In my long blue shapeless gown, I stood in line waiting to receive my diploma. The straw from my Camel Back water bottle discretely poked through the collar allowing me easy relief from the sweltering heat. College graduation; for some, this was the moment that they had waited for all their lives. Me, my mind […]
In my long blue shapeless gown, I stood in line waiting to receive my diploma. The straw from my Camel Back water bottle discretely poked through the collar allowing me easy relief from the sweltering heat.
College graduation; for some, this was the moment that they had waited for all their lives. Me, my mind was elsewhere. In two days, I was to fly off to Switzerland. Most of my classmates were either going home for the summer or settling down for a life of normalcy. I had signed up to work as an outdoor education counselor in the Swiss Alps. When I accepted the job, I believed full well that I was not qualified to lead kids on hikes through the Alps, take them rock climbing and especially not mountain biking. However, I could not miss out on the opportunity to meet my life long role model: Jane Goodall.
When I was a child, I had dreamt of going to Africa and studying chimpanzees like she did. I later came to call this my Tarzan Complex as it was also accompanied by my love of wild men with long hair. This was my opportunity of a lifetime. I had to take this job. But at the same time, I had no idea how to rock climb, and I was not exactly an expert mountain biker or Alpine hiker. In just two days, I would be there though. Worst of all, because I had to stay for my graduation, I was missing two days of the staff orientation.
So, two days later, I sat on the train that ran from Geneva to Sion along the North side of Lake Geneva. I was so awe struck by the mountains that I was compelled to sketch them in my journal. This also allowed to me refrain from conversation with all the curious passengers. I just wanted to enjoy the moment. I didn’t want to make conversation especially since I didn’t know any French. I arrived two minutes after the last bus went to Anzere. So, I took a very expensive taxi all the way up the very windy roads to The Chamosairre.
The Chamosairre was the main chalet. A big beautiful ski chalet about 1800 meters above sea level was my home. Everyone had been anticipating my arrival. They all seemed to know who I was but I knew none of them. Everyone else had already had a chance to go rock climbing once. I became more and more nervous and unsure of my decision to be there. The next day, we went on the day and a half long hike to and from the mountain hut.
Every step, I was completely in awe of my surroundings. I refused to let myself fall to the back of the line even though I was huffing and puffing the whole time. Soon, we found ourselves hiking in snow. Then, when we came to reach the tunnels, I truly felt like I was caught in the movie “Goonies”. Weeks before, the tunnels had been completely filled with ice. Now, the top half had melted, leaving beautiful natural ice sculptures at the mouth of the tunnel.
Once we had slowly scooted across the huge blocks of ice, we came to another challenge. The roof of the tunnel was only plastic sheeting at this point on the tunnel. Therefore, the melting snow and ice coming down the mountain was dripping through the roof in huge ice cold bullets. So, one by one, we took turns dodging the ice rain and hopped onto the next block of ice.
Soon, the ice disappeared and we were enclosed in complete darkness. I neglected to tell my coworkers that I had a small flashlight in my pack. It was more exciting to guess every step and hope that the guys weren’t hiding in the corners waiting to leap out at us. We passed through another similar large tunnel and a small one that was filled with about one to two feet of water. I later found out that we could have walked around it on the outside. But, it was fun to have to stretch our legs into the splits so that one foot was walking on either side of the tunnel. Some of the guys decided to throw snowballs into the water in front of us to splash us, but we still tried to refrain from plunging our feet into the cold water beneath us.
After about five hours of hiking, sledding, slipping and taking photos, we finally arrived at the mountain hut. It was a beautiful ski cabin with all sorts of posh amenities that I had not been expecting.
The next day, it took us about two hours to hike back down the mountain with knees screaming and ears popping the whole way down. It was magnificent!