Evendays

 

A couple of weeks ago, my mountaineering buddy Philippe and I took a group of 5 Pepperdine students (picture) snow-shoeing in the Valais Alps in the region above Sierre called Vercorin.

Unfortunately, I told the students they needed to be in good shape to do the 10 to 12 kilometers we’d planned.

They finished the hike without any problem and enjoyed their tea and hot chocolate at the lodge while they waited for me to finish…

But, I DID finish…

In order to graduate from High School and continue on to university, Swiss students must present a research paper (at least 20 pages long) or project and then give a public defense. Son 2 turned in his 35 pages of research on the history of polar survival techniques.

His counselor suggested that for the public defense he build an igloo high in the mountains and spend the night in it, so he and Arnaud, a buddy from the Geneva church, waited for the first heavy snow (2 feet) and I drove them up to a jumping off point at about 4500 feet.

Risk of avalanche was terribly high, so they followed a snowed-in road up a couple of miles and, within sight of deserted chalets (chalets aren’t normally built in avalanche corridors) they made camp. It was just below freezing, yet they managed to get a fire going but had less luck with the igloo for, as expected, you cannot construct an igloo out of fresh-powdered snow. (Actually, that’s an old Inuit proverb that comes in handy in many situations.)

They had packed in a tent (polar explorers NEVER count on good luck, only good preparation) and set out to drink gallons of hot tea (in order to stay awake all night). After a couple of pounds of sausage and some cooked apples, they burned the rest of their wood supply and crawled into the icy tent.

Wife and I picked them up this morning at the bottom of the hill. I suggested they stay another night, just to see if they could survive it. It would give them a chance to build an igloo with the now-compacted snow. But no go. They were out of food and Son 2 had used up all the memory in his camera.

Plus, graduating from High School is not THAT important.

Many of you have taken the lofty New Year’s resolution of coming to Switzerland in 2007. So I thought I’d include the following advice from USA Today’s tourism section. Don’t say you weren’t warned:

Responding to increased reports of "unpleasant meetings between hikers and cattle" along Switzerland’s Alpine trails this summer, the Swiss Hiking Federation issued tips for clueless tourists. "Do not scare the animals or look them directly in the eye. Do not wave sticks. Give a precise blow to the muzzle of the cow in the event of absolute need," the federation warned. And above all: "Never caress a calf."

You can tell the writer has NEVER hiked in the Swiss Alps. One of the first thing I do when arriving at the summit is, (you guessed it), caress my aching calves…