After my morning hike in the rain, and a glorious bowl of fondue and a delicious cup of coffee, I was ready for a bit of a rest… which I took.
And then I went hiking again.
Earlier in the week, specifically when I hiked through Gorner Gorge, I noticed an interesting set of signs on a short portion of one of the trails I was on. Something about a “Zermatt fitness trail”… which seemed interesting, especially since Zermatt is particularly conducive to fitness – elevation, mountains, no cars, etc…
What sort of fitness trail would a village in the Swiss Alps have? I needed to find out.
What I found was basically exactly what one would expect a fitness trail to be, regardless of location and elevation – it was a lovely trail, through the mountains, with various workout stations scattered throughout. Jumping jacks, lunges, squats, pull-ups, and push-ups. Lots of -ups.
Today was, in the end, one of my rest days… regardless of how much hiking I was doing. As such, I went light on the fitness trail – just stopping for a single station to do some pull-ups, since those targetted antagonistic muscles to those I’d been using on my hiking poles… and muscles unlikely to be dramatically necessary to the hike I had planned for tomorrow.
After a long and amazing hike the previous day, I decided to take Sunday as a rest day.
That fits pretty well, in my mind. Some kind of historic significance to that…
This is me, we’re talking about, though. In one of the most beautiful mountain towns in the world. I wasn’t about to sit on the couch eating bon-bons and watching TV… no matter whether or not they were available in large supply in the various chocolate shops around town.
Instead, I did a few hikes. Or… attempted to, I should say.
You see, it was rainy out, which adds a bit of challenge to the trail… and risk of injury from slipping… and limits the views available on said hikes. I still wanted to get onto the mountainside, but I made sure to do so safely and cautiously – which means that I went slowly, and did a nicely simple hike to start out.
My target was the Edelweiss Hut – a restaurant / lodge high up on the steep slopes to the West of town. It… well, frankly it was a bit too ambitious, in terms of elevation gain over distance, but still. It seemed like a fun idea, to hike and then have lunch and then hike down.
It wasn’t to be, though, as the trail that I was aiming for was one of the victims of the recent flash floods, and was closed down with quite a bit of caution tape barring my way. I could have gone around, of course, via a similar (but much longer) trail… but that would have been pushing a bit too far in terms of milage for my “rest” day.
On top of that, I was sticking to the rule of 3. Three things go wrong, you cancel the trip. End statement. Prior to the trail being out, I’d forgotten my hiking poles, and… something else went wrong too, that I frankly can’t quite recall at this time. Suffice to say, I simply took it in stride, and headed around a shorter loop… consoling myself by finding an absolutely LOVELY fondue restaurant when I made it back to town.
And, to be clear – I was rewarded for that discretion. The new trail I took was stunning, and granted me some amazing rainy views that I simply adore. I hope you do, as well:
Wednesday, 10-Nov-2021 through Monday, 15-Nov-2021
My friends came to visit!
Two weekends in a row… I’m the most social of all the social butterflies, it seems!
And honestly, I’m so thankful for it. 2021 was, for mas as for everyone, a challenging year. It’d been a year of huge personal growth, and excellent introspection, but at my core I’m still a social creature. Self-reflection is only a part of the growth cycle… sharing those insights, and getting other people’s input, is just as important to someone’s growth.
So when Daniel and Erin asked if they could come to visit the weekend after Dillon and Liz’s wedding… well, I couldn’t say yes fast enough!
Friday, 12-Nov-2021
Daniel and Erin had landed on Wednesday, and then spent Thursday exploring the city while I took the chance to force me to bike into work… which is honestly something that I really want to do more often, but can’t quite get myself out for bed in time to consistently do.
Advantage of friends visiting, yet again 🙂
We ate, chatted, and had an excellent time both evenings… but the real fun came on Friday when I was out from the office for the weekend, and we could all cut loose and escape the city together. The Columbia Gorge was calling to us, and even though the weather was looking a bit ominous we steeled ourselves (and packed rain gear) and headed into the storm.
Angel’s Rest is one of those hikes that I’ve done a few times… but for some reason it’s never really stood out in my memory. It’s definitely a gorge hike – not too long, but with fairly significant elevation gain to be had. And at the top, usually excellent views of the river and opposing cliffsides!
Today… was rainy. A bit rainy. A lot bit rainy.
One could even say that it was actively raining, the same that it had been for a few days beforehand. Strange, I know, but Oregon does sometimes have rain in the fall.
Nevertheless, we persisted though – passing waterfalls and rockfaces, knowing that our efforts would probably come to naught more than some short views from inside the clouds. Daniel had checked flight information ahead of time (dang pilots, and all) and theoretically the cloud layer was above the summit of Angel’s Rest… but this was the Gorge, which tends to funnel clouds into lower altitudes.
As we hiked, the clouds stayed where they were, and we slowly walked into their depths as we hit the summit block.
Oregon can be kind sometimes though, and as we walked to the cliffs edge, the clouds cracked and we got a glorious few views of the ridgeline behind us!
The clouds closed in behind us as we hiked out, and the rain picked up as we got lower and lower toward the gorge floor. Perfect timing, if you ask me, since it just gave us that little extra oomph to finish the hike up a bit more quickly, and to make it out to Little Big burger before it closed… And then home in time to make some excellent Dark and Stormies with the rum from the previous weekend!
