Gstaad, freaking out about the fact that it was already hot out, quickly eating breakfast, and then heading out the door onto the hiking path that is literally his driveway. We were planning to hike another mountain that evening in order to celebrate the 1^st of August, the national holiday in Switzerland, so in the back of my mind I considered being “cautious” on this outing so as to save some energy for the second one.

Before I knew it, I was running up a series of switchbacks in the hot, exposed sun, enjoying the pain…and of course the epicness of running up a mountain. Soon enough trail became steeper, going straight up several vertical fields, all of them still exposed to the sunshine. The sign at the bottom of the mountain said the hike should take about 4 hours to reach the top of Lauenenhorn. Dondi told me that at my pace I should expect more like 3h, maybe a little less. Turned out I felt GREAT that day, and was able to place one foot in front of the other without feeling too much burn or sluggishness. The worst part was the heat and the narrow knife’s edge at the top.  Normally I get terrible vertigo, but being alone forced me to deal with the situation singlehandedly…which entailed not looking down too much and not stopping. An hour and a half after starting, I reached the top.

not quite sure why "Lauenehore" is written when everyone says "Lauenenhorn"

view from the top

view from the top

The way down was quite the miracle as well. I felt light and springy and thanked my knees profusely for staying completely intact. It’s always funny running down something that killed to go up—going downhill burns in a very specific way, but your heart barely has to do anything. So when I reached the end of the steepness and was back on the switchbacks, I thought to myself, “Huh? How was that so difficult on the way up?” But as soon as I turned around to look back on what I had accomplished, I had no desire to repeat it all over again.

Once I reached the bottom, a sweaty mess and not smelling that great (I know I know, girls are supposed to always smell like flowers and butterflies…sometimes it’s difficult okay?) I headed to a glacial stream to cool off, ice my legs, and take a 2-second full-body plunge.

When I retuned to the house and uploaded the Strava file of the hike, I couldn’t help but notice that it is categorized as HC—or hors-catégorie—beyond category, the toughest level of climbs. Here is the Strava link if you are interested: http://app.strava.com/activities/71402976

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Hike #2: We started out around 6:30pm, carrying about 10 logs of firewood each, some water (not enough I would soon realize), the last remains of quinoa salad I had made the day before, a celebratory flourless chocolate chestnut cake I had also made the previous day, a bottle of wine, headlamps, and warm clothes.

We immediately began to ascend a steep pitch. I made a few moaning sounds and exclaimed “meine Beine!” That was to be the last of my whining though because it became evident that the whole climb was to feel exactly like this…mountain #2 was another HC.

Oh lordy, what did I get myself into.

view of HC #1 of the day from HC #2

One takeaway message I have from this trip so far is that the Alps are a bitch. I haven’t been on a single hike where there is not at least one false summit. And on this particular outing, there were like three. At one point I thought to myself, “Okay, just count to 100 and you will be there. Any number past 100 is the number of times you can get gelato before leaving.” Turns out I can have gelato between now and when I die, according to this rule. 

Anyone who has taken part in an endurance sport I am sure can relate to that feeling of pushing through a physical experience where you think the end is coming when it is actually a long way off, so that the activity becomes way more of a mental hardship than a physical one. In the moment, it seems like whatever you are doing, you just can’t do any longer. You think the end is near. Then it’s not. Then you think, “Okay this is it.” And it isn’t. When you do see the finish line, the final finish line, you no longer think about your cramped legs, blistered feet, sore back, pumping heart, stomach ache, dry mouth, or overheated body—all you know is that you see the finish line. This final stretch is the pinnacle of the out-of-body experience. You are absolutely in the present; your mind is only on one thing—to get yourself as quickly as possible out of your current state. When you do finish you think, “No way in hell am I ever doing that again.” And then before you know it, you are at the start line of another race or at the base of another mountain.

As I had mentioned, I did not bring enough water. I have no idea why. I own a Camelback, and even had it with me in Gstaad. I think it was the thought of the firewood weighing down my pack—I wanted to carry as little extra as possible. Which meant that I quenched my thirst with wine.

I would not recommend this, especially after having climbed nearly 7500ft in elevation that day. I was very lucky to have nothing go wrong…thirst was quenched and no headache or drunkenness resulted. Must have been some magical wine because that was a bloody miracle.

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I don’t know how the Swiss do it. They go to bed at 10, are at work by 7, eat a healthy breakfast (müesli), turn every edible flower into some sort of herbal remedy, hike up mountains on the weekends, hike up mountains for their national holiday, and then once at the top, drink beer and wine, eat cheese and sausages, and smoke several home-rolled cigarettes.

I would like to think that just like in any culture, there exist a variety of people, some who care more about their health than others, and some who are most interested in carrying out a certain image.  But I can’t help but notice several paradoxes within this one. One the one hand, the Swiss are very disciplined in their work ethic. Yet on the other hand, I would say that about 30% of people smoke regularly, and at least 50% of people smoke when they go out drinking, or on special occasions.

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No matter how disciplined you are, something falls through the cracks eventually in order for this discipline to become a sustainable lifestyle. Okay my father might be an exception, but in general this is what I perceive to be true. In my case, I usually check my email way more times than necessary, do the same with Facebook, eat chocolate, or watch Friends bloopers on YouTube after a long day of work or a tough running workout. In the case of the Swiss, I think the chocolate part remains true but smoking a cigarette on the top of a mountain is also thrown into the mix. At a baptism celebration I attended yesterday (more to come on this later), I noticed that the attendees smoked cigarette after cigarette but only drank a beer or two over the course of an entire evening. If this same party had taken place in the United States, most people my age would have stumbled out of there tipsy at the very least, their livers doing the work and not their lungs.

The unfortunate part of slipping through the cracks of discipline is that there is a certain badassness associated with doing something hardcore while simultaneously doing something that makes this hardcore activity even harder—so you then appear even more hardcore (i.e. hiking up an HC climb and smoking cigarettes at the top, writing a brilliant essay while hung-over). Those who are able to accomplish this double badassness become our heroes…but why? What ever happened to being impressed simply by pure athleticism or intellectual brilliance? Why do we always have to add another challenge in order to separate ourselves from others? And do we so easily gravitate towards smoking and drinking for these “challenges”?

As I sat on the top of our 1^st of August celebratory mountain and reflected on all this (and wrote this post in my head), I tried my hardest not to be too cynical. At least we weren’t sitting around at home, watching TV, drinking beer after beer and eating junk food—my stereotypical idea of the American equivalent of such a celebration. Or the Dutch equivalent on New Year’s: eating balls of fried dough in order to stay away and to soak up some of the alcohol. Once again, my flawless lush-green-rolling-hills-speckled-with-snow-and-cows-and-really-fit-people image of Switzerland was a bit squashed. But I wasn't that far off. After all, I was atop a 7,000ft peak, sitting around a campfire, looking out at the sunset, having hiked all day, sharing the summit with others who also had to work to be here.

And as is human nature, I also fell through the cracks. My secret for the day: I didn’t wake up until after 10am. So for all you fellow Type-Aers out there for whom sleeping is your secret to badassness, remember: a late start to the day doesn’t mean that it’s all ruined. It’s still possible to get in two big climbs, and end your day like this: 

You can see some fires in the distance from other people doing the same thing.
By the end of the night there were hundreds; each mountain top had been summited and was glowing :)