Sunday, July 26 - Stage 4 - 0 miles, Day 10 - The Alps

Sunday, July 26 - Stage 4 - 0 miles, Day 10 - The Alps

A few blog posts back I mentioned we were leaving the Alps behind, and so we are. But, the car can quickly reverse our course and carry us backward. Gallus wants us to see the "Seven Summit" region of the Alps, an hour's drive from his home in Niederburen, outside St. Gallen, and so do I. 

On the drive out, Gallus is pointing out peaks and hills and describing his hikes to the tops of many of them. I ask him who owns these peaks, which leads quickly to a discussion of property rights. In Switzerland, a landowner cannot deny you access to his property, even if you wish to walk between his house and barn on your route. Also, you have the right to camp on his property, but you must ask him first. When I tell Gallus that in America such actions could get you shot, he is in utter disbelief. He soon bemoans the poor American, caged on his own piece of land, unable to walk across his neighbor's property. "How can this be!?", he asks in disbelief. This leads to a discussion of property rights trumping individual rights, and again he is aghast. I jokingly relate the "Get off my Goddam lawn!", Clint Eastwood quote from Grand Torino, but it misses the mark as he has not seen the movie. There are very few public lands in Switzerland, whereas much of the western U.S. is BLM, Forest Service, National Park or state park land. I show him the green areas on a map on my iPhone, how extensive they are and explain that this is the people's land and they are free to travel across it on foot, bike or car as they please, as long as they obey the rules. He feels better about the situation and sees relief for caged Americans, but is still perplexed at the closed nature of land in America. 

Gallus and Claudia have given much thought to our activity for the day, trying to accommodate Sally's need to avoid walking much and Gallus's desire to show us the countryside. We arrive in a mountain village and stall for a few minutes, waiting for Fritz, Maria and Fritz's 19 year old son, Hans Rudi to join us. 

The plan is to take a cable lift up to a restaurant, get Sally situated comfortably, and then to go on a hike for a few hours. Fritz decides to feed his family at the restaurant, so Sally has lots of company while Stephan, Gallus, Claudia and I head up a trail toward a towering peak. 

We follow a trail up through "meadows", which are beautiful, but what we in the U.S. would call a very steep cow pasture. Cows with bells are everywhere, as is their excrement. We are traveling across someone's land which is being employed as pasture, but Swiss property laws give us free passage. This is not public land. The landscape and trail soon steepen and we leave the cows below, and enter the realm of the sheep. The sheep are elsewhere, and from the looks of the tall grass, have been so for quite awhile. We reach our destination, a park bench on an overlook about 1000' above the restaurant below. Gallus and I both look up at the next thousand vertical feet and the pass at the top of the slope. I jokingly comment we can be there in 20 minutes, and he bites. Claudia decides to return down to the restaurant. Stephan, Gallus and I head up to the pass. 20 minutes turns into 40 minutes, but we do top out at the pass. 

From here we can see the additional 1500' to the summit, but we know our time leash is to short. We explore the watering troughs, bags of salt for the animals and fencing. We also not the Rhine off in the distance, the stretch of river Sally and I cycled through on Wednesday. 

Stephan, at age 13, is a Swiss mountain goat. He is up on every rock promontory and scampering up and down the trail. Gallus speaks with his brother by phone and finds he can stay until 4:30 pm, but then must leave to tend to his milk cows back on the farm. We quicken our pace and arrive back at the restaurant a little before 4:00 pm, enough time to have a bite to eat and a Coke (no Pepsi in Europe) with Fritz before it is time to leave.  

There are three ways off the mountain, (1) ride the cable car back down, (2) walk or (3) rent a pedaless coasting bike and zip down on the paved road. Sally and Claudia ride the tram down while the rest of us mount our scooter bikes and let gravity return us to the base of the lift. The bikes are a hoot. Instead of a seat and pedals, there is a platform to stand on as you coast down the paved road. The action is very much like skiing. 

We drive back to Gallus's house, shower and head out for dinner, mine and Sally's treat. We have a wonderful meal, finishing about 9:30 pm.  From there it is back to the house, and to bed. 

It was great fun to get my feet on the ground in the Alps and it whet my appetite for future sojourns into these famous mountains. Over dinner we talked about future plans and trips. Hopefully, they will come to pass.