In my jet-lag fog, this is the only sentence that registers in my brain as our friends share with us the fun plan they have lined up for our first day in Switzerland.
“…what the locals do on a hot day, fast current, just stay away from bridge pillars and the edge, tourists die every year, exit before the power plant turbines, SO FUN…”
Wait, we’re doing what exactly?!
According to Google AI (which I opted to read now, as I write this, not before myself and my family jumped in) ‘Swimming in the Aare River in Bern, Switzerland is a popular recreational activity, especially in summer, but it’s important to be aware of the river’s current and potential hazards. While the water is generally clean and safe for swimming, it’s crucial to be an experienced swimmer and to take necessary precautions.’
We arrive in Bern by train and head straight to the river, passing by a perfectly harmless and inviting outdoor public pool. As soon as the river comes into view we Americans all gasp audibly. The river is really moving. “Holy shit!” Paul blurts out. We watch people whiz by. I see ‘exit’ signs, warning swimmers on how many meters they have left before they need to exit. I watch an old lady reach out to a railing and hoist herself out of the current, clearly a local that’s done this before.
The swiftness of the blue-green glacier-fed river is memorizing, and irresistible. Silas and Paul decide to take a short test run with Manu and his son Rio. They jump in, sail past us a few hundred feet, and then paddle hard to an exit canal. “AWESOME! It’s not that hard! C’mon, you gotta try it!!!” Ivan and I agree that this looks way too fun to pass up. Let’s do this!
With the exception of little Rosa, we all walk up river for a nice long swim. We find a lesser-threatening launch off point. We wade in a couple feet until we can feel the current wanting to take us off our feet, then jump in, paddling hard to get away from the rocky edge. And…we’re cruising! Fast!! Awesome is right! We glide under a bridge, steering clear of the pillars and potential jumpers. We bob along past spectators and other swimmers taking a break on the bank. We attempt to swim up-river against the current just to see how hard it really is (impossible). And before we know it the joyride is over. I see the final exit sign and get positioned next to Ivan, making sure he’s seeing it too. We approach the exit canal, paddle a few hard strokes through the current to get into it and then grab the first ladder, letting the current pull us sideways, giggling our heads off.
Confirmed. The locals really like know how to have a good time on a hot day!
Greetings from Switzerland! We are a six days into our two week stay here, having wild adventures with our wild Swiss-German friends. The most challenging part of this trip so far is not the jet-lag or the language barrier or the confusing train system, it’s deciding which wild adventure to do next. Shall we swim the river again with a current so swift that a bridge pillar could be deadly and an exit is required before you get chopped up by power plant turbines? Or venture out on a ridge traverse with a threatening snowstorm in the Pre-Alps? Or how about spending another night in a Swiss Alp backcountry hut, eating, sleeping and using the bathroom with 80 other people, all snug and cozy and stinky? Ah, so many decisions.
It’s been 15 days since I last showered. I have dirt under my fingernails that even the lengthiest wilderness lake swim can’t clean out. And every couple of hours I find three new mosquito bites beckoning a good scratch with urgency. I abandoned the concept of backpacking the day I discovered trail running. Why bother hauling that massive pack on my back over the course of a few days to cover the same terrain I can run before dinner time? No more sore hips and feet from carrying all that weight, with the bonus luxury of a cold beer and shower at the end of the day after all that hard work. Trail running was a brilliant alternative to backpacking. And my super fancy expensive massively huge pack with all the tech-y backcountry gear essentials in it lay dormant out back in the hot shed, baking and forgotten.
Well, fast forward 20 years later to today. It seems I’ve happened to have produced a son that really has a thing for trekking long distances, distances that he picks out on trail maps that are way further than we can family-speed-hike or run in a day, distances that really get you out there, away from the hubbub. “Dude, we can’t hike there. Do the math. That’s 50 miles round trip!” And so this is how backpacking returned to my life.
While our trip here in the Yosemite high country this summer is over two weeks long, the backpacking portion of it spanned five days. Five days and four nights covering over 40 miles of trail and off-trail terrain, up and over near 10,000 foot passes, down into deep narrow valleys carved from streams raging with snowmelt runoff, past impressively large hidden mountain lakes, through meadows filled with wildflowers of every shape and color and as fragrant as a flower shop, and across vibrant green swampy mucky marshes swarming with mosquitoes.
I’ve backpacked, trail run, and family-speed-hiked some pretty amazing adventures. But wow. These five days of backpacking were absolutely incredible. All boxes were checked. Rugged and scenic trail that you really gotta work for: check. Wild water to swim in after a long hot day: check. Delicious and healthy camp food: check (dang has dehydrated food improved over the last 20 years!). Greeting card perfect spots to pitch a tent, look at the stars from bed and sip a morning cup of brew: check. And last but certainly not least, no whining from my adventure compadres: check. No, seriously, CHECK! No one complained even for a second on this adventure. There was of course the ever-present standard bickering between siblings, like who knows best how to start a fire, who gathered the right length of wood, or the better way to light the stove (why is it ALWAYS about fire?! Must be a boy thing). Bickering, fine. Complaining, no thank you. I used to have a big sticker on the glove compartment box in front of the passenger seat of my old Subaru with the word Whining and one of those circles with the cross through it. No whining!
And oh yes was there plenty that could have been whined about. Mosquitos for one. They were quite bad at times. Black humming clouds of them that swarmed our ears and eyes and mouth and bit us through our clothes. Those little @!#ers absolutely adored my meaty behind. We quickly learned the exact time of day they like to come out around dawn and dusk and aptly named it Witching Hour. Quick! It’s 6:50! Get those dishes washed! Witching Hour starts in 10 minutes!!!
The heat was another fair game complaint possibility. Last I checked my phone before we left cell signal range and headed back into the high country, Yosemite had heat warning alerts with lots of explanation points plastered on every forecast. Genius Ivan started using his camp towel as a cooling rag around his neck while hiking, wetting it at every stream crossing. We all soon followed suit.
The heavy packs of course are always something worth complaining about, both the exertion required to hump them way down into that valley and then up and over that mountain way over yonder, as well as the resultant sore hips, shoulders and feet. There is not much remedy to this one. This is a fact that one chooses to accept the moment that beast of a pack is hoisted onto one’s back at the trail head. Unless of course you are someone like our badass friend Linda and opt to “fastpack” it instead. (Go ahead and Google that one).
And how about that grueling 16 mile day? Which included the mid-day trek in the afternoon heat across that mosquito infested bog where we had to near-run with heavy packs for one mile to keep 25% of those infuriating creatures from sucking our tasty blood? Nope. No complaints. Not a one. If anything, I think the shitiness of that situation made us all the more giddy. Paul actually tried snapping photos while the rest of us yelled “they’re eating me alive!!!!”
So why or how were we all so inclined not to complain on this adventure? Maybe because when there is no alternative, there really is nothing to complain about. In all of my examples above there were zero alternatives. It’s not like stopping in the middle of the mosquito bog and giving up is an option. There is only one option, and that option is to MOVE. FAST. Perhaps options is what enables complaining. Or maybe, more simply, we didn’t complain because we were just too darn busy having fun.
Paul posed a dare for us all prior to our backpacking excursion: “I dare everyone to bring something into the backcountry that we wouldn’t expect.” I brought a game of Uno and hair gel. Ivan brought his beloved Bear and a joke book, and actually read us jokes from the book WHILE hiking down the trail. Silas brought everything but the kitchen sink, Beats headphones and his iPod, a hatchet multi-tool, a sketch book and two pens (yes, two), a book titled “50 things to do in the wild”, a deck of cards, a harmonica, a solar light for the tent (in addition to his headlamp), his own first aid kit (even though we already had the family first aid), a compass, a poppit and a fidget spinner. For anyone that doesn’t know the last two items, these are the latest incredibly annoying toys currently banned from school classrooms. And Paul, well, I imagine he had good intentions of bringing a mind-blowing dare, like a nice full-sized bottle of good whiskey perhaps. But in reality when it comes to Paul, it’s usually more a dare of NOT bringing something along that you WOULD expect. Like a sleeping bag. (And yes, this actually did happen. Not on this trip, but on a prior trip long ago with his father. I have many of these examples in my archives :-).
This return to backpacking with my family was a blast. It blew my socks off! Blew all our socks off! Grubby toes never looked so good. And for the icing on the cake, after we came down off the trail, gave the van a warm welcome and slept a cozy night in a nearby campground, Paul and I crushed our boulder problem projects first go the next day. Last day best day!
So can this trip be topped? Or more importantly, does it need to be topped? That’s another question for another day. Because today, with the small exception of me writing this retrospective of an amazing adventure with my three best buddies, we are going to continue enjoying the present moment where time has quite literally slowed down, allowing us to absorb every last morsel of it. That cliche phrase of a state that we all seek to experience, but only the lucky few actually do.
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Day 1: Packed, psyched and ready to go at the May Lake trailhead. Destination: as far as we can get to Ten Lakes
—— Day 2: Continuing on to Ten Lakes
—— Day 3: Day hike to as many of the Ten Lakes as we can and jump in!
—— Day 4: The 16 mile hike from Ten Lakes area back to May Lake
—— Day 5: Last leg, May Lake to the trailhead where the van is parked. Then a zip down to The Valley for a swim and pizza. And finally, the cozy campsite.
Scored a campsite in Rock Creek en route to Tuolumne! And what’s more – it had just rained when we arrived. Now, this may not be exciting to most. But for us, pure heaven. “Mama! Walk through the grass! You can feel the wetness on your toes!” were Ivan’s exact words after he stepped out of the van and ran around.
First and foremost, all of our trips are stellar…for the record. But this one for sure is bound to be a little more special than most, as I’ve been suffering from a bit of cabin fever lately. Within the last couple month we’ve had fun plans shut down multiple times, keeping us homebound. First, our Pittsburgh climber buddies had to bail on a rendezvous with us here out west. Then we had a trip to the north rim of the Grand Canyon canceled due to forest closure because of fire danger (which also shutdown all northern AZ options). Next we had to turn back on a trip to Hueco Tanks because of apocalyptic rainfall and flooding. And, we’ve bailed on Mt. Lemmon camping & climbing quite a few times because it was just too dang hot! On top of all that the “work from home” mandate still persists, which I am not at all a fan of. Our desert adobe with pool and personal climbing gym is sweet and all (don’t get me wrong here!) but I need to get out of this place before I go crazy!!! Time to bust this joint!
