On the Ground in Buenos Aires

February 27. So far, everything has gone swimmingly. The group assembled without incident. The flights went off on time and landed safely. The views coming into Buenos Aires were amazing – flat, flat land running off into the hazy horizon and, on our route, wet, wet land, with a huge braided river (the Parana?), with many back channels, sloughs, ponds, and ditches.

We made our way through fee payment, passport control, customs, and a final baggage check, where we met our guide, boarded our bus, and drove into town. Along the way, I saw fields of pampas grass and then it hit me: the Pampas are just out there! The real Pampas!

Our hotel is across from Plaza Libertad, just off the main street Av. 9 de Julio. The Plaza has its own Facebook page, according to the sign. It's comfortable and will do fine. I expect it will be the fanciest we'll see on this trip.

After an early (for Buenos Aires) lunch, a group of us headed south for the Museo Historico National, in Parque Lezama. One taxi driver knew the way and gave the riders the thumbnail version of Argentina's history. Our cab driver needed the map to find it, so we were glad to get there. It's housed in a mansion-type building and has some interesting artifacts, but it is not impressive. A set of twelve or so displays offers to tell three hundred years of the country's history. I can't be sure because all of the text was in Spanish, but I doubt it was successful – there was just too little for so much history. Still, there are some valuable artifacts, including three enormous paintings of various epic scenes in Argentine history and enough San Martin paintings and other artifacts to support a cult.

We left the museum and headed north, toward the Museo de Arte Moderno. It's being refurbished, so we continued north, out of closed commercial into weekend commercial, Plaza Dorrego, which was hopping with crafts and food, and through the Mercado de San Telmo, which blended antiques, plain old junk, and fruits and vegetables. We soon arrived at the Plaza de Mayo, which was festooned with banners supporting the veterans of the war over the Malvinas (the Falkland War). As we passed out of the plaza, we passed the Chilean embassy, around which the streets were blocked off and filled with camera setups. Was that because of the earthquake today near Santiago?

Just got back from a restaurant in Puerto Madera, a section along the river that has seen considerable redevelopment of old buildings and is now in the midst of a run of new building construction, which look like a lotof office and residential towers. We had dinner at a very respectible buffet-style retaurant, with an Italian slant, called La Bisteca.

We've had an excellent start to the trip. The group is great, the weather is very summery (25° and somewhat humid), and the city is fascinating. Tomorrow, we see more of it.

I’m Going to Patagonia

It's been months to get to this point, but in a couple of days, I'm boarding a plane to fly over the equator for the first time. I'm one of a dozen Mountaineers on a two-and-a-half week trip to Patagonia, in the mountains of southern Argentina and Chile, for hiking and sightseeing.

We'll spend a full day in Buenos Aires for sightseeing. After that, we'll fly to El Calafate, in southwestern Argentina, from which we'll travel to glaciers pouring off the Southern Patagonian Ice Field and hike to view some spectacular peaks, such as Cerro Fitz Roy and Torres del Paine.

As before, I plan to blog the trip and will upload when I can get a connection.

Test of Open Office with Weblog Publisher

In preparation for my trip to Patagonia in a few weeks, I've been making preparations, including buying a cute little netbook to write my blog entries with. It's a big step up from the IPAQ and Bluetooth keyboard I used on the Alps trip a couple of years ago. This device, while heavier, runs real Windows, has a real hard drive, has much more battery, and enough screen to read Web sites on.

In order to keep costs down, I've opted to use Open Office. So far, I find it quite good enough for documents – and the price is right. So, this is my test for easy updates to my blog, using the Sun Weblog Publisher. If you see this, the test was successful.

Here goes!

The Northwest Corner

My wife and I spent the weekend in the northwest corner of the state. It was a fine way to spend a rainy weekend. The goal was Neah Bay and the Makah Museum, with a hope for Cape Flattery.

We drove around the south and west sides of the Olympics, through torrential rains and general gloom. Talking books help a lot. By the time we got to Neah Bay, which is a trim little town, there was hope of better weather. Still, we went for the museum, and by the time we came out, it was raining again.

The Makah Museum is my favorite museum and I was very happy to be visiting it again. It struck me as powerfully as it did the first time I was there, decades ago. It's a treasure trove of artifacts, hundreds of years old, recovered from a coastal village buried in a slide. The clay preserved even fabrics. But the best part – the profound and powerful part – is the interpretation. This is the Makah's history, the history of the people still living there, who have survived pestilence and persecution to make it to this day, when they can reconnect to their past through these items and the stories that go with them. It's worth the drive.

When we came out of the museum, it wasn't exactly raining, so we decided to take a chance and headed toward Cape Flattery. It was fairly bright and only slightly drizzling when we got to the parking lot, so we took the trail. The woods were dripping and sizeable, considering how close to the blustery coast we were. The trail has been recently reworked and it was very good. At the end of it are several viewing platforms, perched on the very corner of the country. While there was rain coming, it hadn't arrived yet, so we reveled in the sights: ships on the horizon; the lighthouse on Tatoosh Island; gulls, oystercatchers, cormorants, ravens, and even a heron; and a seal fishing the waters below our perch. The rain caught us on the way back.

We returned to Forks, where we had a clean and good-sized room at the Olympic Suites Inn. Can't say that Forks offers much in the way of dining, but we did find a dinner and a breakfast good enough to eat. The weather the next morning was promising, so we turned north, toward Lake Crescent, with a thought to Hurricane Ridge, should it actually clear.

At the west end of Lake Crescent, we turned off to take in a segment of the Spruce Railroad Trail, which winds along the steep and lonely north shore of the lake. The weather got better and better and, for a time, the skies were almost clear. The sun brought out the colors of the yellow bigleaf maple and scarlet vine maple. The trail is wide and easy and we had a great walk.

By the time we finished, the clouds were building in the mountains again, so we left Hurricane Ridge for another day and returned home along Hood Canal.

States I've Visited

I thought this was interesting. I've been through or in (at least a highway-blast-through or an airport-touch-down) more states than I thought.


visited 33 states (66%)

Create your own visited map of The United States.

“Ashland Nerds”

My wife and I have been travelling down to southern Oregon to visit the Oregon Shakespeare Festival every year since 1996, before we were even a couple. But it is only this year that we seem to have become “Ashland nerds.”

It might have been the fact that we made the trip twice this year, as our usual five-day trip, this time in June, wasn’t enough to get us the plays that everyone was talking about. We returned in October to catch this year’s version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler.

It might have been that we have stayed in the same bed and breakfast for the last three trips. Or that the proprietors of the Shrew’s House are particularly social and friendly.

Or, it might have been the arrival of a new Artistic Director and the inevitable speculation this change would create in the “regulars” about what changes this might bring to the Festival.

Whatever the reasons, I’ve found myself engaged in conversations with strangers about the Festival throughout the year. Our visit in the spring featured the usual talk around the breakfast table about the plays we’ve seen and are seeing, but it really didn’t get started until someone noticed the 2009 season’s list, which included The Music Man, which is something of a departure for the Festival. This, combined with the disastrous addition of songs to the season’s sad version of A Comedy of Errors, motivated the discussion of what this change could mean.

Weeks later, I found myself engaged in a similar conversation with another stranger, in a much stranger context – on the most remote section of the Pacific Crest Trail, according to Backpacker Magazine. One of my companions on an August trip to the Canadian border is also a regular at Ashland. He visits each year and writes about the plays for an alumni magazine. So we spent some time along the way, as we walked, talking about our experience with the Festival and our concern with what might be a different direction for the coming years.

In fairness, given all of this concern with the future artistic direction, I am told that the new Director is conducting community forums this year, which strikes me as a very good sign, considering how intertwined the town and the stage are.

My wife coined the term “Ashland nerds” during our visit two weeks ago, when we found ourselves spending an hour or two each morning discussing the Festival, our experiences, our likes and dislikes, and our questions about the new Director, with the innkeepers and their guests. It was the end of the season, everyone had seen most of the plays, sometimes more than once, and it was just cool to be member of this club.

Possibly more hooked than heretofore, we find ourselves considering another two trips next year. Apparently, once is no longer enough.

A Season of Backpacking

I intend to log more items here than I have over the last several months. I’ll start with this summary of my backpacking season.

It started during a favorite month for hiking: May. During May’s first weekend, a couple of Mountaineers and I hiked up to the beginning of the big patches of snow in the Elwha River, in Olympic National Park (ONP) – all told, 16.5 miles one way. (We were more than a little tired at the end and not much less tired the next day.) We had good weather (which means no rain, even a little blue sky) and saw lots of wildlife, which is why May is such a good month. There were several bears, lots of deer, a few elk, a pair of Mergansers, several Harlequin ducks, an eagle, hummingbirds, a Hairy woodpecker, and lots of song birds.

I extended Memorial Day weekend to hike the 24 miles of the wild Olympic coast, starting at La Push and exiting at Cape Alava to Lake Ozette, accompanied by three Mountaineers. This stretch of the ONP coastal strip is easier than the southern portion in that there are few required bluff climbs, but harder in that the footing is quite difficult. There were almost no stretches of sand, but we walked on every variety of rock you can imagine – rough, smooth, hard and soft, big and small, settled and slipping, sticky and slippery. This is a wild and beautiful coast and a good place to see bald eagles (and the occasional bear on the beach).

A month later in June, three of us Mountaineers hiked up the ONP’s Hoh River trail in the hopes of seeing Mt Olympus’s Blue Glacier from Glacier Meadows. We had good weather and a beautiful hike, but the creek crossing in the second avalanche chute stopped us. It wasn’t that the chute was steep, it was more that the creek banks were too unstable to safely cross. So, we hung out in the sun and headed back down, ready to return for another go as soon as we could. Maybe next year.

The highlight of my season was the trip along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) from Harts Pass, in the far North Cascades, to Manning Park in British Columbia. This trip was organized by another Mountaineer leader, who couldn’t make the trip due to injury. He did, however, drive the four of us who weren’t injured to the trailhead. That’s generosity and that’s commitment. We had wonderful weather for all five days and the scenery was stupendous. This part of the PCT spends a good amount of time actually very near the crest itself, traversing ridgetops surrounded by the peaks of the North Cascades. Part way along, we fell in with a group of hikers who had been taking trips into the wilderness for the past 16 years, supported a string of good-sized donkeys. We also met a man near the end who had just completed the entire Crest Trail in several installments. The end of this trip, at Manning Park, offered an unusual opportunity to eat a meal in a restaurant, which we took advantage of twice, not to mention an afternoon beer on the day we arrived.

What should have been the highlight of the year (except for the weather) was my last backpacking trip: completing the last 33 miles of Mt Rainier National Park’s Wonderland Trail, from Longmire to Mowich Lake. I hiked the other 60-odd miles a few years back. My wife and I took the afternoon of Friday, Sept. 19, off to drive my car to Mowich Lake and then drive her car to Longmire, where we stayed in the National Park Inn. It’s a nice little inn with a good restaurant. That afternoon was pretty nice, with sun and some dramatic clouds showing off the Mountain. During the night, however, it started to rain and didn’t stop until early Sunday morning. I did enjoy the hike, but I never saw the Mountain again – I rarely saw the next ridge; nor was I dry until I changed at the end of the hike. Even without the views, I could see that it is a very dramatic stretch of trail, lots of ups and downs (10,000 feet over the distance), bridges over canyons and rushing rivers, or logs precariously perched over braided channels in broad debris beds.

I’m already thinking about the places I’ll go next year.

Hurray! Fafblog! is back!

Fafblog! back to save the universe.: "So for the last five years all the liberals and the hippies and the nattering nabobs of normalcy have been coming up to Giblets and going 'Was the war a mistake Giblets?' and 'Are we losing the war Giblets?' and 'Oh look at all the dead people Giblets, maybe we should stop the war.' And the correct answers to these questions have been 'Shut up,' 'Shut up you traitor,' and 'We'd be winning already if you'd just shut up.'"

A Perfect DC Morning

This is as good a way to break the silence of the last couple of months as any. I was in Washington, DC last weekend for the Winter Meetings of the National Association of Utility Regulatory Commissions (how's that for an awkward title?). I had a couple of hours to kill before the first meeting, so I walked down to the Mall from my hotel (which, while nice, wasn't as bright as the photos in the link suggest, nor do the photos do justice to the forty foot deep construction hole arrayed around two sides of the hotel, including the side that held my room's windows).

My first stop was the Canadian Embassy, which has Bill Reid's masterpiece, The Spirit of Haida Gwaii, on display in the courtyard (although it is somewhat jammed into the corner). I recommend a visit, if you're in DC; even better, if you are in the Vancouver, BC, airport, visit its version, which is displayed more fully, I think. While I was there, I noticed a group of young people at the other end of the courtyard playing in a raised circle railed into the end of the courtyard, so, when they left, I walked over to see what the fun was about. Above the circle of courtyard is a shallow dome, which, when you make a sound in the center of the circle, like stamping your feet, reverberates several times. Echo, echo, echo, echo... Pretty cool.

I crossed Pennsylvania Ave., and swung by the Apex Building, headquarters of the Federal Trade Commission. I love the deco building and sculptures around it, especially Man Controlling Trade, by Michael Lantz. It caused some reflections on a time when labor -- the construction of actual things -- was respected in this country. I walked west along Pennsylvania, past the John A Wilson Building, which houses part of the DC's government, and the White House, and then slid back down to Constitution Ave., at 17th, feeling better the farther from the center of the executive branch that I walked. I continued west along Constitution to 23rd, where I turned south and looped around the Lincoln Memorial, stopping to read the Gettysburg and the Second Inaugural addresses inscribed on the walls and to consider the view over the Reflecting Pool, imagining filled with hopeful Americans, listening for their dreams or for the wisdom to end a war. It was empty that day.

From there, I walked the length of the Mall to the National Gallery of Art, where I attended an interesting overview tour of the East Building, which houses the modern art collection. It was an expertly done tour, but only covered the building and a handful of works, though it included the wonderful Pollack they have in the collection. I did go back a few days later, when I had the chance. I finished up with a salad at the cafe, soothed by the sound of the cascade waterfall, and hoofed it back up to my meeting, a perfect morning, completed.

Climate Change as Homesickness

Clive Thompson on How the Next Victim of Climate Change Will Be Our Minds:

Australia is suffering through its worst dry spell in a millennium. The outback has turned into a dust bowl, crops are dying off at fantastic rates, cities are rationing water, coral reefs are dying, and the agricultural base is evaporating.

But what really intrigues Glenn Albrecht — a philosopher by training — is how his fellow Australians are reacting.

They're getting sad.

In interviews Albrecht conducted over the past few years, scores of Australians described their deep, wrenching sense of loss as they watch the landscape around them change. Familiar plants don't grow any more. Gardens won't take. Birds are gone. 'They no longer feel like they know the place they've lived for decades,' he says.

Our Second Snowfall

We're an inch from the month's worth of rainfall, and it's only the 9th of December. (Click on images for larger version.)

McMenamins Edgefield

My wife and I traveled down to Troutdale to spend the Thanksgiving holiday at McMenamins Edgefield. I struggled briefly with how to characterize this place, what to call it, and left it at "Edgefield." It's not exactly a resort, nor is it any one other thing that I can think of. It occupies the site and buildings of the Multnomah County Poor Farm, initially built in 1911. It now houses a hotel, brewery, winery, distillery, glass studio, pottery studio, spa, pitch-and-putt golf course, restaurant, theater, and a number of pubs, all on 38 (right now windswept) acres overlooking the Columbia River east of Portland.

All of the buildings are nicely refurbished and maintained in a sound, but relaxed, even fanciful, way. Nothing too polished or slick, but quite nice. Adding to the charm of the place is the amazing effort put into its decoration. Surfaces everywhere, even on the sprinkler pipes, are decorated with murals, paintings, and historical photographs. The paintings and decoration are in many styles, reflecting the work of many artists, but it all shares a lightness and fanciful appreciation of life's delights and the history of this place, which finished its social service life as a nursing home in the middle 80's.

This picture is an example of one of the prominent artists, on a coaster advertising our home town McMenamins location, The Spar.

We spent the morning walking all over the grounds and poking into the buildings (there's a pub in every shed, it seems). The strong down-gorge winds made it a cold walk (and are still buffeting the trees and our room's window), but the sun and the interesting sites kept us going. The golf course looks fun, but only a committed and unserious golfer (Are there any of those? We did see a few later along the walk.) would think today's wind an enjoyable golfing partner.

Electronic Books Have Their Uses

I had occasion to look into electronic books while preparing for my recent trip to the Alps. I wanted reading material for the train and plane coming home, but didn't want to carry a bound swatch of paper for two weeks before I could read it. Since I was taking a PDA, I looked into electronic books.

My first impressions were disappointment. The titles on offer at several of the vendors were limited and decidedly third-rate, for the most part. Anything of any quality at all was relatively expensive -- what you'd pay for a trade paperback edition of the same work. This was discouraging, but I did select a couple of Hemingway titles that I hadn't read before: To Have and To Have Not and For Whom the Bell Tolls. In spite of having been written over fifty years ago (are they in the public domain?), they were $10 each.

The next barrier was selecting a reader. There were three formats available from the vendor I selected and you bought the e-book version for the reader you selected. The readers are free. Thinking this was the simplest route, I chose the Microsoft Reader.

I downloaded the MS Reader and installed it. Next, I had to "activate" it, which Microsoft is very big on and can be a significant barrier to getting their software to work. I'm not sure why one has to activate free software. In any case, I was unable to successfully activate the software and was, therefore, unable to use it with the e-books I'd just purchased.

My annoyance was great enough that I worked my way through the trackless swamp of Microsoft's support pages to find a link to a support function for the Reader. From what I could tell, the Reader is something of a deprecated product. There is no Reader support page, so I used the closest thing, a more general Mobile page. To their credit, I did get a rather stilted message advising me to do a couple of things that didn't work.

By that time, however, I'd downloaded another reader, "Mobipocket," and contacted the e-books vendor, who very quickly and kindly shifted my subscription to that reader. I should have gone with the Adobe reader in the beginning. It shouldn't be that expensive, nor that hard to get an e-book to work.

In the end, I found that it worked surprisingly well. The reader I used worked in portrait or landscape mode, offered excellent text clarity and zoom control, and was quick to turn a page with just a button click on the PDA. It opened each time from the spot that I'd stopped the time before. There were lots of other features for searching and moving about in the text, but I didn't use them much, once I started reading. I turned off the progress bar at the bottom, because it took screen space and displayed a discouragingly high page count.

The first one, To Have and To Have Not, was made into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, and Lauren Bacall and stands as one of my favorite movies. As a novel, though, it's something of a mess. Only the Bogart character, Harry Morgan, Brennan’s, Eddie, and a fragment of the plot where Morgan asserts that he won't carry human cargo, because that cargo can talk, made it into the movie. It's just as well, because William Faulkner made a fine screenplay out of those elements. Still, there is some wonderful writing in the book, especially when he's writing about the Gulf Stream and fishing upon it.

I found For Whom the Bell Tolls stunningly beautiful, a masterpiece. It is taut and focused. Its characters stand out, individuals. The language, aided by the transliteration of the formal address in Spanish to English, full of "thee" and "thou," is lyrical. And the action gathers relentless tension as the moment of the clash of armies arrives and breaks upon the characters. It must have been heartbreaking to write through the cruelty and waste of the Spanish Civil War, when it is so clear that the author loved the people and the country.

I found it easy to use an e-book in the same way I use a printed book. Once I got past the problem with buying and displaying the book on my PDA, the experience of reading was very similar. I'd use an e-book again, under similar circumstances, and more often if there were more, high-quality selections and they didn't cost so much.

Court of Honor

Last Sunday, I participated in the for my nephew's Eagle Scout Court of Honor. It has been years since I was around Boy Scouts and it was both new and familiar to me.

My son was involved with Cub Scouts, but declined to continue with Boy Scouts when he turned eleven. I, on the other hand, was certain that I wanted to continue from Cub to Boy Scouts. I remember coming home from an early Boy Scout meeting and declaring that I was going to become an Eagle Scout.

I had a wonderful time as a Boy Scout. My troop had a scheduled outing each month and in that way went on my first backpack at age eleven. I learned how to build a fire, cook a meal over flames, carry my gear over miles of muddy trail, sleep in a tent in the rain, and generally have a good time in the out of doors. From that early experience, I was able to become a confident hiker and backpacker. I've carried that with me for over four decades. I also made friends that I've kept all these years.

And, although it took longer than my father believed that it should have, I did earn my Eagle Scout award. For this reason, my nephew asked me to participate in the ceremony, reading the Charge and the Pledge, just before he received the award.

I was proud to be asked and happy to agree to do this. I did so, however, with some ambivalence, as I have problems with the national leadership of the Boy Scouts. To my mind, the national program has been taken over by narrow-minded fanatics who have turned their backs on the inclusive and (dare I say it?) liberal tradition of the best of the Scouts. The program I grew up with emphasized diversity (before it earned that name and became a cliché and lightening rod). In those days, of course, it was race. It's been a sad degeneration from those idealistic days.

But, I understand that all of these kinds of experiences are local -- much depends on the leadership of the troop -- so I went and participated.

There aren't enough of these kinds of events. There are so few that mark a young person's entry into a wider sphere of his community. I think a longing for this kind of recognized rite of passage is behind the proliferation of school graduation ceremonies. It's too bad we can't do better than that.

I was pleased with the whole ceremony. The portion of the troop that attended was diverse and reminded me of the kids that I consorted with as a Scout. The leadership clearly cared for the boys and everyone seemed very comfortable with each other. I was also pleased with the words that my nephew selected for me to read. They were wise and true.

I was proud to stand on that stage with him, in front of his family, his friends, his mentors, his troop members, and his fellow Eagle Scouts, and charge him with living up to the potential of his achievement.

Guide to Haute Route Posts

Preparation

How do you say “Haute Route”? (Aug. 5): Text
Haute Route: Find the Right Partner (Aug. 16): Text
Haute Route: Going Where And Going Long (Aug. 23): Text
Haute Route: Getting Psyched (Aug. 26): Text
Where is the Haute Route? (Aug. 27): Text

The First Week

Dispatch from Chamonix, France (Sep. 6): Text Photos
Dispatch from Argentière, France (Sep. 7): Text Photos
Dispatch from Trient, Switzerland (Sep. 8): Text Photos
Dispatch from Champex, Switzerland (Sep. 9): Text Photos
Dispatch from Le Châble, Switzerland (Sep. 10): Text Photos
Dispatch from Cabane du Mont-Fort (Sep. 11): Text Photos
Dispatch from Cabane de Prafleuri (Sep. 12): Text Photos
Dispatch from Arolla (Sep. 13): Text Photos

The Second Week

Dispatch from La Sage (Sep. 14): Text Photos
Dispatch from Cabane de Moiry (Sep. 15): Text Photos
Dispatch from Zinal (Sep. 16): Text Photos
Dispatch from Gruben (Sep. 17): Text Photos
Dispatch from Gasenried (Sep. 18): Text Photos
Dispatch from Europahütte (Sep. 19): Text Photos
Dispatch from Zermatt (Sep. 20): Text Photos

Munich and Home

Dispatch from Zermatt, Still (Sep. 21): Text Photos
Dispatch from Haar, Germany (Sep. 22): Text
Dispatch from München, Germany (Sep. 24): Text Photos

Conclusion

Impressions (Oct. 3): Text
What Worked and What Didn’t (Oct. 9): Text
Updated with new links on 11/15. Fixed link rot on 7/29/2020.

What Worked and What Didn’t

This will be the last of my Haute Route posts, in which I’ll sum up my experience and offer some advice to those who might be considering this, or similar, trips. I’m not done with the posts I have, however. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll make some editorial corrections and additions, especially photos, other images, and links.

The one thing that I didn’t have with me that I would have liked was a towel. I hadn’t expected that it would be so easy to have a shower each day and so difficult to get a towel to go with it. I recommend taking a light-weight, quick-drying towel with you, should you try this hike or something like it. I made do with my t-shirt, which also dried quickly, but a towel would have made the marvel of a shower after a day’s hiking just perfect.

I took more stuff than I needed, making my pack heavier than it needed to be. It ran about 30 lbs (almost 15 kg), which was fine on the downhills, but it slowed me on the climbs. I took three quick-dry t-shirts and used two, four sets of hiking socks and used two, and I probably had more town clothing than I absolutely needed, but I did wear it all.

Another thing that I had, but probably didn’t need was reservations for all of the places I stayed. Most of the people I traveled with didn’t have reservations and none of the places that we stayed were full. I was happy that I had reservations, if only because I knew exactly where I was going each afternoon. But there were other good reasons, too. I was traveling alone and having reservations provided a specific contact in each of the places that I expected to be, each day – it seemed a useful precaution. I was concerned about the fact that I didn’t really have either of the languages of the places I was traveling. I was able, because I could look at Web sites for information, to book with places taking their rates into account. I’m sure that, without the look ahead of time, I would have missed the Restaurant Waldesruh in Gruben, which was the best deal of any place I stayed. And, though I didn’t know it when I did, my booking with the hotel in Zermatt gave me a nice upgrade, at the same price, when the hotel had problems with its water.

On the other hand, having reservations beforehand meant that I was more locked into a schedule. That wasn’t a problem for me, but many of the people I met had an extra day or two that they could use anywhere they decided along the way. I fully intended to walk the route straight through, but tarrying a day in Zinal or Arolla would be a pretty good way to spend some time. I would think that doing this early in the season might increase the need for reservations, especially in the bigger towns.

The experiment with writing a complete post for the Web each day worked very well. I used an HP iPAQ hx2495, running Windows Mobile 5. For writing paragraphs, I used an iGo Stowaway Ultra-Slim Bluetooth keyboard. Both devices worked fine, especially the keyboard. I was able to connect to a wi-fi network once (in the hotel in Zermatt, for free!), but I probably could have done so more often. Most of my posting was done at Internet cafés, using a Sandisk ImageMate 12 in 1 USB card reader to access the SD card from the iPAQ. That led to some interesting adventures with French keyboards, Open Office in French, and MS Word in French and German. On the whole, it worked quite well. What I wanted to do was to describe the events and impressions each day – to capture the immediacy. Writing each day, without the need to transcribe from my usual, handwritten journal, worked well.

My physical preparation was successful, as well. This is a strenuous hike and I experienced no soreness. I credit my regular walking, which averages 100 miles (160 km) per month, and the addition of the several trips up steep trails in my neighborhood, for preparing me for the effort. Because I was confident I could do it and didn’t suffer any consequences when I did do it, I was able to enjoy the experience more fully.

I had a German cell phone along, which I used a few times to check in with home. Were I more telecommunications-practiced, I could have done more with the pre-loaded dollar amount. I could have saved money by texting, instead of calling in messages. It would have been possible to use a cell phone to connect to the Web and post to my blog, though that was more technology than I wanted to deal with. Coverage wasn’t a problem. There was virtually nowhere where the phone couldn’t find a network. And, when it ran out of minutes, it was easy to find a pay phone that took my VISA card.

For more information about this trip, I recommend starting with the book that was in the hands of most everyone I met along the trail: Kev Reynolds’ Chamonix - Zermatt, The Walkers’ Haute Route (it’s now in a new, fatter, heavier, more colorful edition). I also found the following personal accounts of the trip useful, both for inspiration and information:

• Dawn DuPriest's report of a September 2002 trip is my favorite. She also has posted GPS waypoints, which I used to find Cabane du Mont-Fort. (Thanks, Dawn!)
  
  
• David Preston hiked the first half in July 2006 and finished in July 2007. He’s posted a lot of photos.
  
  
• Jo Collingwood describes a in September 2003 group trip.
  
  
• Alan White and Lesley Williams describe a September 2001 trip. No photos, but some good details.

Impressions

Now that it’s been a week since I returned home and started back at work and I’m well past the effects of jet lag, it’s time for some impressions and conclusions about the trip to the Alps. I’ll follow this up with another post more focused on lessons from the trip that might be of use to others considering hiking the Haute Route.

The first and strongest impression I formed along the way is that there is nothing like this in the US. The combination of the stunning scenery, the quality and abundance of the trails, the many comfortable places to stay, the good places to eat, and the availability of public transportation make hiking in the Alps (and much of Europe, I imagine) unlike anything you can find in my part – or any part – of the United States. I know there are huts in Maine, and maybe a few elsewhere, but there’s nothing like the network of them as in Switzerland, nor is there the combination of factors that make this a world-class trekking location.

The next is amazement at what the Swiss can do in and with the mountains. They can build anything anywhere, as far as I’m concerned. There wasn’t a plot of useful land anywhere that I saw on my trip that hadn’t been put to use. It didn’t matter if I couldn’t see how a road or even a trail could be built to it, there was a hut or hovel in place, if not a small herd of sheep. It was very impressive.

I also was impressed at how many of the old timber buildings – barns and storage – were still in use. Black, checked, and gap-filled though the timbers might be, the buildings still stood and were still useful. The photo is proof, showing an old building being given a new foundation.

Everywhere I went, I saw evidence of a walking culture in Europe that doesn’t exist in the US. There were people on the trails, people on the roads, and people on excursions to the high points, even if they rode a chair lift to get there. I saw young people, middle-aged people, and old people on the trails. I saw families of three generations, individuals, small groups, and large groups, all with their rucksacks and trekking poles, walking up and down those steep trails. You see it in the low lands and valley bottoms, too, with people on bikes along bike trails and people walking along walking paths. Almost everywhere that my route followed a road, there was a footpath that paralleled it and, usually, was far enough from the road that you could forget it.

And, while this was a great trip, and a great way to see a small part of a great destination, there are alternatives to walking fourteen days straight and topping a new pass each day. Some people on the trip skipped sections that had less interest or too much climbing or bad weather and took transit around to the next point. Others, like the two retired, Swiss gentlemen I met on the Col de Riedmatten and in Arolla later that day, were driving from promising town to interesting village, taking day hikes from those places each day. There were some towns, Zinal prominent among them, where you could easily spend several days day-hiking. There’s a lot to be said for sampling more fully what a single valley can offer, though, for my part, I liked the broader survey and the long-distance approach.

Dispatch from München, Germany

For breakfast, Stefan and I visited the local bakery (which is right next door) where Stefan enthusiastically purchased a variety of fresh and fantastic-looking baked goods. I was struck by how many of the items there can also be purchased in my home-town German bakery, Wagner's. I have to say, though, that this bakery presents their goods more attractively. I could hang out there every day.

My wife's nephew, Aric, came over shortly after breakfast, and we headed to München for Oktoberfest. First, though, he took me on a car tour of the north and east of the town, then he showed me his new apartment, which is very nice, and then we walked through town to Oktoberfest. Along the way, we detoured through the Englisher Garten, which is München's answer to NY's Central Park. It was a sunny day and there were thousands of people out on the grass and along the streams and walks.

The Oktoberfest grounds are huge and the whole thing is built from the ground up each year, in preparation for the festival. In some ways, it reminded me of a big state fair -- the rides, the multitudes of people, the food booths, the smell of fried food in the air. In others, it is nothing like a state fair in the US -- the shot and cocktail booths, the lack of a thousand acres of parking, and the "tents."

Of course, a good number of the people there (and in the town otherwise) were in traditional Bavarian dress: dirndls or similar full and frilly dresses and lederhosen. In a lot of ways, the dress reminded me of the clothing at a country-western dance in the US. The dresses the women wear are quite similar. There were a lot of bandanas, western-cut shirts, and even cowboy boots.

There are about a dozen big (and I mean big) buildings they call tents, but the only tent-like features of them are the soft roofs. Otherwise, they are giant barns, holding thousands of people each inside, with more seating outside. This is the heart of the Oktoberfest experience.

Which is: the enjoyment of beer, food, music, and the massive, celebratory energy in the room. Beer is sold by the liter. (No wimpy pints for Oktoberfest.) Well, there might be other sizes, but I didn't see any. Food comes hot and simple. Aric and I had a half-chicken each, along with a couple of liters. But that was outside where we could get a seat.

After that, we tried another couple of tents and got into one. We worked our way in, to the back, and found a couple of seats. We were in.

The place was packed and electric. It's an experience like no other I've ever had. The closest thing to it was that Grateful Dead concert back in '73. I spent most of the evening standing on the bench, which is pretty much how it works for about half the people there. There was a big, well-equipped pop band (no oompah band in this tent) occupying the raised stage in the middle, and they played for all of the three or four hours I was there. Amazing. But I mentioned the energy?

People danced, they drank, they talked, they made out, they sang along with a surprising number of the songs. Everyone was friendly: I saw several instant friendships formed right around me.

We practically closed the place. Thankfully, Aric can hold his better than I (because we'd had another couple of liters, at least). That meant that he could put me on the train and I got back to Haar safely.

I could say that I've felt better upon awakening, but after a bit of Stefan's homemade mueslix, I felt pretty good. I headed into München for the afternoon. After bidding Aric goodbye, I headed through the center of town to see what I could see.

I had the choice of several art museums and exhibits, but the Deutsches Museum had the pull on me. It's a fantastic museum of science and technology that Judy and I had visited when we were last here, in 1999, and I was sure that there was an important section I'd missed on that visit.

I was right. I spent almost all afternoon in the "maritime navigation" hall, which comprises a wonderful collection of models (most 1:50) and actual boats (a couple are 20m long). Great exhibits and very good text in English. Another thing that we'd visited in '99, but didn't really impress because it was cloudy, was the sundial garden, so I climbed up to the top floor and tested them out on this (one more) sunny day.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to take this trip, and for the marvelous and generous hospitality that Stefan and Nancy have provided me, and for the friendship that Aric showed me while I was here. I am a lucky man.

Sept. 24 from a sidewalk table at the Maxxwell Restaurant, München: map.
Updated for spelling, links, and photos on 11/18. Updated photo link on 7/29/20.
Link to photo album
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Dispatch from Haar, Germany

So, this was a travel day -- all day on three trains to München and another to Haar, nearby. I finished packing up and dragged my stuff downstairs, checked out, and got an early breakfast. They were still setting up, but didn't bat an eye when I showed up, they just found me a seat and set me up with coffee. Great service.

The train down the Mattertal is a slow ride. The track is often steep, several segments have the cog wheel rail in the middle, and there are many turns. Still, it's not a bad thing, as the scenery is great. Seeing the big slide at Randa up close was interesting. The train now crosses the river and rides up onto the bench on the other side to get around the slide. It used to stay on the slide side of the river, but was buried in the slide, along with the highway.

I changed trains at Brig, in the the Rhone river valley. This was a faster train, through more populous country, and it had completely filled by the time we arrived in Bern.

I changed again in Zürich and had a bit of a layover, so I bought a sandwich and watched the scene. And what a scene! The station in Zürich is big and it was bustling. After a short time, the noise level began rising, so I went to see what it was. There was a demonstration or march beginning there, with flags, matching t-shirts, flyers, and whistles. By the time the marchers trooped out of the station, about thirty minutes later, the whistles were deafening. There was definitely a trade union theme, but I won't know what issues were motivating them until I can decipher the leaflet (which is printed in German, French, Turkish, and Italian, of course).

The train to München was even faster and not quite full. The country was pretty: green, rolling, productive. At some point, I crossed the border, but I didn't see any marking. The signs changed somewhere, but I didn't see where. Upon arriving at the Hauptbahnhof in München, I made my way through the many layers of floors and halls to the S-Bahn and took the S4 to Haar, where Nancy and Stefan, another extension of my wife's family, live. They had offered me their hospitality.

After greetings and some time to get my self organized, we went out to a German Sunday dinner at a restaurant they like: beer, a big, tender piece of pork roast, and a potato dumpling, all swimming in brown, savory gravy.

Now, because I have landed somewhere familiar, it seems time to reflect on what I did on this trip. I'd thought that I'd have a sense of accomplishment, and I do. But accomplishment doesn't seem to be the main feeling I have, even after all of the planning for the effort of the trip.

The most valuable part of hiking those many kilometers is not having done it, but what it was like while I was doing it. It was seeing those places that I'd only read about. It was meeting the people -- even those I just passed on the trail with a "bon jour." It was topping a ridge at a pass and having a new world, a new set of sights available to me. And what comes with that is the knowledge that I only saw a tiny piece of this small part of the world.

Sept. 22 from Haar, Germany: map.

Updated for spelling, links, and photos on 11/18.

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Dispatch from Zermatt, Still

The hotel had a sumptuous breakfast buffet and very attentive and energetic staff. I had only to poke my head in the door for the very model of a German-style host to greet me, except that he smiled and seemed genuinely warm. He got me a table and before I could get organized, there was real, hot coffee placed in front of me.

Of course, it was a clear morning, so right after breakfast, I grabbed my camera and took the Gornergrat Bahn up to the 3200m ridge between Monte Rosa and the Matterhorn for the views.

This train is a cogwheel train or funicular that climbs the steep walls of the valley and up onto the ridge, adding views as it ascends each dozen meters, until it's climbed right up onto a giant viewing platform for over two dozen 4000m (13,123') peaks and more than a dozen glaciers. It rides on rails, but has a third rail in the middle which is basically a flattened out gear, a line of cogs, which a gear wheel of the train presumably contacts. The train can, therefore, climb pretty steeply -- and it does. Other than that difference, it's a regular commuter style train car and very quiet, as the motors are electric.

I'd been given a map with a bunch of walking tours for the hills above town and the guide lists several good ones, too. But, after fourteen straight days of walking, I was due for a rest day. So, I opted to get my views without breaking a sweat today. Don't feel at all guilty, either.

The views were worth every penny of the fare. It was truly amazing. For the first thirty minutes or so I just wandered in circles taking it in. The big peaks of the Berner Oberland to the north, Weisshorn (4506m) and Ober Gablehorn (4063m) and their neighbors to the left of the Mattertal, Dom (4545m) and her neighbors to the right. Then, turning to the west, the Matterhorn (4477m), tall, iconic, and dusted with the recent snow. To the south, Theodule Pass (3300m) and the Breithorn (4159m), and to its left, the Monte Rosa massif, at 4634m. Below them are a collection of glaciers that all spill their melt into the Mattertal. Once I oriented, I spent the next hour or more snapping panoramas, portraits, and vignettes. See the photo album for the results.

Upon descending back into the valley, I had a nice lunch and visited the Matterhorn Museum, which is a pretty nice little museum. It's built under a central square and has exhibits about the famous first ascent of its namesake mountain, but also about the climbers and guides, both foreign and local, who climbed the other local peaks and the routes they took and, in some cases, the deaths they met. It also had exhibits about how, before the advent of mountain tourism, the people lived in that tough and steep land. I enjoyed it a great deal.

Soon, it was time to meet a couple of fellows who'd been recommended to me through family collections and who were arriving on the train this afternoon. I had heard about Paul, because he's a long-time friend of my wife's family, and he was traveling with another member of that extended family, Steve.

After collecting them at the station and getting their bags to their hotel, we found ourselves a place to get a beer and got to know each other. That soon turned into dinner (I had a nice venison dish) and before long, the evening was late. It was a great meeting.

I had to leave a little earlier than I might have otherwise, because I had to pack and, I thought, make a 6:08 train the next morning. Just to make sure, I used the hotel's free wireless to check the Swiss Rail site for the schedule. Sure enough, there was a 7:30 train that would get me my connection down the line in time, without getting up and out before breakfast. Still, I'd looked at that timetable at home several times, and I never saw that. It always looked like the 7:30 and 8:30 trains arrived at the same time -- too late for me. Now, it was different, so I went downstairs and checked with the front desk.

It was true! The 7:30 would work. Since the train station is about two blocks from the hotel, that meant I could get breakfast. Always important.

Sept. 21 from Zermatt, Switzerland: map, 1606m (5269').
Updated for spelling, links, and photos on 11/18. Updated photo link on 7/29/20.
Link to photo album
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