AUTHOR MUSINGS
Some words of wisdom
Please sign up below for exclusives, free books, and a monthly email.
Up We Go Again 22th Feb 2021 Podcast Version >>
Monday 7th September 2020
Our last ride in the Swiss mountains – for now.
This week I share one of our cycling adventures. If you’d like to read more, please visit :
After a cyclist’s breakfast we prepare for our final ride in the swiss mountains. It’s a beautiful day and we will be cycling up to Senin at 1279 m
We fix our bikes to the back of the car for today we will drive half-way up, park and then cycle. This way we get to ride the most spectacular part with plenty of energy to enjoy the ride.
We are ready, nothing forgotten. We drive through the villages, up and down the mountain edges and then turn into a forested valley. We’d planned to drive up a side road and park near a stream, but the road is closed so we park near a café in a space that includes a water trough, a discreet wee place, and a roofed seating area where three men are chatting and smiling.
It looks like they are having a business meeting, but they ask if we’d take their photo, which we do, and then they admire our bikes and our ambition. Despite four different nationalities - Morrocean, Italian, Swiss and English we chat in French.
They tell us this is where they like to meet up and we organise our bikes and clothing, stuffing our pockets with gloves and extra layers, for although it is warm here, we knew it is going to be chilly on the top.
Then we’re off up the steep road that winds through a shady forest before the trees thin and we are cycling up the mountain slopes. The air is warm and smells of pine, and our legs are working well.
We stop to take photos and to breath.
‘Look up there,’ Martin points up at a bridge, way above us and I laugh.
‘That’s not the road we’re on, surely.’
But it is and several crazy steep switchbacks later we are there, smiling in amazement as we look back down. Everywhere is a breath-taking view.
Down the valley there are a thousand shades of green and we glimpse the winding road as it disappears in the trees and reappears so far down it’s hard to believe we’ve pedalled up it. Beyond the valley we see majestic snow-capped mountains against brilliant blue sky, so far away but so clear it’s as if we can reach out and touch them.
I can’t believe we are here.
Above us are craggy shale and quartz striped mountains in sharp lines of light and shadow and below the bridge we are standing on is a deep crevasse filled with tumbling water, large boulders, and shiny grey-blue water-smoothed shale. I close my eyes and listen to the mountain and its river and then I grin.
I can hear bells,’ I say. ‘Goats probably.’
We focus on the higher slopes where our road winds and can see black shapes on the green. Too large to be goats.
‘Cows,’ Martin says. Neither of us thought there would be cows so high and we smile.
‘And look at that.’ Martin points.
There is a misty cloud pouring down from a snowy ledge high up and to our left. It curls and falls before dissipating into the blue sky.
‘Are we going that high?’ I ask.
Martin shrugs. ‘Maybe.’
We climb back on our bikes and continue up and around bends, the cow bells fading and then becoming louder until we are cycling next to them. A herd of muscular black cattle munching on the short grass on a precariously steep slope.
A flock of black birds circle above us and it feels like we’ve passed into a fantasy story. They look like crows, but their call is softer, more polite and we wonder if it’s because they are swiss crows with clean voices. More arrive, circling lower or are we cycling higher? I think it’s both.
I don’t know why this feels so magical, maybe it’s the combination of the fresh air, the wideness of the views, the chimes of the bells, and the soft call of these birds, but I am entranced and enthralled. How lucky we are to be here and experience this.
We stop to take a photo and look back down, the switchbacks up to the bridge are now visible. They are a grey zigzag line on the side of the mountain as if a giant has scratched a lightening symbol into the rock to mark his territory. They look too far away and impossible wriggly and steep. Did we really cycle up there?
We leave black cattle mountain peak, and the birds fly ever higher into the mountains. We later learned they were Yellow Billed Alpine Chough’s, not crows. What an honour to see them.
Around another bend where the edge of the road drops away forever, we see a small dark arch in the mountain side. The first tunnel of the ride. Oh yes. Guess what? We are excited.
Like children we pedal faster, whooping as we enter and laughing at our joy. It’s short but another beckons and we swoop in and out like bats on a night mission. The road clings to the curve of the mountain and the final tunnel entices us closer.
We can see the tumbling misty cloud. I can’t believe how close to it we are, and snow glints behind it in the sunshine. We stop and take photos before plunging into the tunnel for we don’t know where the exit will be.
The tunnel is eight hundred metres long, a roughly hewn arched feat of human endeavour.
We whoop and shout. I ting my bell as we gasp at the coolness, such a contrast to the hot climb up. There are large arched openings in the left-hand side of the tunnel, creating light and stunning framed views. Our whooping quietens as the road climbs and we hear the drip of water and the swoosh of our tyres.
The exit to the tunnel appears, a bright archway we can’t see beyond. And then, oh, wow.
We are near the top of the world and the snow and mist are so close.
The sun is shining, but the air is cooler and icy fingers of mist curl towards us. We shiver, stop, and put on our jackets.
We cycle on up, trying to keep our focus on the road but spending most of the time gazing open-mouthed at the landscape and the vastness. The mist thickens, and the sun is unable to push through. I take off my sunglasses and put on thicker gloves as we cycle deeper into the freezing cloud.
We laugh at the height of the snow poles, yes that is a snow pole, and my mind aches imagining snow that deep. We peddle on into the gloom, flicking on our lights and shivering, our bodies trying to adjust to the huge change in temperature.
It’s eerie, the world is muffled.
The road starts to descend and there are marsh-like tuffs of ground on either side, but the visibility shortens until we can only see the road ahead of our wheels.
Martin stops.
We have about two and a half kilometres to get to the lake, but we are cold and there will not be a view. We decide to turn around.
We’re not disappointed, we’ve seen lakes before.
This ride up, the atmosphere, the views, the achievement, the indescribable awe and wonder… that’s what we came here to find, and that’s what we have, in bucketfuls.
We cycle back to the sunshine, rest our bikes against a rock and have a snack.
I am smiling with every cell in my body, so much, I ache with happiness. It is barely possible for one body to absorb this much natural beauty in one place. There are no words large or awesome enough to describe this.
A haunting call brings tears to my eyes. We are breathing the same air as a golden eagle. We sit and watch it soar on invisible air currents, effortlessly circling, its huge wings outstretched. We watch until it is no longer possible to see against the mottled greys of the mountain, but its call continues to pull at our hearts.
‘I think that is a glacier.’ Martin points to beyond the misty cloud. What we thought was snow is solid ice. The Tsanfleuron Glacier. Wow. It’s huge, but later we learn what we could see was just a small finger length of the whole glacier. No wonder the air is fresher up here, so close to all that ice.
It is beautiful, but also sad. How long will it remain frozen? I tuck the sad thought away and just admire.
We watch as the clouds it is creating are pushed by winds we cannot feel, the clouds swirl up and around the mountain top and then drop into the lake valley.
More clouds pour down from the other side of the mountain and flow over the edge of the glacier only to be gobbled up by the warmth of the sun and sucked back up into the sky.
Martin laughs as I try to find a word to encompass all this wonder.
This is more than awesome, it is magnificent, stupendous, breath-taking, stunning…inexpressively beautiful. I think you are probably getting the idea.
We start our descent, our hands still in thick gloves, sunglasses back on. The air nips and bites as it swirls around our bodies. All heat gained on the way up has been lost and now we are not peddling we are not generating more. The only muscles we are using are in our hands and arms that pull on the brakes as we control our downhill speed.
We zip back through the tunnel, pausing to take photos from the arched doorways to nowhere.
I can’t believe how soon we are passing the cattle, then at the bridge and down the hairpin bends. Martin swoops ahead, loving the curves and steepness, he waits for me on a corner where the road calms it’s downhill rush and we continue together.
Too soon we are in the forest and the sun’s rays no longer heat the shadows beneath the trees. The temperature plummets and my hands shake, but a few more twists and turns and we see the café.
We have made it back in time for a hot chocolate before they close.
We wrap our cold hands around the mugs and inhale the steam. It is sweet and velvety, and combined with the massive dose of awesome mountain cycling I think it is the best hot chocolate we have ever tasted.
We smile at each other through the warm chocolate-scented steam.
What an experience. What an achievement. What a ride.
Subscribe to my secret library
Copyright © 2020 Jenni Clarke Author. All Rights Reserved