Left for Paris from Denver. The following paragraph details the problems with United Airlines that day. The flight was much delayed. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, I repeat myself. At 10:30 AM, busily and anxiously preparing for the 1:30 flight to Washington Dulles, where I would transfer to the Paris flight, I get a call from United Airlines. The 1:30 flight had been canceled. However, there is a 12:30 flight that she can book me on. Can I be ready? I assure her that I think it is likely I can make that flight. She changes the reservation, and I hustle, and get to the airport easily in time to catch the earlier flight. I check a suitcase, and head for the gate. Guess what? The 12:30 flight is delayed. Until 1:30. As 1:30 approaches, the flight is delayed again. It becomes clear I won't make the connection. I get in line at the gate, and the agent tells me that international flights are not held up for late connections. She can book me on a different flight, to catch a later flight to Chicago, where I will eventually catch a different flight to Paris. For my troubles, I will also get an upgrade to Business class. My checked luggage will allegedly follow the changes and ship with my flight. It will be a couple of hours later, but I wouldn't have to wait another day. I eventually get a hold of Roz, late at night in Paris, and tell her of the change in plans. Just in case there are more delays, we arrange that if I have more problems, I will call home and leave a message, rather than trying to call her in Paris at 3 AM. Well, as the departure time to Chicago arrives with no airplane at the gate, it becomes clear that I'm not going to make this connection either. Once again, I get in line at the gate (interestingly enough, the same gate the original flight was to leave from). I talked to the same agent as before. She tells me that she tried to page me earlier, but I didn't hear it. She has yet another change for me, an even later flight from San Francisco. It's that or wait another day. Since I missed the page, the change wasn't made in time for me to get the upgrade. Instead of a 7 hour flight from the US to Paris, it will now be more than 10. I will arrive in Paris 7 hours late. The upgrade I was given earlier had vanished. Instead of merely flying until my normal bedtime, now I will be flying hours later. I leave an exasperated message to Roz, and eventually get on the flight to SF. At this point, for this much delayed and agonizingly overly long flight, things finally started working right. I left another message, a calmer one, to Roz from SF. The flight to Paris left only 1/2 hour behind schedule (for United, rather astounding). I was initially placed on an inside seat, but since this was between a woman and her daughter, I traded for the aisle seat. This was on a 777, and it had video displays built into the seatbacks. For the first time, I had a 'Map' function, and I have to say, this is the single best invention for inflight entertainment I have ever seen. It scrolled continuously between various scales of maps, from fraction of a state to global, with the airplane's current location shown (usually in the middle). I watched as we crossed over the southern most point of Greenland. It also showed flight deck statistics, wind speed, ground speed, altitude, outside temp. 2 problems, 1, it didn't show rate of climb, and 2, much more annoying, as we approached Paris in the last hour of flight, when things were really starting to get interesting, they kept interrupting to show, over and over and over again, an interminable ad for United.
To give credit where it is due, I have to say that in spite of 2 schedule changes after I checked my luggage, it did follow the changes correctly and was on the carrousel corresponding to my flight. I got through customs without incident (I wasn't actually certain I had gone through customs: just grab the bag, and head out the one exit). Roz had some difficulty getting to the airport and the right terminal (the two terminals are evidently quite a distance apart by ground transportation). She wasn't there when I emerged from the claim area, and we failed to contact each other with the walkie talkies. After waiting about 45 minutes, I was all set to try to make it on my own to the motel, when she finally appeared. We used mass transit (bus and subway) to get to her hotel. Thanks to getting the ideal amount of sleep on the flight over (about 2-3 hours), I had essentially no jet lag whatsoever, the shortened sleep made up for by a shortened day.
That afternoon we went to the Eiffel Tower, and after some wait, got on an elevator heading towards the second level. The top was closed. It was drizzling. I walked down from the second to the first level (Roz took the elevator), and we both took the elevator down from there. I spent quite a bit of time examining the structure of the tower. It is very complicated. There are elevators to the second level going up 3 of the 4 legs. Each uses a different counterweight scheme. These travel up the legs at an angle which changes slightly at the first level (from the second level, there are 4 normal elevators to the top). We had dinner at a place with 'Raclettes', heated devices at your table you use to heat up food. We saw these at a number of restaurants.
We attempted to make it to the railway station in time for our TGV train to Chamonix. We left the hotel with what we thought was plenty of time. After a frustrating wait at a taxi stand, we decided to take the subway to the train station ('Le Gare de Lyon'), a rather complex task (2 trains, and much walking). We arrived just a few minutes late. Roz says she was looking at the departures board and she saw our train disappear. We got our reservations changed to a train that left so soon we had to scramble to catch it. For years, I have wanted to ride on a high speed train, and it did not disappoint. It was an exhilarating, fantastic experience. First, other than the amazing happenings outside the window, there is nothing to give any sensation of speed. It was very smooth and the curves very big radius. During the entire high speed section of the ride, there wasn't a single railway crossing. Strictly overpasses and underpasses. The railway right of way was fenced off continuously. As for the speed... At times, we paralleled an interstate like highway with sparse, freely flowing traffic. To say we were flying past this traffic doesn't do it justice. No mere 20,30,40 mph faster, we could easily have been going twice as fast, possibly more. We frequently passed trains going in the other direction, gone in barely more than the blink of an eye. Distant hills flew by. Even clouds in the sky! So, how fast were we going? I have no way to tell, except that from Paris to Macon, the first stop, took us 2 hours even, a distance of 209 miles in a straight line, and while there were no boarding stops, we did stop once to let another train by, and we also took a while getting up to speed as we passed through the outskirts of Paris. The remainder of the trip was slower, we caught a cog railway at Belgarde that took us to Chamonix. We had no reservations there, but we found a hotel without difficulty, the Hotel Richemond.
We bought a pair of collapsible ski poles to use as walking sticks. I walked up the 1000 meters or so of vertical to the Planpraz in a light rain, while Roz took the lift up. She was waiting for me at the restaurant up there. She called me when she got there, with the walkie talkie, and reported it was snowing. Since it was still raining where I was, I thought I had quite a climb left, but it turned out, it was only changing to snow, and I was soon there. We had lunch at the restaurant, then we started out towards La Flegere, a nominal 2 hour walk. This is a traverse above the valley, offering splendid views of the mountains on the opposite side, the spire of the Aiguille Du Midi rising 9200 feet above the valley floor, and Mt Blanc beyond, even higher. At least, that's what the Topo maps would have you believe. We saw none of it. Even though it wasn't rain/snowing on us all the time, we never saw the opposite side of the valley. It became clear why they call it Mont Blanc ('white mountain'). Some might say it's because of the glaciers all around, including the summit. That's not it. It's because you look at it, and all you see are clouds and fog. There was a little bit of concern about making it to La Flegere in time to catch the last lift down, but we made it with plenty of time to spare. I bought an inexpensive raincoat than night.
In slightly better weather, I walked up the 1300 meters to the Tram station at the Plan de l'Aiguille. While I was hiking up, Roz made hotel reservations for Saas Fee and Zermatt. As I approached it, Roz passed me in a tram car overhead. We waved, and talked on our walkie talkies. There was new snow on the ground the last half mile. She said the other passengers were impressed that I was walking up, and that we were both arriving at nearly the same time. She waited one car for me, and I bought a tram ticket for the 1500 meter climb up to the Aiguille du Midi. This place is surrounded by glaciers and cliffs, so walking up was not something I was going to try to do. The tram ride up is really something. There are no lift towers over the entire span. Unfortunately, it was so socked in that we were unable to appreciate the view, except for some rock and tortured ice passing nearby underneath and to the side. The Aiguille du Midi is a very interesting structure, a restaurant/view platform built into a vertical spire of rock. Without the lifts, you would need technical climbing skills to get there. There is another tram/hybrid that continues on towards Italy (at Helbronner), crossing miles of glacier, but it was closed for the day. For a while, the view did clear, and we got to see Mont Blanc, another 1000 meters higher, 4808 m, the highest point in the Alps. We were never able to see the valley floor clearly, however.
We took the lifts back to town, and I bought some gloves. Then we got on a cog railway followed by a short lift down to some 'ice caverns', holes drilled into the 'Mer De Glace' glacier. 10 years ago I saw the caverns at Jungfrau, and while I don't remember the details, I am pretty sure the caverns at Jungfrau were much more extensive. This was just a straight tunnel with a small loop at the end. This is mere speculation, but it might be that they have had to scale back there operation in recent years, as they appear to be at the very bottom of the glacier, and glaciers here, like everywhere else, have been shrinking in recent years. To appearance, however, the cave actually appears to be below the bottom of the glacier. There are so many rocks and so much dirt on top of the glacier that it is hard to tell exactly where it ends (glacial action sometimes 'folds' rock onto the surface of the glacier. It then can ride the glacier down valley for thousands of feet. As the glacier moves, dirt and rock are continuously shifted to the surface in these certain locations. This causes long unbroken strings of rock and dirt down the face of some glaciers.) Once entering the tunnel, however, it was pure ice without a rock to be seen. They had drilled alcoves here and there with ice sculptures in them. Down valley from the tunnel entrance there were several other entrances, evenly spaced about 50 feet apart, caves drilled in previous years. They were roped off.
I walked up the short hill to the railroad station, while Roz rode the lift, and we returned to town on the train. It was raining back in town.
Under somewhat better weather we left for Saas Fee. Just before we checked
out, we were able to see, for the first time, the Aiguille du Midi from our
hotel room, and with binoculars, the tram. We took the cog railway to Martigny,
after changing trains at the France/Swiss border (we never had to pull out our
passports), a normal train to Visp, and bus to Saas Fee. We were given a lift
to the hotel in a vehicle like an oversized golf cart (except fully enclosed),
Saas Fee being one of the 'automobile free' towns in Switzerland. Roz and I
did a short (2 hour) loop hike that evening. On Roz's suggestion, I took the
long way around a strange gravel bed, somehow presumably created by glacial
action, a glacier ending just above. Roz saw some brown swiss cows on the way
back into town, which thrilled her, this being the particular breed of dairy
cow on her father's farm. It threatened rain during this hike, but only drizzled
a little. There was good visibility at the valley floor, but the mountain tops
were all obscured by clouds.
Our only full day in Saas Fee, I attempted a long hike. I would be starting from Saas Fee, about 1800 m. For my destination I chose the Mischabelhutte (at 3329 m), this being the highest point I could find in the Saas Fee area with a good trail to it. Later I found out that this hutte is a common starting point for assaults on Dom, the highest mountain entirely within Switzerland, 4545 m. I paused for a while before leaving to watch a large crane lift an old building off its foundation. I started out in a light rain. This turned to snow as I got higher. At about 2550 m, the snow was sticking, with a couple of inches on the trail. I decided to try something else. I wound up on a long loop hike, to the top of the Hannig lift, then above this to a summit called Mellig, at 2700 m, then continuing down the other side of this ridge on a long, descending loop back to Saas Fee, getting back into town around 6. Even though I believe I got higher on the loop portion of the hike then the hutte attempt, I never saw as much snow as on the Mischabelhutte attempt. I talked to Roz just before I got to Hannig, but later, she was out of range, so she got a little concerned when she didn't here from me. The weather never cleared up, but I occasionally got a view of steep, snow covered scree and rock slopes (never the mountain tops). That night we had dinner at a fancy restaurant on the outskirts of Saas Fee (we had to take a taxi to get there, it would have been a rather substantial walk), that turned out to be very close to the path I took on the return from my hike. Just when I am thinking, 'that wasn't too much, none of these American 'supersize' portions', out comes the second course. It was very good, although some english on the menu would have helped. As part of the package, they gave us a ride back to our hotel, as always, in these battery powered oversize golf cart like vehicles.
Together we started up the hike to the Maste 4 tram station. Roz turned back shortly, and I continued by myself at about 10:15. A while later Roz yelled to me from a tram car far over my head. At 11:30, as arranged, I turned on my walkie-talkie. The tram station was still aways up the hill. Roz soon called me, and reported that I had to hustle, because there were no services at this tram station (the restaurant was closed), and the tram to the next station up the hill closes at noon for 90 minutes (lunch hour). The lift operator was very pessimistic about my chances, since the 'standard hiking time' up from Saas Fee is 2 1/4 hours. Roz reported later that she was very stressed about the possibility that I would have to wait in the cold for an hour and a half for the lift to re-open, while she would take the lift up and be comfortably waiting for me up above. In the meantime, Roz persuaded the lift operator to let her hang out in his booth, that being the only heated room around. As it turned out, I made it with about 12 minutes to spare. We rode up the next lift, a tram to Felskinn, together, and then we got on an underground funicular to the revolving restaurant at Mittel Allalin, 3454 m, billed as the highest revolving restaurant in the world. As we rotated, we passed pictures naming the mountains on the horizon, the mountains we would have seen, had it not been completely socked in. All we saw outside was a deck, a rocky snow covered ridge fading off into the fog, and fog. It was pure white everywhere ('Mont Blanc' in every direction). Then we toured the ice caverns at this site, which were far more extensive and impressive than those at the Mer de Glace.
We rode the lifts down to Saas Fee, recovered our luggage that the hotel was kind enough to store for us after we checked out, caught the bus to Stalden (part way to Visp), and got on the cog railway heading to Zermatt. Zermatt is another 'automobile free' town, but there was a car (that is, golf cart) from our hotel waiting at the train station, so we soon were checked in at the Hotel Couronne, easily the best place we stayed at, with large rooms, heated towel racks, and a balcony facing the Matterhorn. It also had an interesting '2 axis' window, that is, it swung open with hinges on the side, or close it, flip a lever, and it opened up from hinges on the bottom. As arranged previously by E-mail, Roz's daughter Laura, and her friend Adrienne, traveling together throughout Europe for four months, were waiting for us in the Hotel lobby.
We soon met up with Roz's niece and nephew Tim and Anna, also visiting Europe. We ate in the hotel room, since some of the people were on limited budgets.
Our hotel room offered a view of the Matterhorn, and we actually saw some of the mountain through the clouds that evening.
The six of us got on the cog railway to Gornergrat (3090 m). We walked around a bit at the summit, and Tim, Anna, and myself walked on to Hohtalli (3286 M), and rode the lift back to Gornergrat. We got improving views of the Matterhorn throughout the day. In fact, the weather remained nice for the rest of our time in Zermatt (other than a few clouds hanging around the Matterhorn most of the time). On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a mountain climbing tour guide place (evidently, the place you would go to arrange climbing the Matterhorn), and asked about the summer skiing ('15 km' of groomed and intermediate trails), and about climbing the Mettelhorn (3406 m, a climb under consideration since before the trip), a peak considerably smaller than the Matterhorn. The fellow confirmed that there was a glacier to cross just before the summit, but an ice ax wasn't required. Observing that I did have a walking stick, he said that was a good idea, something I found inconsistent: if there is a danger of sliding, a ski pole is not the best thing for self arrest (something I know from self experience). That evening, Roz treated us all to dinner at a Fondue restaurant.
We all started up towards the Hotel du Trift (2337 m) from Zermatt (about 1600 m). The weather was nice all day, and we got some spectacular views. Roz had arranged that she and I would share a private room, while the 'youngsters' (as the proprietor called them) stayed in the dorm. After we checked in, Roz and I went for a short hike before dinner. Roz saw some goats. At dinner, the proprietor asked me what I was doing the next day, and after telling him I was going to climb the Mettelhorn, he showed me some pictures of the route and gave me some instructions. Just before the summit, we would have to cross a glacier. By all accounts, thought, this is not a technical climb and the glacier, where we would cross it, is almost flat. After dinner, I played a card game with Laura, Tim, and Adrienne that they taught me, 'Egyptian rat fuck'. It was very gratifying to see that my reflexes were competitive with those of the youngsters.
After a leisurely breakfast, we all started up towards the Mettelhorn, at 9:40. At 10:20, we split up, Roz, Laura, and Adrienne heading back towards Zermatt, Anna by herself, and Tim and I continuing up the Mettelhorn. The most hazardous snow was not the glacier, but rather crossing a steep slope just before the glacier, covered with new snow. Although the glacier quickly turned very steep not far from where we crossed it, the path was indeed across a portion of the glacier that was never steeper than 10 degrees. Then switchbacks up a steep, gravely slope, and a short scramble on solid rock to the summit. The summit was split in two, with a crevasse (about a m wide) in the rock separating the two summits. I occupied a spot on the higher side, and observing the crevasse on one side and a cliff on the other, I suddenly got visions of the rock I was sitting on cutting loose and sliding down the hillside into Zermatt. Even with both halves of the summit, it was quite small, not capable of holding more than half a dozen people. We didn't spend more than about 25 minutes on top, and headed down right about 1. Heaving a sigh of relief as we descended past the last of the hazards (the scramble, the glacier, the steep snowfield), we continued briskly to the Trift, reaching it at 3, and talked briefly with the proprietor. He asked us if we had summited, and when we said we had, he said 'really!' in such a way that made us think he didn't believe us. However, we did run into people at the summit who were staying that night at the Trift, so at least, there is the possibility that he would learn for sure that we had. We took a long break just below the hutte, and talked with Roz at least once on the way down. As we were walking through Zermatt, at about 4:30, I tried several times to call her, without success. Finally, she called me, as we were walking through the hotel lobby. 'Where are you?' she asked. 'In the elevator', I replied. I heard sounds of laughter in her response. Roz, Laura, and Adrienne were in the hotel room, but Anna had not been heard from. We started to get a little concerned, but she showed up about an hour later. She said she hung out for the day in a meadow not far from the trail, but we never saw her and she didn't see us as we walked by.
That night we cooked a dinner at the Hostel Adrienne was staying at.
After a slow start, I started up towards the Hornlihutte just after 11. This is the starting point (at 3260 m) for most attempts on the Matterhorn (4477 m). This time, Roz let me use her walking stick, giving me two, that is, walking sticks Euro-style. The first portion of the trail was a steady uphill popular with the natives. I passed a large number of people, many of them from the geriatric set, and some of them were very impressed with my speed. It was downright embarrassing (really, I'm not that fast). After achieving the top of the first lift (At 'Furi'), the crowd thinned out considerably. Above Schroarxsee (about half way up), there were a large number of people on the trail, presumably having taken the lifts up. I reached the hornlihutte 3:53 after starting out. There was up to a foot of new snow on the trail as I got close, getting well packed by the crowds. If the weather over the next few days wasn't warm enough to melt that snow, the trail probably got quite hazardous as the snow got packed into ice. When I was there, the snow was still soft and not so packed that it was especially dangerous (since the trail switchbacks up a steep, rocky slope, it could get very dangerous with ice on the trail). I hung out for a while at the deck/restaurant, and after being ignored by the waitress for 15 minutes, I left (although I decided that rude waitress or not, I just had to have a T-shirt). I felt a little bit of time pressure, since I wanted to get below the snow before it froze up, and I was also thinking I wanted to take the lifts down. I walked around a little bit, but even the short hike to the base of the cliffs was more than I felt like doing, so I headed down. I ran into a couple from Kansas City, and together we took the lifts (3 lifts, actually) from Schroarxsee back to town. Roz happened to be on the hotel room balcony just before 6, and was very surprised to see me walking back so early. Adrienne had left town.
Rented skis, and together with Tim and Anna, tried the summer skiing. To get there, first we rode the gondola to Furi, then a long tram to the Trockener Steg, and lastly, another long tram to the Klein Matterhorn. This last lift ended nearly vertically, in a hole in the middle of a cliff near the top. We walked through a 200m tunnel to emerge at the top of the runs on the other side. It was indeed not steep and groomed completely flat, not a hint of a mogul anywhere. The runs at the top were frozen, but lower down, they were soft. Anna quit fairly early, and after meeting us at 11 at the Testa Grigia, which I later learned is on the Italian border, we skid down to Trockener Steg, where we met Roz and Laura (The snow ended a few hundred yards short of Trockener Steg). Anna stayed with them, while Tim and I continued skiing. We arranged to meet at the view deck at the Klein Matterhorn at 2. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that the ski lifts close at 1:30 (The trams also serve non-skiing customers, so remain open throughout the afternoon, but not for skiers). Our last run down, we observed the lifts distressingly empty, so we had to ski down again to the Trockener Steg. Eventually Roz, Laura, and Anna made it down and we headed down the lower lifts together.
More comments on the skiing: There were many warning signs not to ski outside the roped off areas, due to risk of falling into a crevasse. At one point, just off the slope, there was a backhoe digging into the snow. Thinking about it, I realized that since this is glacier skiing, how are you going to make certain there are no crevasses under the snow? The only answer I can come up with is periodically, or after some amount of glacier movement, all the trails must be dug up to some considerable depth to make sure that the subsurface remains solid. I assume that's what I was witnessing. Except for the Tram, which basically traveled from towers on solid rock only, the lifts were all T-bars. The lift towers appeared to be just set in the snow. Presumably they have to be re-set periodically, as the glacier moves. At most of the lifts, we had to feed our tickets into a turnstile to get into the lift line (although some people had passes that only needed to be waved near the readers).
I returned my rental skis, we recovered our luggage, and Roz, Laura and I got on the train down valley. (Tim and Anna were leaving Zermatt that day on a later train). Laura traveled with us to Basel, and while we were waiting for the overnight train to Amsterdam, Laura checked into a hotel (possibly the same hotel I stayed at the last time I was in Europe, about '89), and Roz and I took showers. There was a scale in the bathroom that indicated my weight at 69.
At 11, Roz and I got on board our train. We had sprung for first class, so we had a cabin to ourselves. The bunks were on top of each other, not side by side. Roz and I were able to share one bunk for a while. With the motion of the train, it was an interesting experience. I didn't sleep well, even with the window closed there was considerable train noise. The brakes squealed loudly at each stop.
At 9, we pulled into Amsterdam. We caught a taxi to our hotel, but it was too early to check in, so we left our luggage there and walked through the streets of Amsterdam, including the infamous 'red light' district. We saw the 'Hash Marihuana Hemp Museum'. We took a 'canal bus' back to our hotel. I slept for the rest of the afternoon. We used mass transit to get to a recommended restaurant for dinner.
Our canal bus tickets were good until noon, so we took a more extensive boat ride through the canals of the city. That afternoon, we went to the Rijksmuseum, and toured their special exhibit, 'The Glory of the Golden Age', featuring 17th century art, Rembrant and others. While the sheer size of the paintings was impressive (some >20 x 20 feet), I am sorry to say that I didn't get any significant emotional impact, which to me, is what makes art worthwhile. We also saw some of the remainder of the museum, including the 'doll houses', very intricate models that were very fashionable among the local wealthy some 300 years ago.
That evening we took yet another canal boat ride, a 'candlelight and champagne' tour. Initially they had us sharing a small table with another couple, but we soon moved outside onto the rear deck, sharing this larger space with occasional smokers. It was nice. We were so far north, it never got completely dark, even though the tour lasted until almost 11.
After a short walk in the Vondelpark, we took a taxi to the airport. They take their security a little more seriously over there. The bags we were checking were X-rayed. The same 3 'yes, yes, no' (or is it 'yes, no, yes'?)questions we are all so used to being asked were asked here also, but here, it was a specific event, security people asking these questions and basically nothing else. The flight was only about half an hour late departing. Roz had used 40000 of her frequent flyer miles to upgrade our tickets to Business class. It was very nice (although we had individual video displays, the map function wasn't available, however). Thank you, Roz.
I had an interesting time at customs. At the last minute, I remembered that I had an orange in my carryon luggage. Wanting to do the honest thing, I spoke to a customs officer, offering to throw it out then and there. She told me to take it up with the agricultural people. As I approached the agricultural desk, a fellow there very firmly waved me on. Never wanting to argue with customs, I did so, and moments later, I was through. Once more through standard airport security, and we were free to roam Dulles airport. Eventually I realized that the seemingly redundant pass through airport security metal detectors was because we had access to our checked luggage when we went through customs.
On the flight to Denver, we were on the same seats (12A and B), and we thought possibly the very same airplane (a 777), as on the cross Atlantic flight. The flight was an hour and a half late (no surprises there!). It's getting to be that an on time flight is a rarity. Back in Denver at about 10, up for 23 hours.
The Alps are, in a word, bigger. They are also colder and wetter. The hillsides around Chamonix, in particular, were very lush, and around Saas Fee, almost as much. The summits are not all that much higher (Mont Blanc, the highest, is 4808 m (15742 ft)). To qualify as a major peak, a mountain only needs to be 4000 m (13123 ft), although of course, that distinction is no less arbitrary then Colorado's 'fourteeners'. Presumably there are many more 4000 m peaks in the Alps then fourteeners in the US. Timberline is much lower, just under 2500 m. There are many glaciers, some of them very large (10's of square miles). Hiking above timberline, one soon encounters glaciers, and at least in the areas I visited, it is difficult to ascend above 3000 m without technical rock or ice climbing. The valley and resort towns are generally lower, making the Alps significantly bigger in size than the Rockies.
Although the Alps do go up further, just like in the Rockies, it is difficult to find hikes on good trails with sustained hill climbs of more than 5000 feet. The reasons are different. In the Rockies, it is because 5000 feet usually puts you on the mountaintops. In the Alps, you are nowhere near the tops, but the route is impeded by glaciers. To be fair, there might be hikes starting from lower elevations (Ie, Visp) in the 2000 m plus range. Since we were into the tourist/resort scene, I never investigated this possibility.
One other thing about the Alps. I don't know if this was an anomaly or in fact typical, but in a week of wet, rainy/snowy weather in mid-July, there wasn't a single lightning bolt. I never heard thunder. I felt much safer using a metal walking stick in the Alps then I ever did in the Rockies.
French stereotype 1 (T): They really don't use deodorant, at least many don't (not everybody).
French stereotype 2 (F): They generally were friendly. We personally didn't experience any of that alleged hostility of the French for Americans.
The Swiss are friendly, outgoing, anxious to please, that is, as long as a steady income of swiss francs isn't threatened. If it is: then it's no more mister nice guy! One example will suffice (although there certainly were other incidents). The night that we cooked dinner at Adrienne's Hostel, the proprietor got wind of what we were doing, and came into the kitchen and said it "wasn't fair" that 5 of us cook dinner with only one person staying there. What would make it fair? 5 franks each! They never say 'per person' until they see you pull out the wallet. It always made me wonder, if there was some hesitation, if the price given would have been sufficient for all of us. Anyway, with the proprietor thusly bribed, we cooked our dinner in peace. To be fair, the Swiss are very trusting (that is, that you will pay in the end). More than once I was able to get on a lift with the understanding that I would pay at the other end.
Our analog/digital cell phones are TDMA and AMPS compatible, but Europe uses GSM, and we were told our phones wouldn't work over there, so we didn't take them. Rental phones are available but expensive.
We never did find out if our walkie talkies were legal or not. We decided to risk it. I rationalized that even if they do operate on some critical wavelength, the official transmitters would be powerful enough to swamp out the signal from our small radios. One thing, at Charles De Gaulle airport, after trying unsuccessfully to raise Roz (and her me), I several times heard a message over the intercom that started out "Will the person who...", then became intelligible. Probably had nothing to do with us. Probably. However, if the wavelength was used for some other purpose, because of the coding scheme in our walkie talkies (to hear each other we not only need to be on the same channel but have the same code number set), I think it is likely that we would hear nothing rather than static or other sounds (and nothing is what I heard).
The good news is, those auto turn off faucets common in US bathrooms are relatively rare in Europe. In there place, however... The first time I was sitting in a stall and all the lights went out, with no warning, leaving me in total darkness, I didn't know what to do. I found my way in the dark to the bathroom entrance, where I had initially turned on the lights, using an illuminated light switch. Only then did I see that those illuminated light switches are located everywhere (including the stall I was occupying).
In every hotel we stayed at, the shower heads were situated at the end of a flexible hose. This is something I like a lot, and promptly get every place I live. Why haven't these caught on in American hotels?
European bathrooms provide greater privacy in the stalls, either a fully enclosed separate room, or at most stall door bottoms never more than 3" above the floor. This is something I like.
Even at the best hotels (that is, the best hotels _we_ stayed at), there were only a few english stations. Typically our choices were CNN, MTV, and BBC world (if that). We did find ourselves captivated, though, by a french version of 'Who wants to be a millionaire?'. Except for some very minor details, this was exactly the same as the American version: same sets, same music, same everything. Make no mistake, though, this wasn't American episodes dubbed in french. The top prize was 3 million french francs, many of the questions had to do with french culture, and it wasn't Regis. The nature of the show is such that the hard questions were shown in text long enough that Roz was generally able to translate. One station that did inexplicably captivate me, however, available at the Zermatt hotel, showed slow real time pans cycling between three of the local lift served mountaintops (Gornergrat, Trockener Steg, and Rothorn), to a soundtrack of American Country & Western.
I have a theory. Unlike the USA, Europe has substantial glaciers. It must be sobering to always have this reminder that only a minuscule change in climate keeps the glaciers from overrunning some of the prime real estate on the continent, and a little more than that would overrun most of the continent. So, at some level, they loathe and fear ice. Want ice in your drink? Too bad!
From Zermatt, the profile of the Matterhorn is very impressive indeed, a mountain only as wide as it is high. This is the view on all the postcards. This is the look of a mountain that could not possibly be climbed without protection. From the Klein Matterhorn, however, it's a different story. This is a view from a 90 degree different direction. From this perspective, the Matterhorn is twice as wide as it is high. Still steep, for sure, but more akin to, say, the Maroon Bells. From this perspective the route looks more like a tough, long scramble than a technical climb (although for sure, snow and ice on the trail could render it substantially more difficult). The purpose of the guide (which is highly recommended) is to show you around the many rockbands, or so I suppose. Is there a lot of loose rock on the trail? I couldn't say.
The Lake District ...
London ...
Giverny ...
Paris ...
Chamonix ...
Saas Fee
Zermatt, Part 1 ...
Trift Hotel ...
Zermatt, Part 2 ...
Amsterdam
Jim's Narrative
Page written and maintained by Rosalind Dudden, roz@dudden.com
Last updated July 30, 2000 --
© copyright 2000 Rosalind Farnam Dudden