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travel-switzerland_5.jpgThe Swiss Alps near Ticino by the Italy border. Back: The BCBusiness Guide to World Travel
The hills are alive with the sounds of a wheezing, ?gimpy Alpine hiker. Peaceful people the Swiss may be, but I’m taking no chances. I’m packing heat. Deep Heat.? There are 14 of us on this hike up the Alps near Ticino by the Italian side of the border. For the hard core, including an Austrian (who confesses later that he works as a mountain rescuer), a South African and an Australian, this is nothing compared to hikes they’ve done on Kilimanjaro and the G20. ?
Peaceful people the Swiss may be, but I’m taking no chances. I’m packing heat. Deep Heat.
There are 14 of us on this hike up the Alps near Ticino by the Italian side of the border. For the hard core, including an Austrian (who confesses later that he works as a mountain rescuer), a South African and an Australian, this is nothing compared to hikes they’ve done on Kilimanjaro and the G20.
The rest of us are a little worried.
When our guide Donatella orders an inspection the night before we are to depart to check the treads on our hiking boots and the weight of our packs, I almost wish I wouldn’t pass her intense consideration. Donatella and her partner David, who only speaks Italian, confer and point at my bum left ankle. “You think you can do this?” Donatella asks. I nod and stand on one leg to show her. David looks skeptical.
He has good reason to be. On the grassy alpine meadows, over the streams of water and hilly surfaces, I’m keeping up. But it’s the upward climbs over steep rocks that are dragging me down, and I’m having trouble catching my breath. We are heading up what the Swiss would consider a mild slope at 2,300 metres up to the Cristallina peak. Rod, an Aucklander, and I are pulling up the rear. We live in sea-level cities; that’s why we’re lagging behind, we tell each other. “Doesn’t help that I’m a smoker,” he adds. We profess sympathy for each other’s situation, but I vow not to fall behind the guy with the ashy lungs.
In my mind, I try to focus on something besides how far we still have to go and the towering ascents ahead. I can’t even look upward; the wide, encompassing shadows are reminders that the panorama promised at the peak is still hours away. The scenery all around us is stunning, the green lakes so clear I’m tempted to jump in; indeed, everything is a distraction. What I take as national pride in the numerous red and white flags painted on rocks is actually the trail, something I didn’t know until David quickly doubles back after I veer off in search of a gentler incline.
The clanking cowbells above me are a taunting reminder that four-legged animals have made it this high up carrying sacs full of milk. My MEC backpack with an extra pair of socks and stuffed with anti-inflammatories and pain relievers weighs little in comparison. Minutes before the bus ride to the start of the trail, I dumped out half of what I was planning to bring, keeping only blister packs, socks and my BFF, Deep Heat.
My inspiration for packing light was the hikers I hoped to encounter. I ask one of the Swiss hikers in our group whether the naked hikers who have been fined as much as $200 Swiss Francs for wearing boots and nothing else ever come through this trail.
“That’s on the German side,” she says apologetically before moving ahead effortlessly without a break in her stride.
By the time I catch up, I’ve missed yet another group photo, the third one along this hike. The fourth one, which I’m not in either, is taken at the Cristallina lodge. It shows a triumphant bunch of hikers pointing at the breathtaking view of the Basodino glacier beneath them and waving the last straggler (me) forward the last few metres to the top where the shadows finally disappear into nothing but sky and all the other peaks yet to climb.