First the nadir, then the apex

Part II of Switzerland

By Marc Ethier

Gather Travel Correspondent

A laundry list, the nitty-gritty, on this yearlong World Tour:

Countries: 26

Friends visited: 16 

Major museums/art galleries: 22

Medieval European churches: 23

Wats, temples, mosques, synagogues, stupas, etc.: Countless 

National Parks, World Heritage Sites, UNESCO sites, etc.: 38 in the first 9 months; lost track after that 

Boat trips: 19

Trains: 27 

Buses: 14

Tuk-tuks, trams, rickshaws, camels, elephants, subways, taxis, etc.: Countless 

Most time in one country: New Zealand (9 weeks)

Least time in one country: Slovakia (3 hours) 

And then there was Switzerland.

It's fine, I think, to admit the things in life I'm never going to do -- if only to better focus on those I will. I'm never going to play professional basketball. I'll never get that Ivy League medical degree. I'm never, ever going to play piano in Radio City Music Hall. 

And I'm never going to climb Haute Cime in the Dents du Midi range in southern Switzerland.

We missed our shot. We had our chance. We blew our opportunity. But then, the weather didn't cooperate. Fog and rain and snow disrupted two-and-a-half of our four days on the trail. Travel weariness, or what W.E. Bowman might've called Mountain Lassitude, settled the matter.

Still, we enjoyed the views. Haute Cime (alt. 3,200 meters) shrouded in mist, studded with snow, bristling with cold blue rock, is quite a sight to behold.

Day Two begins warm and breezy but soon the clouds move in and with them the mist to which we soon become accustomed. We climb; we climb more. Each climb is eased by stretches of softly rolling track and we watch the green hillsides glistening with dew and new rain. Cows, each with a large leather strap and bell around its neck, chew cud and ignore us.

The day ends in the early afternoon when we reach the Lacs d'Anteme in the shadow of Haute Cime. The lakes are a sheen of mirror-like blue water: snow covers the ridges above. The remains of a glacier, pocked with cave-sized perforations, dip down to the waterside. The rain begins in earnest as we knock on the cabin door: the caretaker and his wife serve us cold beer and we stretch our bags and wet gear over the cast-iron stove. Warmth. Dryness. Beer. Happiness.

In the morning the sky is slate-grey but the fog has moved off in the night, as I secretly anticipated. Uli asks me what else I anticipate, to which I reply, "It's a secret."

Secretly, I expect more fog. I am not mistaken. 

The rain holds off for an hour as we slip down a long muddy slope dotted with dirty sheep. The sheepdog takes a dislike to us but defers in the end to his stick-wielding master. The rain comes as we start the ascent to the Pas d'Encel, at a height of 1,798 meters, moving slowly toward a wall of imposing rock, and the fog returns, departs, returns again. This is a recurring theme.

To cross Pas d'Encel in such weather is challenging but not extreme. Rusty chains nailed to the mountainside give us grip, help us forget the vertiginous drop on the left with no visible bottom -- and Martin awaits at the top with a bar of fine Bavarian chocolate. 

Uli and Flora are having blister problems. All this slick climbing does them no favors but they do not complain. 

Waterfalls and crows. Sheep and sheepshit and Ireland comes to mind. A  river of fog in the valley out of which poke, from time to time, gaunt bent conifers or the slowmoving form of a fellow hiker.

At the end of Day Three we are in the 75-year-old Cabane de Salanfe, at a height of 2100 meters or so, contemplating the arduous effort before us: the Col de Susanfe, another 400 meter climb, which will be difficult if the current weather persists. And it looks to persist: as we shed our soaked gear the rain turns to soggy snow, falling in ropes against the stone walls of the cabin. 

We drink bowls of coffee and dine on sausage and spaghetti. We turn in early, to conserve strength.