Coming down

Part III of Switzerland Adventures Starring Your Intrepid Correspondent 

By Marc Ethier

(Aforementioned) Gather Correspondent 

"Martin, do you have a King?" 

 "Go fish."

Thus we spend our down time. And there is much of it: We didn't need four days, or even three, to hike the Dents du Midi in south Switzerland. But why rush?

It isn't all cards. There's Yahtzee too. 

And of course the beer.  

Snow comes down against the stone cabin in thick soggy ropes as we huddle inside late on Day Three, drinking lager from small glasses and coffee out of bowls. Jotting notes and teaching games to Germans.

The tranquility of the moment is broken when a father and his two sons burst in late in the day and, shaking off the wet and cold, happily hunker down at the other table. They chatter away in French and ignore us totally.

Dinner of sausage and spaghetti. An early bedtime, followed by an anxious few moments in the predawn dark as we scramble downstairs to check the weather.

Clear. Perfect. Pluperfect. 

Our ascent of the Col de Susanfe, the highest point on the trail, will go ahead as planned.

Not that it wouldn't have gone ahead anyway. It just would have -- how shall I put it -- sucked.

We leave before the sun clears the rim of icy peaks surrounding Cabane de Susanfe, thanking the host and his teenage son for our breakfast of porridge and coffee. We go down a few yards before the track wheels suddenly upward toward an indistinct gap in the apparently solid wall of rock before us.

Delphinium and short grasses give way in the shadow of Dent de la Chaux (the southernmost of the Dents du Midi) to snow and bare rock; quickly we are huffing and puffing, and soon buffeted by an icy wind.

The gap becomes clearer as we approach, a slow, plodding approach, head down, one foot ahead of the next.

We climb from 2,500 to 2,900 meters in a series of small ascents over rolling rock until, at the final climb, we cover the last 50 meters by going straight up. It is a long 50 meters.

Then -- we're there. And stunned by the sun and warmth at the top.

It's like a blacktop up there -- all black and shining rock looking every bit like asphalt poured from a truck; the sun beats it and the heat reflects up like a furnace. A dramatic change from moments before as we clambered up-slope against brutal winds.  

We celebrate with photos and a prolonged appreciation of the excellent views, because now more than any time on our trek the weather accommodates our desire for unobscured spectacle. To our left, just a little northwest from where we're standing, rises the snowcovered eminence of the Dent de la Chaux, and to the north the unclimbed (by us) Haute Cime. Below we descend into a flower- and cow-littered valley that sweeps down to the Lac de Salanfe, the largest lake in these parts.

Wolf's bane, larkspur, sundew. Daffodils, daphnes, columbines. Bell-tolling cows sinking dewclaw-deep in the mud. We slip and struggle down several hundred meters before reaching the cerulean lake. 

Just in time for the fog to roll in. Before I know it Flora, Uli and Martin are consumed. Lisa follows soon after. We skirt the lake, gorge on a hasty lunch in the cabin there, then assault our final climb, to the Col du Jorat (2,200 meters), as the fog thickens, lessens and thickens again with unpredictable quickness.

Another 500 meters up and our labors are at an end. Someone put a large conspicuous cross atop Jorat -- the Swiss are a very devout people -- which, in the fog, makes for startling imagery.  We keep it in mind as we descend the knee-cracking 1,100 meters to Mex, where our journey began four days earlier.

Blisters. Primrose, eryngium, snowdrops. Wild strawberries and the highly poisonous aminita muscaria. Coral mushrooms and fields of slate-rock shards. Crows, more crows and waterfalls. And more waterfalls.

We reach Mex and shed our most cumbersome gear. Lisa changes shoes immediately. We all screw down our telescoping poles. Hats are donned, pant-legs rolled down. Bags are doffed, beer ordered. With an unoccluded view of the mountains we'd just trekked, we order another, and another.

I put away the damn boots and don't look at them again until we reach Wyoming, months later. They still have dirt in the treads and crusted along the laces. Only reluctantly do I clean it out.  

Marc and his wife, Lisa, sold their home outside Washington, D.C., quit their jobs and embarked on a yearlong world trip in September 2006. They visited Fiji, New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia and continued to India and Europe until September 2007. You can find all of the Global Nomad articles at www.twoheadedturtle.gather.com. Read more about their adventures at www.2headedturtle.com.

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