Zurich

 We're packing up to leave for Iceland early Friday morning, so I'm making a vacationy photo-dump blog post for the sake of continuity (which is something I value highly in my nearly-eight-year-old journal/blog.) Our visit to Zurich was pretty awesome. I could see myself living here, even if the Swiss do adhere to a lot of rules that my unrefined American manners occasionally stumble over, and even if you can't find an iced drink to save your life, and even if they seem a bit stingy with the coffee ... Switzerland is a beautiful and remarkably clean region, and these incredible mountains are right at their fingertips.

 For workouts, Beat and I went for a couple of runs from our hotel to the Uetliberg, a small 2,850-foot peak with a panoramic viewing tower at the top. On Monday it was cool and rainy, and I'd been so busy traipsing around the city that I neglected to eat lunch or even snack before our 5 p.m. run. I was thinking it would be this short, after-work thing, but it was still 8 miles with 2,000 feet of climbing on some steep terrain. I bonked early and hard, to the point where I was weaving a bit on the switchbacks, and wavering more dramatically on the slippery staircase up the wind-blasted tower. It was a tough run for me, and of course Beat was full of energy and laughing at me the whole way up. Deserved.

 We went back to the Uetliberg on Wednesday evening, and it was another hot, sweaty day. Just before our run, I met with a friend, Gabi, for afternoon drinks (more ApfelSchorle for me. No ice, sigh.) Gabi is a mountain runner that I met through Beat at the Tor des Geants. She's also the only person I know in Zurich, and I just happened to see her on the street when I was walking to the train station on Tuesday morning. During our visit, I started to tell Gabi the story of how Beat and I met at the Swan Crest 100 in Montana when I realized it was July 31, and this was the day Beat and I acknowledge as our anniversary. Later, and Beat and I were running up the steep side of the Uetliberg, the realization popped into my head again. "Hey, Love, guess what? It's our third anniversary!"

 So, after the run, we celebrated with a visit to the Thermalbad in our hotel building, which is apparently a famous spa in Zurich. The lower level is built into centuries-old stone vaults with hypnotic lighting effects and various saunas and jet pools. Then there's a roof pool with panoramic views of the city. We visited this pool right at sunset, with clear air, rich light, and alpenglow on the snowy peaks in the distance after the sun went down. Unfortunately I did not bring my camera. This picture is from the following afternoon, when went back for a lunchtime soak on our 24-hour access pass.

 August 1 is a national holiday in Switzerland. It's just like the Fourth of July in the United States; our morning pastries were adorned with little Swiss flags on toothpicks. Because it's a holiday, the Google office was empty and Beat finished up his work and took the afternoon to meet his uncle for a hike in Baden. It was yet another extremely hot day, in the mid-90s, and my body temperature was already jacked up from the mid-day spa visit. Beat's uncle guided us up this extremely narrow ridge that had some decent exposure to sheer drops. I felt severely overheated, to a level where I was concerned about heat stroke. But I poured the rest of Beat's sparkling water over my neck and this seemed to take my temperature down a few degrees — at least until we ran out of water about two hours into the hike. Beat's uncle walks even faster than Beat does, something I didn't think was possible, and we just kept marching along this breezeless, hot ridge. I was pretty grumpy. It's funny, because of all of the runs I did this week, the only one that didn't put me deep into the pain cave was the big mountain I time-trialed in Lungern. All the easy runs were hard; the hard run was easy. I guess life works out that way sometimes.

 There were good views along the three-hour ridge walk, which of course ended in a restaurant where Beat and his uncle ordered cider and I begged for water. My experiences in Europe have largely shown me that restaurants are pretty stingy with fluid in general, but this worker was very nice and filled up my bladder for me.

Our walk ended in Dielsdorf, adorned with yet another castle tower that has been standing since the 13th century. "The only buildings this old in the United States are Anasazi ruins," I said to Beat, but of course old stuff here is just not a big deal. We took the train back to Zurich and caught the fireworks over the lake in the evening. Fun holiday. The Zurich leg of this trip was really just supposed to be a business-related stop for Beat. I of course am pretty happy with how it worked out.

I'm going to keep all of these memories close to the surface when I'm cold and hungry in Iceland next week. The hot hot heat and the lap of luxury ... these things are good to experience sometimes, too. 

Dot on the map

Between his family reunion and our trip to Iceland, Beat needed to put in a heavy week of work at the Google office in Zurich. I had a few deadlines to keep myself, but beyond that I had some free time to spend exploring. On Monday it rained heavily for most of the day. I had to complete a few chores such as taking the rental car back to the airport, buying a phone card, and figuring out the train network — somewhat time-consuming tasks in a foreign city. I've never been great with public transportation; I prefer to be independently mobile, even if it means walking for an hour or riding a bike dozens of miles. But Switzerland has an extensive train network, and it seemed worth utilizing while I'm here.

Still, any trip that looked to be less than three kilometers merited walking. I got myself hopelessly lost several times, wandering around wet streets with an orange umbrella pressed against my chin and clutching a waterlogged map in both hands. I went to a museum that was closed on Mondays and a lakeside path that was still closed after Ironman Switzerland. Shut down on several accounts with sore feet from padding the pavement, I considered taking a trip out of the city on Tuesday.

Trouble is, I had no idea where to go or how to get there. A hotel employee recommended Luzern, but Beat warned me that the town was large and touristy, and he wasn't sure how much hiking I'd find in walking distance from the train station. I opened Google maps and traced the train line south as it worked its way through a series of towns next to lakes. At Lungern, the highway veered into a tunnel, which indicated the town was pressed against a steep mountain with no room for a larger road. Knowing little more than that, I walked to the main Zurich train station on Tuesday morning to purchase a ticket.

The train moved for an hour and stopped in Luzern, announcing the end of the line. My ticket was entirely in German and I didn't realize I needed to catch a connection, so I darted out of the train and wove through thick crowds until I saw a sign for Interlaken, which was in the same general direction I needed to go. I stepped on the train, which lurched forward before I even sat down. My layover must have been shorter than five minutes. Eek, I hope I'm on the right train.

I didn't know for sure until an employee checked my ticket and didn't say anything, so I figured I was not in the wrong. At nearly every stop I stepped up to the door, just in case the platform said Lungern. A few stops looked particularly nice and I almost considered getting off early, but decided to wait. The train rounded a narrow valley and began wrapping around impossibly blue lake; it was a color I'd never seen before, a kind of electric cerulean. It was so enthralling that I decided this would be my stop regardless, but when we arrived at the train station, it turned out to be Lungern.

I stepped off the train and looked toward the mountainside, an abrupt slope that climbed into vertical walls. It didn't even look walkable from the valley, but I've learned enough about hiking in Europe to know I'd probably find a trail up this mountain. Sure enough, on the other side of the train platform were those tell-tale yellow signs with destinations listed in hours instead of distances. I've learned enough about hiking in Europe to know that when fresh and determined, I can usually halve the estimated climbing times. My downhill times usually come out pretty close to estimates, unless I make an effort to run the sections that I'm capable of running. I had about four hours before I needed to catch the train back, and "Huttstett," listed at 3 hours and 45 minutes one-way, seemed like a good goal.

 The storm had cleared out and it was another warm day. Climbing was strenuous, gaining at a rate of about 1,200 feet per mile, mainly on open grassy slopes exposed to the hot sun. But the views were consistently nice, at least when took a break to catch my breath and turned around.

Huttstett was a narrow col at 5,450 feet elevation, just over 3,000 feet above the valley floor. It had only taken me an hour and a half to get there, so I had at least another half hour to climb. The main route seemed to drop back into the valley, but if I hopped over a cattle fence, there was an option to keep tracing the contour of the ridge.

I remember doing this countless times back when I used to hike solo in Juneau, marching toward a mountain peak with a tight timeline looming behind me, and somehow justifying, "Just a little bit farther. Just a little bit farther."

There was a distinct high point in the distance and I just wanted to see what was on the other side. The grade was less steep on the ridge and I made an attempt to run until the sideslope steepened to the point where falling would have been considerably costly. There were rocky cliff bands on both sides and only a narrow trail to hold my clumsy self to the mountain.

 Eek, don't look down.

 I marched up to the peak, called "Gibel" at 2,035 meters (6,676 feet.) A gravel road came up from the other side of the valley, and there were a dozen sightseers milling about. This is hiking in the Swiss Alps — you can rip your lungs apart marching up a steep and rocky trail, skitter over a narrow ridge with heart-stopping drops on both sides, crawl over a peak drenched in sweat, and arrive at a vehicle-accessible vista crowded with people. I dropped down the backside of the peak and found a bench overlooking an incredible vista of sharp, high mountains and glaciers. Wispy clouds streamed over the ridge and sometimes obscured the view altogether, so I sidled up to a bench to await an opening in the fog. An older couple was sitting there, quietly enjoying the vast views. The woman motioned at me and pointed to the sky, which I noticed for the first time was filled with para-gliders.

Now I had 2:32 on my watch. Eek, I really only had 90 minutes to make it back to Lungern before 4 p.m., in order to catch the 4:10 train. It wasn't the end of the world if I missed the train, but I did promise Beat I'd be back by 6:30. It was only five miles but more than 4,000 feet vertical descent away. When it comes to steep and rocky slopes, I find descending fast to be more difficult than climbing. I can't really call any of this "running," but it's at least if not more strenuous than any running I do, even for 40-minute miles. Still, descending is something I do need to practice, within reason. I think I startled a couple of families with children as I clomped down the trail, catapulting rocks with my trekking poles.

In a rare display of relative grace, I arrived at the bottom unscathed with 3:47 on my watch, meaning I managed to descend five miles and 4,300 vertical feet in an hour and fifteen minutes. Where did that come from? Relative to my usual descending abilities, that was a massive leap of faith, sometimes literally. Now if I can just manage all of this over and over, twenty times in a row, I'll be set for PTL next month. But, at least for this day, I made my train schedule with enough time left over buy an Apfelschorle and crackers from a vending machine. The perfect way to wrap up a serendipitously wonderful visit to the Swiss village of Lungern. 

Switzerland

Beat and I flew to Zurich on Friday to attend a large family gathering for his brother's and sister-in-law's 25th wedding anniversary. The past 36 hours have been fun but exhausting, a whirlwind combination of jet lag, meeting uncles and cousins and Beat's father for the first time, excessive heat that we could not escape, and language barriers. People asked me how my German was and I'd reply, in English, "I can count." I can also sing a few songs and recite a personal introduction that I learned in eighth grade. Beat's sister-in-law actually held me to counting and we made it to funf (5) together before she accidentally skipped over to sieben (7), which is just as well, because I can never remember the German word for 11.

The heat here has extended beyond family meetings and being on the hot seat for my sad lack of language diversity. When we arrived in Zurich on Friday afternoon the temperature was 38 C — 100 degrees, with much higher humidity than I'm accustomed to. I get the sense that most buildings in Switzerland do not have air conditioning, and this included our third-floor hotel room in Langenthal. After marinating for a few hours we decided it's better to sweat on the move and went out for a 90-minute run through the woods and farm fields near our hotel. I thought I was heat acclimated, but it's impressive how strenuous a run can feel in humid triple digits. The draining effect of the run on top of sleep deprivation (I never sleep on planes) and jet lag left me feeling almost drunk with fatigue by the time the party began in the late afternoon. I guess I'm lucky there was a language barrier because intelligent conversations became challenging. The party was a beautiful and elaborate affair, with an organ concert in a cathedral and a delicious four-course Swiss meal in a ballroom. It remained so hot that I had to stand with my knees together to prevent visible droplets of sweat from running down my legs. But it was an enjoyable gathering, even if social events in stagnant heat leave me feeling more drained than long runs.

We woke up "early" (still feels like 10 p.m. California time) on Sunday to join Beat's uncle for a hike in the Jura Mountains, a sub-Alpine range that divides the Rhine and Rhone river valleys. As we approached his uncle's flat near the Aar River, we passed an enormous castle perched on the cliffs above the village. No one mentioned this castle to me before; I supposed in Switzerland these things are no big deal, but it's really not every day you pass a 300-year-old castle on your way to your Sunday morning stroll (I did not take a picture of the castle, unfortunately.)

We climbed a narrow gravel road that had been hammered into the rocky slopes by the Swiss military in 1915 to fortify a barrier against German invasion from the north. Each unit that worked on the road carved their coat of arms into the rock. Although the Alpine regions lack in wilderness, the depth of history is fascinating and the extensive infrastructure is useful. A network of trails across these ranges make it possible to hike from Spain to Germany on an established mountain route, with regular stops at trailside cafes if you so desire.

After brunch, a large thunderstorm with heavy rain and hail moved in, and we decided to run our same dirt route in Langenthal in the afternoon. The effort was markedly easier in the warm drenching shower than it had been in the hot drenching heat. We ran fast (for me), cranking out 10 kilometers with 703 feet of climbing (like how I mash up imperial and metric measurements?) in 55 minutes. Although we did an extra 2K spur during the run yesterday, it really did take nearly a half hour longer. Interesting how oppressive heat can be. I'm going to remind myself of this experience next week in Iceland, when it's 5C and raining and I can't stop shivering.