If there's just one thing you wanted to see ...

After Beat finished PTL, we spent the next two weeks visiting his family in northern Switzerland. Both Beat's mom and brother live in a relatively rural region along the Aare River, which meanders beneath the Jura Mountains. This area always feels subdued after the grandeur of the Alps, and admittedly it's taken me a few years to truly appreciate its beauty. Usually we arrive half-shattered and far behind on work after a week of racing and adventuring in Chamonix, and this year was no different. Beat parked himself in bed and worked from home for most of the next week, but he did rally to join me for a few Stägli. 

Just a few kilometers from our home base in Vordemwald, the 1,150 steps of the 1000er Stägli ascend a small Jura mountain. Rising 700 feet in a third of a mile, this ascent is a harsh exclamation point in the usually pleasant, loamy trails that traverse these slopes. Popular with fitness folks and home to a sprint race, the Stägli are vert-lover's dream — the perfect setting to put in hard stair repeats and chase lung-searing climbing PRs on rainy afternoons. There's even a fun, very easy via feratta through the gorge that runs alongside the Stägli, as well as several options for trail-running descents. For all of these reasons, I was drawn back to the Stägli most every day that week. Despite ongoing fatigue, I still attempted to chase PRs. Each effort melted down in the rare-for-me experience of lungs outlasting legs, which buckled as muscles filled with lactic acid. My PR is 11:32. The best I could do this year was 12:16. Fastest women's time on Strava is 8:09. It's humbling to comprehend such speed — a vertical mile in an hour if she could keep it up! — but still fun to push as hard as my heavy legs will allow, once in a while.

By Saturday, Beat was done with work and reasonably recovered from PTL, and had set aside the last week in Europe for unstructured fun. In past years we've been on our way to another 200-mile mountain race for Beat, but he had nothing lined up this time — which left him noticeably disappointed, and a bit apathetic to any non-racing excursions. He charged me with setting up adventures if I wanted to have any ... and I dropped the ball. Multi-day trips through Europe are complex. There's no wilderness. Every sleep stop must be set in advance, so one must know exactly which trails they're traveling each day and how long the route will take, set schedules, make reservations, acquire exact change in cash to pay for everything, and stick to the plan. Grocery stores in small Italian towns are effectively never open, so resupplies can be tricky as well. These realities leave me longing for the American West, where I'd just load up a backpack with everything I need and rest in beautiful solitude anywhere and anytime I please. Alas, I balk at all of the necessary planning and thus have yet to experience a true European tour. I made a half-hearted planning effort this year, even going so far as to contact refugios near Courmayeur. But Beat had little interest in what amounted to a small segment of the Tor des Geants when he's raced it seven times.

Back to the drawing board. A few day trips in Switzerland could suffice for now. The weather was forecast to be wet and cold for the next few days, with snow down to 2,000 meters. So I kept it simple — a meager 5,600-foot climb up the popular Pilatus peak near Lucerne.

Forecasts proved correct and it was a gloomy day with intermittent rain and "considerable cloudiness." Although this made for slimy trails through cattle pastures, I was enjoying the more typical Alpine weather. Chamonix had been entirely too hot and dry.

Beat approaching Pilatus Klum, which I knew was a major destination accessed by the world's steepest cogwheel railway. Still, I wasn't quite expecting the development we encountered — a massive hotel and multiple restaurants stretched across the narrow and rocky ridgeline.  Fog had enveloped the top by the time we arrived, so we climbed the viewless 2,100-meter summit of Esel and paid ten CHF (which I just learned is almost equal exchange for the U.S. dollar right now, so not bad!) to enjoy two Apfelschorles in the cafeteria, out of the cold wind. 

Starting the long descent as fog continued to roll through.

I routed us downhill a long way through another valley, in case we wanted new scenery. When I'm alone I treat my own GPS tracks as a suggestion, but Beat seemed more inclined to follow them to the line — the way one would when racing — and didn't even pause at the trail intersection. He did stop often to point out rugged-looking couloirs and other off-trail routes up near-vertical slopes that could possibly be climbed  — the way one would when racing PTL.

As we made our way down, down, down the winding valley, a small Appenzeller dog tore through the brush and barked aggressively, running back and forth between us as I waved my trekking poles at it, convinced I was about to have my ankles chomped. As Beat and I moved closer together, the cattle-herding dog seemed satisfied with its efforts and stopped barking, but continued to follow us down the trail, leaping happily between us. One mile passed, then two, and as we neared town, we were both fretting about what to do about this random Swiss dog that seemingly adopted us. It had a collar but no tag. Would we have to call an animal control office? The police? We couldn't just climb into the car and abandon it on a busy street miles from its apparent home.

We left the trail and continued on the final road to town with the dog still following. He/she especially seemed to take a liking to Beat and walked beside him, gazing back occasionally to make sure I hadn't drifted back too far. As we passed, all of these cattle moved together from various locations around the field and lined up in a row at the fence, fervently watching the dog for direction. Beat and I had a good laugh about the cows — amazing what those little herding dogs can do. Shortly after this spot we were approached by a vehicle, which turned out to be the farmer looking for his dog. Such relief! The man had been out cutting wood when the dog took off. He told us the dog occasionally adopts hikers, and once followed another pair all the way to the top of Pilatus. Beat suggested he put a phone number on the dog's collar.

The weather was really terrible on Sunday. Except for a couple of Stägli, we mainly stayed indoors and watched the start of the Tor des Geants online. Beat had several friends who were racing an even longer and tougher version of Tor that started on Friday. By this point in the week he was so filled with FOMO that he was glued to updates and didn't seem to care about what came next for us. Based on photos of heavy snow covering passes near Courmayeur and a similar forecast near us, I figured we'd be safest sticking to something fairly low.

On Monday we set out from Stockalp for a ridge walk that topped out at 2,200 meters. This route I effectively picked blind off of Strava's heat map, but did a little trip report research afterward to determine which parts of the ridge were walkable, and which parts demanded more technical scrambling that would be scary for me and downright dangerous in wet weather. But I didn't look at any photos beforehand, so the sheer rock walls and waterfalls along the narrow canyon approach were a nice surprise. Beat, again, continued to spot faint game trails climbing out of the gorge and urged explorations. The trails were little more than off-camber indentations in sheer grassy slopes where any tumble would send us hundreds of feet down a cliff. "Your interest in these trails is making me much less excited to hike with you this week," I told him.

After saying this, I realized that Beat and I have done comparatively little hiking together in Europe. He is nearly always either racing or recovering, so the vast majority of my excursions here have been solo. I'm used to picking and choosing my routes and maintaining my own pace. Since Beat is used to racing, even his casual pace feels hard-driving to me, and I was often straining to keep up. It was fun to share this with him as well, though — the awe of another incredible vista over the next horizon, the quaint cheese-selling establishments and real estate signs on enviable chalets to spark conversation, the surprise of a snowline that crept lower than we expected.

Surpassing snowline on our way to the Balmeregghorn. Time for wet and cold feet (and a wet and sore butt, as I took a good fall farther up.)

Looking across the ridge as the fog moved in. This is the more complicated part of the ridge to save for another time — compelling for sure, but in these conditions, it would have been a slip n' slide of horrors.

Looking toward Tannensee and the part of the ridge we would traverse.

Brief views toward Engstlenalp and a pass I'd climb later in the week. Steep drop-offs to the right!

The steep drop-offs were still there, but obscured by clouds as we made our way down.

Dropping toward Tannensee to wrap up the loop. This outing proved to be a perfect way to soothe the sting of disappointment about not running Tor des Geants or planning a more involved adventure — unbelievably scenic the entire way, low-impact (I mean, only 4,200 feet of climbing in 15 miles), but challenging enough with snow to add spice to both trail and scenery. Of course the descent I set was too meandering and easy, and Beat insisted we run a lot of it. Oof. It was going to be another leg-crushing week, but I couldn't wait to see what we planned next.

Wrestling the restlessness

Our last few days in Chamonix were relatively quiet. On Friday morning I was only beginning to rouse after yet another 5 a.m. bedtime when Pieter turned up at our shared apartment. His leg had not improved overnight, and he was barely able to limp around the small living area. Beat and Daniel continued up the 8,000-foot ascent of Chavalard while he caught a ride from Fully. His injury would later be diagnosed as a significant tear in one of his quadriceps — a bummer as his current prognosis calls for at least eight weeks recovery, and he can't even ride a bicycle or swim with a muscle tear. The fall that caused his injury happened during a long and rugged traverse before Fully, so he had no opportunities to stop sooner, but it's good he dropped out when he did. 

Pieter was hurting, disappointed, and badly in need of a good sleep, so I left the apartment and headed toward the traditional TMB trail to climb up the back side of Brevent. My legs felt particularly heavy with the week's efforts, having already surpassed 40,000 feet of climbing in seven days. The long, hard-braking descents on steep and loose terrain are what really wear me down. Dark clouds were building overhead as I crouched my way down a rubbly access road toward Chamonix. This was concerning, because it had been so hot all week that I wasn't carrying much in the way of rain gear. A glance at my watch revealed that I probably wouldn't make it to town in time to meet friends to watch the start of UTMB, so I bought a cheater ticket and took the gondola down from Planpraz.

It was the right decision. I was ordering an espresso at a little bar near the cable car station when the sky opened up and rained down fury for most of 45 minutes just before the 6 p.m. start of the race. Thunder roared and lightning flashed as rain fell in solid sheets, chasing everyone sitting underneath umbrellas on bar's terrace into the tiny building. I crammed my way into a corner and sipped my coffee while looking out the window and feeling smug that it wasn't me out there getting drenched like the 2,500 runners lined up in Chamonix's central square. Eventually I made my way over to Moussoux to meet my friends, where we watched UTMB runners pass by on the road out of town. It took nearly 15 minutes for the entire field to go by, less than a mile from the start. The guy in yellow, leading the pack, is eventual winner Pau Capell.

My friends and I had a great night of libations at a jazz bar and dinner at a restaurant favored by locals — which they are, as British expats living in Les Houches who are currently in the process of gaining French citizenship. Enviable. I caught the night bus and staggered home in the darkness, only to take a comical but admittedly painful headlong fall over a planter right in front of the apartment. I ended up on my face, but my shins bared the brunt of the impact. Humiliating, but no one was around to witness it, so I laid on the ground and laughed at myself before limping inside. Less than two minutes later, the sky opened up again. Despite my pitiful klutziness, I managed to again feel smug for beating all of the downpours on this day.

On Saturday, Pieter and I did a little dot-stalking to catch up with Beat and Daniel at Lac d'Emosson. I wanted to capture some photos of them on the trail, so I consulted Pieter's GPS, only to find the route headed directly into a pitch-dark tunnel with seemingly no end. While donning a headlamp and trying to work up the courage to press into the darkness, Beat and Daniel emerged from tunnel. Without even slowing down, they marched directly to a nearby bar for a large serving of ice cream.

Beat and Daniel looked strong, and at that point were only about eight hours from the finish line in Chamonix. We waved goodbye and watched them walk across the dam. Pieter and I continued to enjoy a leisurely afternoon. We had lunch at a Canadian burger place, where I encouraged him to try the poutine (I don't even like poutine, but find it funny that there's this unique North American food that I can introduce to European friends in France.) Pieter's mom flew in from Belgium for the sole purpose of driving Pieter home in his car, since his leg was too painful to even drive. Moms are great like that. She spent fewer than 15 hours in Chamonix, but at least was able to enjoy a fondue at her favorite local restaurant. This was the only properly Alpine restaurant I managed to visit during three weeks in Europe. I don't particularly love provincial French and Swiss cuisine — it seems like much of it involves a herculean effort to cram down four pounds of cheese and then feel horrible for the next 36 hours. Even the "salad" I ordered at this quaint establishment had about three leaves of lettuce, and the rest was salami, eggs and cheese. But it was delicious.

Beat and Daniel strode up to the finish line of PTL at 10:45 p.m. They put in a hard effort from Emosson, even running most of the final descent at 10-minute-mile pace ... although, in proper PTL style, they were walking casually and side-by-side when they crossed under the arch.  This was Beat's earliest finish yet — still Saturday night. On social media I reported that it was Beat's fastest PTL, but I forgot that the race used to start 14 hours later, so his fastest was still his first, in 2012. It was his seventh "cowbell," which is what PTL finishers receive — seven finishes in eight starts. He was already complaining that his year's PTL was "too easy" because there wasn't as much off-trail terrain as usual, and the weather was warm and dry. He swears this is his last PTL, but I don't believe that for a second.

By Sunday everyone was sleeping, so I stole away for one last hike. Again I made my way from downtown Chamonix up a trail I'd never climbed before, only to discover it was a relentlessly steep and rubbly access road toward Col Cornu. This route was perfect for me, though — as hundreds of UTMB runners were making the final descent to Chamonix on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and spectators were everywhere, there was no one on this mean and ugly climb. I hiked hard, relishing the burn in hamstrings and calves. My fatigue was deep by this point, but the huge daily dose of endorphins becomes increasingly addicting. I was hungry for a fix.

I traversed over to Col de la Gliere and enjoyed a snack and views, but on the descent I made the decision to do one more 2,000-foot ascent to Brevent to push my nine-day climbing total over 50,000 feet. These stats are arbitrary, and I'd already cheated by cutting out part of a descent, which is the hardest part anyway. But the numbers are fun to chase. While I aggressively pursued vert all week long, Pieter and Daniel both teased me about running PTL again. To this I responded with an irritated side-eye glance, and usually launched into another anecdote about why I so aggressively dislike PTL.

Each year I become more attuned to my inner relationship with mountains, these raw and astonishing spaces that I love and fear with almost equal intensity. Every time I return to the mountains, I encounter fears — of unpredictable obstacles, of rapidly changing weather, of the frequent mistakes that I make, and the potential consequences that increase exponentially with exposure and remoteness. Every time I'm faced with tricky maneuvers or insecure footing, I need to gulp down little spurts of panic that I can't prevent, that I can only try to absorb before they consume me. But this emotional roller-coaster takes its toll, even more so than the physical strain. I used to believe that facing my fears would vanquish them, but I no longer believe this. And I used to believe that more experience would inspire confidence, but I now understand better the way scars leave me weaker than before, especially emotional scars. By the end of a week like this, as amazing and relatively benign as it was, I'm strung out. Wasted. Legs may be a little heavy, but my mind is fully cooked.

As years pass, and I don't seem to "get over" my experiences at the 2013 PTL, I've become more willing to accept the trauma I carry, that has likely become a permanent part of me. It may have been an optional, recreational activity, and I recognize my privilege in saying this, but PTL was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. It left a wound in my psyche, and I reopen the scar, just a little, every time I return to these mountains. There is a lot I love — there is so much more to love — that these returns are worth it. But I've come to accept that I'll never be a happy-go-lucky mountain runner. Not only am I an incurable klutz who is just terrible at descending, but there's a darkness I need to face to reach the heights, every time.

This is the experience life, of course. Light cutting through the darkness, beauty across the entire spectrum of color, shades of gray rather than absolute black and white. I have no desire to live out my life on a predictable, even plane, which is why I return to the mountains, every chance I get. 

So much vert available

By Tuesday morning, the guys were already nearing the first life base at the 80K mark of PTL in Morgex, Italy. I was surprised to see them there that early ... PTL usually moves forward much more slowly than two miles per hour. But the night had gone well. Beat was gracious enough to text me at 7 a.m. to say that even though they were earlier than expected, I didn't need to come out. I'd already used a "get out of crewing free" card because I'm always neck-deep in deadlines by Tuesday afternoon, and often have to work throughout the night in this time zone.

But the also-stated truth was that I didn't want to crew Beat at PTL. It's pointless. I spend 54 Euros to drive through the Mont Blanc tunnel into Italy. This drive usually takes at least 90 minutes one way because of heavy traffic, and I've waited in the tunnel line for three hours in the past. Then I wait in the rental car for them to arrive. It's usually raining. I wave to them at the doorway of the life base, where I am not allowed inside, even to chat as they eat their dinner. They go to sleep for a few hours, and I sit in the car some more, occasionally stepping outside to walk through the rain for 10-20 minutes until I find some semblance of a public toilet, which I usually don't, so I walk for 10 more minutes far enough into the woods to be inconspicuous. (Okay, I do know where the public toilet is in Morgex.) They wake up, I give Beat and kiss, then stand outside in the rain some more while they pack up inside. Then it's one more kiss and they leave. Being a crewperson at PTL feels like being some kind of parasite, a scourge of U.S. trail-running culture. The French race organization makes it abundantly clear that I am not welcome. But, Beat likes me to bring him sandwiches, so I vowed to meet him at the second life base in Fully, Switzerland. Just please don't make me come to Morgex.

So I had all of Tuesday morning to use for my own selfish means, which I chose to spend near the French village of Vallorcine, exploring a segment of the PTL course. By now I've made it clear how much I dislike PTL and how strongly I feel that their often-ridiculous route choices are not for me ... and yet I'm plagued with curiosity. This segment passed by Lac d'Emossen, an enormous dam just across the border in Switzlerland, which I've long wanted to visit. I'd be traveling the route opposite of PTL, and the first racers wouldn't reach it for a couple more days. The trail was all but abandoned on this slightly hazy but still beautiful morning.


All but abandoned except for one other person — a French woman, early- to mid-20s, wearing nice trail-running shoes, a tank top and short shorts, and carrying only a small shoulder sack that seemed to be entirely filled with one 1.5-liter bottle of water and her phone. She passed me early, but for the entire climb I'd end up shadowing her in a way that annoyed me — she was lighter and faster, bounding up the trail ahead, but then she'd stop every ten minutes to look at her phone until I'd almost caught back up. Perhaps she was navigating by phone — can't begrudge her that. But I just wanted her to get farther ahead, and resented this game of turtle-and-hare that we were playing. Her motions cast a shadow on my lumbering, steady hiking style — large backpack and baggy pants, hunched over the steep pitches, click-clacking poles to support my 40-year-old knees and failing ankles (Yup, I already have a complex about being 40.)


Our game became more interesting on the final approach to Col de la Terrasse, as the route veered directly up a scree slope that tipped toward 50 percent grades. The scree was loose, a terrible slip-n-slide of moon dust and sharp pebbles, but there was a zig-zagging trail of sorts that offered a little more traction. The young woman missed the trail and was battling the scree on all fours, raining down rocks as she scrambled. In my old-woman wisdom, I stuck close to the track displayed on my old-school GPS (I made my own track based on the Strava heat map, as I do not trust PTL's tracks to properly trace the route.) I had an easier time, but felt rattled by the loose and steep terrain. I really hoped the trail would "go" beyond the pass, as I strongly didn't want to downclimb this route that everyone in PTL would downclimb. The young woman and I reached the final headwall at the same time. She seemed frazzled. The headwall presented a maze of a rock scramble above cliffs. Yellow dots marked what was likely the only viable route. Here my GPS was less helpful, and the young woman proved more adept at finding the hidden dots. I followed her closely, now grateful for her presence. We reached the col together, both grinning widely. I felt like we'd gained an understanding

To my delight, the Swiss side of Col de la Terrasse wasn't steep or loose at all — just a gently sloping rock bench dotted with snowfields and tarns. The route was pleasant tundra travel, easy enough to afford looking up at the incredible views of Mont Buet and summits along the French-Swiss border. Since we were in Switzerland now, the route was marked with red dots.

I started downhill before the young woman, but she quickly appeared behind me, seemingly eager to follow. We'd exchanged a few words at the pass, enough to realize that neither of us spoke much of the other's language, so I didn't know her plans. Either I was better at following the Swiss markers, or a better downhiller — both of these reasons seem implausible — but she frequently lost ground on me. Feeling some obligation for our unspoken partnership, I occasionally stopped and waited, taking photos and looking at my phone. Soon we reached the beaten path above the upper lake, where she took off running at an enviable pace.

For a while, the path was nicely straightforward — clean singletrack, a road, an enormous dam (they don't often let you just walk across dams in the U.S. Such fun.) From here the PTL route continued into Switzerland, but I needed to make my way back to France, so I'd set a track that looked fine on the map.

It was not fine. Okay, it wasn't dire, but I struggled. The route tumbled down a gully strewn with all sizes of loose boulders. Along the way there were metal signs bolted to the walls lining the stream bed. These signs appeared often enough that I finally used Google Translate to figure out their message. The warning: Water levels could change at any time, even in good weather. Seek high ground if necessary. All around me were cliffs. High ground? I looked up at the dam, looming directly overhead. I fantasized about a sudden dam burst, the white wall of water blasting toward me, the end that would come so quickly. Meanwhile, all I could do was slowly pick my way down the boulders and scree, swearing loudly when I rolled my weak ankle yet again. I was amazed the joint had held it together after so many of these wrenching motions, and breathed a silent prayer to the universe that it would hold on a bit longer so I could escape the death gully. Grumble, grumble. But PTL didn't do this to me. I did this to myself.

Col de la Terrasse was another tough outing. I felt exhausted even before I launched into a work day that lasted until 6:30 a.m. All through the night, I watched Beat's tracker move slowly across a technical ridge in Italy, ominously marked in black on the map. So I was exhausted but grateful when he called at 8:30 Wednesday morning, reporting that all was okay. Unable to sleep anymore, I tried to get some more work done, but my mind was fuzzy. I often come on these trips with ambitions that turn out to be laughable, but I'd genuinely planned to take a "rest day" on Wednesday and chip away at a writing project. Ha. Easier, I eventually decided, to just go for a hike.

The sky was moody and threatening rain, and it was fairly late by the time I got out, after 3 p.m. So I picked a route that was close by and not too demanding — although it still had 4,000 feet of climbing. Mont Lachet above Les Houches.

I made my way up the marked course for UTMB, and reflected on my race in 2015. The memories came flooding back — the unbroken line of humans that stalled at every switchback here, the oppressive heat, sticky sweat on my back, feeling disconcertingly nauseated from the start. Gawd, I had a horrible race at UTMB. I never felt good, I had terrible chafing, I chased cutoffs the entire time, even before my breathing clamped down. Just forcing air into my lungs became more laborious than climbing; I had to stop to do so — Step. Breathe. Step. Breathe.

Here, on the climb to Bellevue amid a lovely evening in 2019, found myself reliving it all — the dizziness, the desperation, the general malaise and hopelessness that comes with low blood oxygen, and also the crushing disappointment — both for losing the race, and a deeper lament about losing my health. August 2015 was the period when I realized that my breathing issues weren't a simple matter of recovery from pneumonia, but something more lasting. Lost health became my truth the moment the race marshal in La Fouly wordlessly and rather cruelly cut my bib in half, because I missed the cutoff. It's funny, or perhaps not so funny, how frequently I run through these past worst-of-times in my head while I'm visiting these mountains, years later, while I'm supposedly having a fun outing in a beautiful place. Why do I keep coming back here? There's a whole lot to unpack, in that question.

The answer partially lies in the undulation of depths and heights, and the ways one necessarily accompanies the other. I may be an awkward, stumbling human, but my heart remains unwilling to follow the comfortable path, to stick to even ground.

So on Thursday I was up again early in the morning, hoping to beat the growing influx of UTMB traffic on my way to Beat's second PTL life base in Switzerland. I didn't expect him to arrive until sometime that evening, which gave me plenty of time for another long day of vert. From the low-lying Rhone River Valley where the PTL crossed through Fully, the route ascended a dizzying 8,000 feet in a mere five miles, topping out on a prominent peak called Grand Chavalard. It was a compelling climb — you don't often see that kind of vertical relief in the U.S., even in Colorado. I'd watched several YouTube videos of the standard route and decided the climb was probably beyond my desire for this day. Doable, but a bit involved in terms of technical difficulty, and exposed in terms of weather. Thunderstorms were in the forecast that day, and there are no quick ways off of Chavalard once you're up there. Of course, the PTL racers would do it regardless of the weather — they even had a much more exposed, class 4+ traverse on the other side of the mountain. But I had choices. I chose to aim for the saddle, and skirt around Grand Chavalard across a cirque to reach the next refuge on route, Cabane Fenestral.

My chosen route still had 7,500 feet of climbing after some ups and downs, and I'd have to get all of that out of the way in the first seven miles before taking a long, 13-mile descent to make a loop of it. So a 20-mile day. The weeks' efforts made the math easy — 30-minute-mile averages became a clock I could almost set myself by. But there were enough easy miles during the descent that I figured I could finish in 8-9 hours. I set out at 10 a.m. and wanted to be back by 6 p.m., both because that was the earliest I calculated Beat would arrive, and because every single grocery store in Switzerland closes at 6:30. My sole purpose there, really, was to deliver sandwiches. Failing to procure the sandwiches would be the ultimate crewing failure.

I had two routes on my GPS — the loop I made for myself, and the PTL track. I started on the PTL route, which promisingly followed a nice trail until the trail dead-ended, buried under a landslide of sand and rocks. So of course, the PTL continued up the landslide. Because it's PTL. I picked my way up the loose boulders for about a hundred meters before I thought better of this nonsense. Seriously, PTL, WTF? Instead I backtracked, lost nearly 400 feet of altitude, and continued on the standard route, which was so much better.

It was still steep, though, and terribly hot — temperatures had already climbed to 30C when I left town at 10 a.m. I'd put tape on my back to protect the raw chafe spots, so my pack went to work on my hips, which were now also bleeding. Sweat poured off my neck and dripped onto the dirt. Three liters of water wouldn't last long at this rate, and this seemingly vertical slope was bone dry. I could only hope I'd find stream water to filter above the saddle. My route soon intersected back with PTL's, and we all needed to gain the first 5,000 feet in 3.5 miles. This seemed needlessly punishing. But I was enjoying myself. I'd chosen this, after all.

The cirque surrounding Lac Superier de Fully did prove to be a magnificent spot and worthy of the climb. My camera lens had fogged up amid the sweaty humidity surrounding my body, so the images from this day are smudged and blurry — not unlike the way I viewed the landscape through my slightly dehydrated fatigue.

I climbed to Col Fenestral amid rumbling thunder and threatening skies. This is the weather I would have encountered on top of Grand Chavalard, had I chosen that route. I was grateful I'd played it safe, but also felt some regret.

The descent was more enjoyable than expected. For several kilometers I traversed along a bench that seemed to float above near-vertical grass slopes and rocky couloirs plummeting 5,500 feet into the valley. The highway corridor looked close enough to make a jump for it, but I was mentally steeled for three hours of burning quads, sore feet, and all of the exhaustion that comes from fighting gravity the way I fight gravity. I retreated to a meditative state, down and down and down until the heat turned back on high and I was strangely lost in a wine farm, meandering through a maze of grape vines. GPS was not being helpful, and it was already past 6. Argh! Finally I employed my phone, thrashed my way to the nearest side street, and learned I was 3.2 kilometers from the store at 6:11 p.m. Could I even travel two miles in 19 minutes? That was something like running, not exactly fast, but did I even remember how to run?

Sandwiches were my sole purpose in Fully, so I at least had to try. I cinched up my big backpack and began to pound the pavement. The motion was thrilling. Blood rushed back to my deadened quads, electric shock went through my calves, my heart pounded, the phone called out confusing directions, I dodged children on bicycles and large construction trucks blocking the entire bike path, and then I was in the street amid busy rush hour traffic, crossing between stopped cars and leaping construction barriers as though they were track hurdles. What a strange way to break the solitude of this daylong hike in the mountains. What fun!

I hit Migros at exactly 6:27 p.m. and rushed inside, grabbing the last four sandwiches in the cold case, ten different drinks, chips, and some peaches for myself, still effectively running as I rushed down each aisle. Feeling deeply satisfied with all of my treasures crammed into my pack, it was difficult to slow down as I made my way back to the life base. There I realized I probably had at least five hours to kill before Beat arrived. Hurry up and wait. I made my way to a restaurant that proved a poor choice — the servers were sort of mean, didn't get my order right even when I tried my best to communicate in French, ignored me for most of an hour, and I ended up walking out having only received my drink and a salad, for which I paid close to 20 Swiss francs. Ah well. I gratefully retreated to the car, where I could read my Kindle in peace until the team arrived. Later I did put myself through 20 more minutes of wandering while looking for a public toilet, which I never found, then one more hard climb back into the woods on the same route I followed that morning, so I could pee on the PTL trail, for good measure.

The guys arrived just after midnight in good spirits, but Pieter had injured his quad/adductor muscles in one leg, and was unsure about his ability to continue. That's about all the news I received in the 2.4 minutes I was able to talk to the guys before they were whisked inside the life base. But it was worth it.