The Swiss Adventure...: January 2008

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Day Hike Aesch - Egg Fluh

On Saturday, we woke up early to take a day hike from Aesch (for those of you who aren't familiar with the area, that is about a 15 minute tram ride from Basel) to Egg Fluh. It was a beautiful, cold morning and we were fortunate to see some beautiful frost on the trees.

Old Bunker

Fog in the valley

Old Castle

Castle

Robert enjoying the hike

Vineyards with frost

Misty morning at the castle

The frost was so beautiful

It was cold

Frosty farm from the top of Egg Fluh

Distant shot of the castle

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Emmental – Snowshoeing – Not So Adventure

Here it is…the big Wow, the big Geez you have been waiting for…or maybe not. Anyway, after our last big snowshoeing adventure, we decided to return to the same place to do it all over again, but this time with friends. As I write this, I am actually laughing internally to myself carrying on a dialogue that goes a little something like this…"Are you kidding that you would take friends along with you after what happened last time? Is it not enough that you don’t have any family within 5,000 miles from where you live, but now, you want to lose the only friends you have by offering to organize a snowshoeing adventure? Have you lost your mind?”

The mind is still in tact (or at least I like to think so) and despite our wickedly (I had to throw in some Boston jive just for fun, we don’t really hear that in Switzerland if you know what we mean) awesome adventure last time, we had a fabulous time. We had a bit of a learning curve and this time (the Boyscouts and Brownie troops of America would be proud) we came prepared. In fact, we bought enough groceries at the local store (proud to say this time it was open, so don’t worry, no laws were broken) to last us through quite possibly the worst imaginable snow blizzard in Switzerland that would leave us buried under approximately 155 feet of snow (I just like the image…what does 155 feet of snow look like anyway???)

We picked up our friends at the local bus stop around 7:00pm by torch (now torch is a fun English word, which actually means flashlight…now that we have this international experience, we like to use fun words every now and then). With happy smiles on our faces and darkness in front of us, we led them by flashlight (again so prepared) back to the Berghaus. They were in awe of the place; they were happy, and looking forward to a great weekend! We were looking forward to a hopefully non-eventful adventure and hoping our friends had the same smiles on their faces when we were finished with the whole experience!

Let’s fast forward to the next morning. We woke up, ate some breakfast, packed our packs (I mean what are you supposed to do with backpacks if not to pack them?) and headed out. The day was something out of a storybook and not one of those dark and twisted storybooks, but out of one of the sweet Candylane type of story books, with nice fluffy marshmallow clouds, a yellow Sweet Tart sun, and little pink peeps frockling in the grass (it’s OK, I too, want to throw up after reading that last sentence.) It really was a nice day and with the distraction of some great conversation, the first two hours of the hike flew by. We quickly found ourselves at Berghaus Erika where we had a nice warm, Swiss style meal. This is truly rejuvenating…like a nice, deep Swedish massage, we revived after downing our Rosti.

Now on the backside of the trail, we took the steepest way we could find. We like to do this to ourselves if not for the sheer intensity of climbing mountains, but also to challenge my fear levels. Heather, our friend (who at this point still seemed to like us) was rather intent on using her snowshoes on every inch of snow, toggled between life and death as she hugged the side of the mountain. I simply couldn’t look and took myself to my happy place, deep in the world of those fluffy marshmallow clouds. She did make it and might be a bit braver than I.

The snow was nice, the wind, it blew and right in front of us were the Alps. Now, we have lived here for approximately 9 months (for us, this too is hard to believe) and we have not yet even remotely grown tired of looking at these beauties! What eye candy!

Continuing to hike, we had a great time trekking through the snow. This time, (to our surprise) the snow level had dropped enough that we didn’t have to subject our friends to electrocution from hopping the electric fence or impalement from jumping the barbed wire fence. After this section our friends were still smiling!

Keep moving on, moving on….passing the Kujo Emmental dogs (these dogs, or mighty beasts are quite territorial) they bark and bark and get closer and closer letting you know that you are encroaching on their property line. The fun thing is, I like to use the name Kujo because immediately you get this image in your mind of some huge, bear of a dog, foaming at the mouth, ready to lunge at you, mean while, these dogs (the Emmental breeds) are really quite small, rather cute and do wag their tails the entire time they ferociously bark at you. Nonetheless, Kujo is a great name and can truly enhance any dog story.

A bit further in the wilderness (this is no shit for real…) we saw two life sized gnomes who were cutting down trees (I guess we all need firewood to make it through those long winter nights) and we realized, all gnomes must live and breed in the Emmental region. What do they look like you ask? Well, good question my inquisitive friend. They have these funny little hats (in an array of colors) that barely cover their heads (why they are called hats, I am not sure), smoke sweet smelling pipes, have jolly old faces (sort of like Saint Nick), and they are wrapped in jeans that smell of pine trees (I was close enough to catch a wiff), with the nicest, rainbow colored suspenders. And when they laugh, you immediately think of your neighbor’s lawn. These guys are really something worth seeing and if only I had more time (and knew the language) I would have loved to sit down with these fellows over a cup of egg nog (I don’t know why I chose egg nog, but it sounds gross and sweet all at the same time) and talk to them about their lives. In fact, maybe I will become a writer on gnome culture and propel myself on assignment deep into the Emmental forest and only emerge when I have the story covered to my satisfaction or at the very least have one of those awesome hats.

So, that is it, no major, life altering snowshoeing events (other than putting an end to the gnome mystery.) We came, we saw, we conquered (so dramatic…even a bit so for myself) and when we left, we still had friends, and we even made some along the way (AKA…the gnomes, Kira and Sky.)

Keep trekking on!

Typical Swiss Farm...Note the Cow Bells

Happy Hikers!

Berghaus Erika

The Beautiful Emmental Valley

Dena, Heather and Melinda

Heather on Top of the Mountain

The Trail

Obstacles...Logging on the Trail

More Scenic Emmental Valley

Snowshoeing Action Shot

The Sun is Setting

Robert and the Cow

Nature Shot

Sunset

So nice...

Nice Light

Sunset

Sunset Again

More Sunset

Beautiful Tree

Art in Nature

Robert and Melinda

Fun Photos

The Group...Note, we are all still smiling!

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Global Consumer Awareness Video

The beauty of a New Year is that we have the ability to make changes not only within ourselves, but also within the world and in the lives of others. A good friend of mine just spent the last three months living in Indonesia. When she returned, she stumbled across this video and was kind enough to send it out for others to view. She witnessed first hand some of the impacts the video relates to regarding third world countries.

Robert and I sat down this morning and watched the 10 minute film and were quite impressed with the information that was presented. We believe we can all make a difference and change starts with knowledge.

Enjoy and a HUGE THANK YOU to Tricia...the work you are doing is quite inspiring!

Click below to watch the film...

Video Link

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Snowshoeing Adventure or Man vs. Wild

There is this itch you get when you live in a place like Switzerland. It creeps up on you – at first you dream of days of just sitting in your flat, drinking coffee, relaxing while watching a movie and then it hits you – there is a whole other world out there. The Alps are a few hours away, there are other countries to explore, so you yourselves jumping up, packing your sacks and heading out the door.

That’s how it happened.

One Friday morning as Robert slept, I planned a short trip into the Emmental for a nice, little weekend of snowshoeing. So we arrived in Emmental with the nicest owners (probably in the universe) meeting us at the bus station. We literally jumped off the bus and heard, “Hallo Melinda!” like a long lost friend calling your name after years of missing you!

We love this country!

We quickly made our way to the Berghaus, had our choice of rooms (like we said, the nicest people in the universe) and put down the packs. We then received a great map of the area and a hike that would take about 3.5 hours - we decided to head out.

This is where our Swiss lessons come into play…
Lesson #1: Always, and we mean always, take food with you.

You never know when food might come in handy.
Lesson #2: though we know water is more essential than food, but we like to eat…Water our friends, is also a good thing to have, even more important than the food.

The start of the hike was great! We made our way uphill - in fact, most of the beautiful hike with commanding views of the Alps was indeed uphill. We took lots of photos, and were anxious to find our way to the Bergrestaurant Erika for a nice warm meal. After hiking about 2.5 hours, we needed a little rest and a bit of a warm-up. This is were the hike, or snowshoeing adventure turned a little south. The restaurant was geschlossen…or for those of you who don’t know 10 words of German like we do, that means closed. Now this doesn’t sound so sad, but let me tell you, in the hiking world, after tredging (this is a word…right?) 2.5 hours uphill, it is downright devastating when you arrive at a restaurant that you know has food in the kitchen and places to sit that is free of those round, big, frozen cow patties and there are no chances of sitting in yellow snow. This is where lesson #1 came into handy – we had packed two Clif Bars – we now LOVE Clif (and if by any chance anyone from CLIF BAR is reading this, yes, we would like a free year supply of your delicious and nutritious energy snacks), two apples and water! We munched on our frozen bars, drank our water and pressed on.

As we turned the corner, the snow became quite a bit deeper – about 2 feet of snow – wet, heavy, dense snow. We love to snowshoe, we signed up for snowshoeing, but we have to say, wet snow it like hiking with 30 pound weights strapped to your feet…a very nice workout, but after about 6 hours of this…yes, somehow our 3.5 hour hike turned into about 6 hours of a snowshoeing survival course! We’ll dive into that in a bit.

So for now, we are still smiling and not moaning too much. At this point, civilization is nowhere in sight and for those of you who are not familiar with winters in Switzy, the sun comes up at about 8:30 and goes down around 4:30….Lesson #3 now comes into play…if you are hiking in unknown territories and you know it will be getting dark, either carry a BIG flashlight with you, (OK, make that rescues flairs) or get yourself back to shelter before dark.

We had the flashlight, and our “shelter” was nowhere in sight.

Still snapping pictures as if we were on location for National Geographic, the sun begins to set, which means without the sun, the temperature drops. So, this is what it looks like: the temperature drops, our stomachs are still hungry (this is why we need the year free supply of Clif Bars, we need to eat more than one bar on a 6 hour snowshoeing adventure….if you want our address, just ask Mr. Clif) and the obstacle course begins.

Obstacle #1:

Frozen, snowed in gate….Must cross.
Picture this, when hiking in Switzerland, there are typically gates, or electric fences scattered all over the terrain. The purpose of this is to keep the animals (pigs, goats, sheep, and cow) from roaming freely, not necessarily to keep the people out. This gate was encrusted with barbed wire and on either side was an electric fence. Robert had enough crotch (yes, I said crotch) clearance to hop over the fence. Now, this is where being vertically challenged gets difficult. I on the other hand, did not have the crotch clearance to make a clean jump over the fence and therefore, still hoping to protect my fertility, decided I must hop the fence. I can hop a fence, I have done it before, I will do it again, but with two big, clumsy snowshoes on, hoping a fence is no picnic, especially when encrusted in barbed wire. After contemplating for awhile, and deciding taking off the snowshoes (yes, this would have been the easiest and safest way to go, but I like adventure and am a bit lazy…. it takes a good 10 minutes to get in and out of snowshoes) I mastered that fence, I mean I took it in Taylor style. My family would have been proud.
Obstacle #1 = Mastered

Obstacle #2:

So soon….we just mastered obstacle #1...Down trees on trail…Must scale mountain.
With frostbite setting in…(Robert can no longer feel his toes – Note to self: Target does not make the best hiking boots) we picked up the snowshoeing pace to avoid the whole black, Popsicle toe escapade we have seen too often in those high adventure, Everest trekking films. We are moving along when what to our wondering eyes should appear (it was close to Christmas, what can you expect?) but a shit load of trees and not a single frickin’ reindeer. Not even a frickin’ sled to carry us out of this mess. Dark, cold and completely no longer charmed by the snowshoeing adventure, in fact, at this point I was ready, OK, we were ready, to tear off the snowshoes and start to burn them for what little warmth they had and vow never to do this type of adventurous, no brained activity again. We tredged (is this a word yet?) uphill trying to avoid the downed trees, made our way out and didn’t say a word. You know those moments when it is best to remain silent in fear of what might come out of your mouth…what might have come out of my mouth at that point was certain to scare me, so I bit my tongue and cried frozen tears instead. Not really, (who cries in subzero weather?) but it makes for a good story…right?

Obstacle #3:

Hiking in the forest over a cliff in the dark…
Not much to say here, but we know, it doesn’t get much dumber than this.

Obstacle #4:

Or are you kidding me that not a single place in this town is open?
It is cold, it is dark and all we have at the Berghaus to eat is a small, I mean really small, (like the size of a quarter on steroids) piece of goat cheese, four pieces of Advent bread, two Clementines (not even real oranges….just cute little, low calorie, want –to- be oranges) and tea…does tea even have a single calorie?

We need calories people…this is where you start to understand how desperate people go south (when I say “south” I mean bad…just to clarify.) When you see a store full of food (at this point it doesn’t even matter what kind of food, in fact, the cat food started to look good, in those neat little colorful shapes, tuna flavored even…mmmm). All we wanted to do was bust into that store, put as much grub as we could into our pockets, leave some money by the register (see it can’t be that bad, we were even willing to pay for the loot – yes we would have broken into the market, but officer, we did pay.) But we couldn’t do it and we wouldn’t do it, even with Robert’s Popsicle toes, we just hobbled back to the house, in the dark to munch away on our tasty treats.

Lesson #4:

I think the last lesson was #3, but at this point who is counting? When all else fails – do it again! No kidding, we have signed up to do it again. January 18 – 20th. Snowshoe adventure part 2…here we come! Believe it or not, we had a great time!

*Parental Warning:

Obstacle #2 contains some colorful language. For 8 months we have published a “family friendly” or “G” rated site – please know, we intend to keep this a family friendly site, but sometimes, “colorful” language helps to really express the mood of the situation. In addition, some of the best works we have read contain some “colorful” language…at times, “colorful” language can be fun and it can even help convey the message and place special emphasis where special emphasis is due. For those of you who might be highly offended by some of the verbiage chosen for this particular piece, we do apologize, however, this year, I have decided it is OK (for the sake of writing of course) to express myself and if that means the occasional use of “colorful” language…well, I am comfortable with that. And if by anychance Clif or someone from a travel magazine wants to hire me, or us to take photos or write articles for you, we are totally up for the challenge....

Enjoy!