Out of politeness, multiple people in my life have asked me over the past month, “So, how was Switzerland?” or “Did you have fun on your trip?”
The first question lets me keep the conversation short with answers like, “Absolutely beautiful. Kicked my butt, but breathtaking.”
The second question requires the awkward response. “I wouldn’t use the word ‘fun.’ It was difficult, but it was good for me. I don’t know that I’d do it again, but I’m glad I did it.”
See, not until after we returned did I read about how hard of a hike the Walkers Haute Route is. Since we planned to cheat the full, pure path with strategic shortcuts like buses, gondolas, and trains, I had assumed the journey would be easier than it proved. Procuring intestinal issues on the second day of the trip didn’t help the physical challenge. I was depleted, yet I don’t know how much easier those climbs would’ve been even if food had stayed in my system.
Don’t get me wrong: I hang this Alps trip on the mantel of adventures that have made me shake my head in amazement. A decade ago, I foresaw few, if any, of the adventure junkets that now live on in my photo albums. Several people have told me that they live vicariously through my Facebook posts. To that I reply, “So do I. I relive my own dreams vicariously through those photos and videos.”
Because of that, I tend to remember my trips through the lens of grateful introspection. And maybe that’s why I wouldn’t take away that physical depletion—even the constant (and sometimes dramatic) bathroom visits. That sickness led to one of my favorite moments from those twelve days away from home.
On the fourth morning of the trek, we were looking at the highest sustained elevation for any leg of the trip—varying between 7,500 and 9,000 feet above sea level. It was raining (and later sleeting) out of the fog that obscured the view, and four cols stood between breakfast and dinner. Fast-moving streams needed fording, and the innkeeper advised us to break from the standard path for one that would be rendered less dangerous by the weather conditions.
Five of our seven men chose to lean into Tuesday’s gauntlet. Thankfully for me, Woody had contracted a head cold. He generously offered to join me on a walk back to the gondolas that would take us down to trains and buses that would deliver us to Arolla, where the other five would meet us at the end of their Wednesday trek.
You need to know that Woody is one of my heroes and also one of my mentors. He has visited forty-some countries, climbed the highest mountains on two continents, led wilderness treks since the 1970’s, and narrowly escaped death multiple times. He built and sold a successful small business and accidentally started a megachurch. His spiritual journey and realizations somehow—yet easily—dwarf the physical adventure stories he’s accumulated. He shares all of this with humility, tact, and a teacher’s heart.
So, two days with a dude like this is far from a negative memory—even if punctuated by shallow naps and frequent trips to the acoustically-challenged toilettes.
On our second afternoon together, sunshine, cabin fever, and mandatory check-out drew us out of the hotel [A]. We stashed our packs and hiked about an hour toward where the rest of our crew would eventually be backpacking [B]. We waited long enough for me to step in barbed wire while peeing next to what I learned was an electric fence—and then to laugh about it while scanning the countryside for signs of other humans. Eventually, the proximity of the Glacier de Tsijore Nouve and its moraine got the better of us.
Woody took off toward the scree a bit south of the direction that I took. His path turned out to be a short cut, and soon he was 100 to 200 yards in front of me. Eventually, I found the sliver of dust up the moraine that he had traversed, barely gaining on him [C]. That’s when we heard the crack. Then the rumble. And then the crash.
The glacier calved right in front of us, smashing its splintering ice and exploding snow against the rocks to our left.
Woody hooted—as much for my attention as his glee. Later, when I finally got within shouting distance, he asked, “Did you see that!?” Throughout our ten days in France and Switzerland, our group of seven would see probably a dozen different glaciers. Those few seconds held the only calving any of us would witness on the trip.
Atop the knife edge of the moraine, we again surveyed the expanse of trail for a while, looking for our companions. A few minutes of standing led Woody to again look up the slope and start moving. I told him that I’d stay, air my feet, and wait for him. A few minutes into that, I realized what Woody had realized: this is the only time I’ll ever be in this amazing slice of the planet. No sense in leaving it unexplored.
I crawled up the slope of wild, short grass behind him, using both my hands and feet to climb. I’d climb eight or ten feet and then rest, looking up the slope in search of his silhouette and hiking staff. I steered clear of the ledge that I assumed would drop precipitously to the jagged surface below where the glacier had just calved.
On one such stop, I looked up and saw him no more.[F] A few more breath breaks later: still no Woody. I kept asking myself how much higher I was willing to crawl—where I’d be satisfied with my line of arbitrary accomplishment.
I learned from Woody years ago that when you get separated from your group, stay where you are. It makes it easier to find you that way. So, I stopped. I found a rock outcropping [E], turned around to face the valley, and sat down. You’re going to laugh, but I removed all my clothes and listened to worship music on my headphones. The distance from any trail rendered me modest by obscurity, even if somehow someone saw me. I was going for “naked is symbolic,” but my farmer-tan vulnerability lasted the length of just one song due in large part to the cool wind coming off the ice.
I had no idea that Woody had shouted my name—let alone more than once. At one point I might have heard the faint echoes of a human voice, but I couldn’t make out anything.
What I didn’t know is that Woody had slid down the brae with gravel sliding with him. Approaching a snow-covered slope, he shortened his hiking pole to its shortest length and removed the rubber tip—to prepare for self arrest. That preparation proved helpful, when he indeed started sliding down the mountain and needed to employ the self-preservation maneuver. At the bottom of the snowfield, he felt his back pocket and found that his wallet and passport had been ripped from his possession. So, he climbed the snow, found his valuables, and descended the slippery surface again. Somewhere, his violent descent had removed his watch, too; but the mountain now owns that.
At the bottom of this plunge, Woody began to worry for me. He wondered if I had tried to follow him. He chided himself for taking off on his own—after warning us not to do it earlier in the trip. He imagined the worse—explaining my injury or even my demise to Crystal.
So, he bolted toward the edge of the shadows. Keeping north of the unreliable ice that covered the flow of snow melt, his black-shirted frame emerged into the light below as the only moving shadow on the barren gray floor of gravel. [G] He saw a rock on the moraine which his imagination told him was my fallen body. He feared for the worse, and moved toward it.
That’s apparently when I saw him, tiny and far below me. I thought something along the lines of “I wonder how he got way down there!” His appearance was my signal to move. With both shaking legs, both trembling arms, and one puckered butt on the grass, I slowly crabbed down the slope.
That’s when Woody noticed my movement. “I have never been so happy in my life to see someone,” he exaggerated later. My weak attempt at exploration, something for which I had been a bit embarrassed, turned out to be something that saved me from potential injury. My headphones might have even saved me from trying to find Woody over the uneven brink fifteen feet or so from where I had parked.
It took me twenty or thirty minutes to drop to the place where we regained each other’s company. I had taken an ill-advised contour of a boulder field, while he had scurried up the vertical, interior face of the moraine. I apologized for my tardiness. “I’m just glad you’re safe,” he replied. He then told me the harrowing but exhilarating way he had spent his time apart from me. I did the same, as we walked toward the trail intersection. [B]
After removing stones from our socks and shoes next to a pastoral brook, we waited for our crew. For almost an hour, we would see hikers in the distance and try to determine which of our group they were. Turns out, none of them were our guys. After interviewing a few of the hikers, we decided that Ethan, John, Laurice, Logan, and Max must have passed us while we were occupied along the glacier.
Forty minutes later, as dusk relinquished daylight, we found our team sitting at picnic tables in the center of Arolla. [A] They had some fantastic tales to share, some spectacular moments to show us from their cameras.
Surprisingly—for a couple of sick guys—we did, too.
