Wednesday, August 27, 2008

The day I climbed an Alp!

Me and Dad were staying in Zurich, about an hour away from the legendary Alps. On Saturday, when Zurich was having a huge street parade, we decided to check it to Chur (pronounced like you're making a loogie with "ooher" on the end), nestled in an alpen valley and the oldest city in Switzerland. We got there and decided to take this ski lift kinda thing 3/4 of the way up, walk around up there, then walk back down.


Dad taking on that mtn like a rockstar.

Well, when we got there and saw all the restaurants and old people and paved roads we were kinda like, "Damn! What a tourist trap!" Then we saw signs that indicated something that looked like, "Mountain Summit 30min walk." We decided that we'd go have a look.

The walk started out so magically. The paved roads and tourists ended and forest type changed from pine and aspen to fur. We walked through quiet choruses of cow bells and fields of low brush filled with flowers. Then we got above the tree line and were like, "woah this is cool!" then more like, "woah I'm tired" and then words didn't work anymore and we could only think to ourselves, "just keep on truckin. keep on truckin."


me not feeling well at 2,200m (about 7,200ft)

I know that this is the internet and anyone can read this and I shouldn't say what I'm about to say BUT I will anyway. I have consumed certain substances entirely legally in the Netherlands (A tiny hint for American friends: the capital of this nation is Amsterdam.), where it is legal to obtain and consume certain substances in designated coffee shops. With all that rigorous work and the thin air, I must say that it felt just like I'd consumed a bit too much of a certain substance. No joke.

When me and Dad tried to get to the tip top summit (where the photos are, we're surrounded by three small hills), the wind hit us hard and we got really cold and realized "we're really high!" (literally and figuratively), so we went right back down, had a banana and some water, took victory shots, and headed back down for an elevation that would help clear our heads. When we got back to the ski lift thing, 3hours after we started (yup. 30min hike. sure.), we met this older couple in their late sixties or so that had just completed the same hike. Go them!, but now we're lame.

1 comment:

max said...

You don't remember the summit? How our Sherpa's couldn't continue and we forged on? How the mountain bike dude whipped past us? And to think you were holding out on me on that good stuff! We claimed that peak for Sewanee, TN and for all those hapless climbers that failed before us.

A nod is as good as a wink in these circumstances.