It's not often that you walk into a completely different sort of environment. That's sort of what happens when you leave the flat part of Switzerland and head up the glacial valleys of the Alps. My destination was in the German speaking part to a chalet over 500 years old in Lauterbrennan. I think the anticipation of something new is one of the great parts of travelling, because you can read the travel literature and even look up the photos on google maps but the first sight of somewhere is always memorable.
After such a build-up all I actually got to see after getting off the train and walking up the main street was a view of the valley walls and a big waterfall, and lots and lots of mist. And also the snows that had fallen early. I had a sense of something but vague. The day after taking the train up the valley wall things only got worse. After church (we went to an English church, just in case folks were missing home after 24 hours) we stumbled across a big marquee with an assortment of traditional and semi-traditional bands from nearby villages were taking turns in the spotlight. Great entertainment as the mist was now threatening to come in through the door. It was all in honour of the first new uniforms in 30 years for the local band.
Monday was a nice walk down by the lake in the valley below. Standing on a bridge right over a torrent in a waterfall was a thrill sport in itself. Mist still clung to the mountains though.
Tuesday things weren't much better but we took to two forms of mechanical transport to get into the clouds. Things were bleak and I wanted to head back down but Mike and I pressed on. After a couple of hours things started happening as we rounded a bend on the mountain track. Snow on the ground and then the cliffs above us glistened in the bright late summer sun and the remote valley below too; all came together in view and I knew I was in a big place.
Looking back I am not sorry about the slow parting of the clouds over the first few days as it gave a greater appreciation of it all.
It is said that the Americans don't get irony. Whether that is true or not, the Swiss don't get vulgarity. Who in their right mind would stick a big round space ship on the top of a 10,000 foot peak, or dig a tunnel through the Eiger in order to get a train up it. We have our own version in Scotland, and those that complain about our ski centres and funicular railway (I may from time to time be one of those people) should visit the Schilthorn summit centre and take the twin elevators to the revolving restaurant in order for them to bless the day they were born in Scotland. I had spurned the cable car (on the way up anyway) to climb up 1600 metres to the star of James Bond baddies and explosions and it was bad. I'm too much a purist for my own sanity.
Before I get all smug though. we too in Scotland have over exploited our mountains turning them into barren fields for whatever is remotely profitable, sheep,deer and game birds to the exclusion of a healthy eco-system including birds of prey. I don't like walking in the summer in many of the hills where sheep grazing has taken away the wildness and beauty and replaced it with the homogeneity of supermarket strawberries. Brought home to me on a recent trip to Glen Lyon where a large section of hillside had been fenced off and instead of a washed-out impression of green the hill-side had the hue of true green. I hope the EU does bring in their tagging of sheep that makes it uneconomical to breed them on our hills. If we could turn our hills into one big massive national game park the tourism and improved environment would be so much better. Instead be bulldoze and scar the mountains with straight drainage channels with the barbarism of 18th century greed.
They do seem to have reached a better balance between their grazing needs and nature in Switzerland even though their restaurants (and hotels) would be better at ground level. Someone else said that the restaurants are odd because of how the food is of secondary importance. There is still plenty wildness left in their mountains such as the thunder-like boom of the avalanche formed as the tip of a glacier breaks off over a cliff. Or a herd of Chamois deer bound nonchalantly out of sight round a distant top. I am more than happy to stick to the wilds of Scotland though especially as autumn and winter approach and the sheep are rounded up.
