Veni, Vidi, Cogitavi

I came to walk. The path I chose was from Winchester to Col du Grand St. Bernard, and next year from there to Rome. Though I am roughly following the roads walked in the tenth century by Sigeric, the Archbishop of Canterbury, I am also wandering through a personal history of events, relationships, and self-perceptions. Sometimes this interior journey takes precedence over the physical one. Sometimes it is the other way round. I guess the two are always interacting in a way that helps me to understand myself better. 

I saw places I had never been and some I had seen before. I saw friends and renewed friendships. I made new friends, even though our encounters were brief and the chances of ever seeing them again are low. If ever I did, I am certain they would act as friends. That's just the way it is when you meet fellow pilgrims, when you share meals, when you clasp their hands to say goodbye, and the clasp turns into an embrace, and you brush your cheek against theirs, and you feel a wind weathered face or a scruff of beard a few days older than it would be if you had not met on the road.

I thought about those people, not everyone, of course, but those with whom the encounter was more than passing. I thought about certain events and how I reacted to them, because they help me understand myself better. I know I will reflect more deeply on them as time goes by.

Monday I walked a path that was physically challenging and my reaction at its completion was entirely predictable, though I did not think about it in advance. I have learned some things about myself on previous walks and it is comforting to know that those insights have predictive capability. I won't share everything with you. I can't. Some things are just too personal, but I do want to tell you about the hike, though I first owe you some closure on the day before.

Between Martigny and Sembrancher, the section advertised as dangerous with vertiginous drops on one side, the journey was that of a rational mind confronting a perhaps irrational fear. I made a mature decision: I took the train. 

Patrick did the walk and I met him in Sembrancher to continue together to Orsières. Of the 8 km, 5 miles, I did not walk, only a few hundred meters, less than a quarter of a mile, might have given me trouble, though Patrick reports that there is now a cable stretched along the offending section. He thinks I could have managed. He might be right. He's been walking with me for well over two thousand kilometers, almost thirteen hundred miles, taking into account the portions of the two walks to Compostela we did together and this year's trek. His brand new iPhone 6+ has taken one too many pictures of churches, cows, and lavoirs, and refuses to take any more, so I have no photos to judge. But I am content with my decision. It shows that, at least on this issue, I have a good understanding of self.

The remainder of the day's hike was picture postcard Swiss. The tourist board would be proud. We climbed several hundred meters to quaint villages and then descended to Orsières, where we would stay the night before beginning the climb to the St. Bernard Pass the next morning.

We did our homework. In preparation for the next day's difficult hike up to the hospice established by Bernard of Menthon around 1050, a climb of 1800 meters, one mile elevation change, over a distance of 30 km, 18.5 miles, we went to the tourist office to check out weather conditions and the expected time to complete the ascent. The office was closed. Not too much was happening in Orsières on an almost 100°F Sunday afternoon. But the ticket office at the train station was open and we received sage advice. With regard to the weather, "God knows. It can be anything." And the duration, "Never did it. Most people leave from Bourg St. Pierre. Maybe ten hours from here to the top."

We took that wisdom and, not surprisingly, sought more. When we first arrived in Orsières, we scoped out restaurants for dinner. Only one was open. We had a cold drink and told them what we were up to. When we returned for dinner, there was a thin but muscled fellow at the bar. He was wearing shorts. His muscles were in his legs. Not very talkative, he did manage to say, "Eight hours if you are strong walkers. Leave at four AM in this weather." This was a man who spoke from experience. Unfortunately, his tone was, "You guys are nuts." Maybe he was right. With each of our 65th birthdays this year, there are times when both Patrick and I think to ourselves, "Why am I doing this?"

The chef at the restaurant, a big Italian from Salerno only slightly taller than he was round, was more accommodating and downright sympathetic. His attitude was that of a kind uncle but his face had "il Dulce's" set-jawed self assurance. He insisted that I was Italian, though I denied it throughout my Buonasera's and Molto bene's. I think that's one of the reasons, along with our need to carb-up for the walk, that he delivered two plates over brimming with pasta and sent us off with a Buona Fortuna. 

We stayed at the parish pilgrim refuge, foam rubber mats and somewhat pungent pillows not helping it gain a two star rating any time soon, though the view I had of the church tower at night and the guitar music of Ottmar Liebert I streamed from my iPhone eventually got me to that zen space from which sleep eventually comes.

Alarms were set at four. I was up a half hour earlier. We left the refuge at 4:45 and within the space of 100 meters we had lost the path. GPS and our headlights to the rescue, quiet roads and farm tracks, sometimes gentle but consistently sloping, took us quickly above Orsières as dawn began to illuminate the sky. 

We made good time and gained much elevation, then discovered we had missed another turn. This did not bode well: two errors within the first sixty minutes on the easiest part of the path. And we were losing time. We needed a lot of distance behind us before the sun struck us full and the day began to bake.

We could have continued forward, dead reckoning our way back to the track, but we had agreed that in the mountains it was too dangerous to deviate from the signed path, so we backtracked to where we had erred and promptly gave up one third of the elevation we had gained earlier in the morning. We descended to the river Dranse and followed it until a weir blocked our path. Water poured over its top, only an inch or so of depth on a concrete wall, and a discernible but extremely narrow and steep dirt trail rising from the other side. I could not believe this was what was intended, but, at the same time, I was evaluating how I might make the crossing. 

It needs be said, the Swiss are diligent about signing their trails, but it is impossible to keep up with what must be many thousands of signs throughout the country. Before tackling the weir, we did one last search for some indication that the path was elsewhere and were relieved to discover a "pedestre" sign hidden in tall weeds. I was reassured that we were following a pedestrian path and not a mountain path, what I know as a bergweg from my experience in German speaking Switzerland. Those are blazed red and white and entail a much greater set of difficulties. So long as we were not on a bergweg, how difficult could it be? Not difficult at all – for a goat! This pedestrian path was hardly the width of a boot, had sections with at least a 60° slope on which it was impossible for dirt to pack down and adhere, razor switchbacks, and boot slip marks everywhere. There were rocks, so it was possible to scramble over the sliding dirt to gain a foothold on a stone, then pirouette to follow the path's changed direction. We gained 160 meters, 500 feet, in a bit more than a kilometer, 2/3 of a mile.

Despite these difficulties, we made good time. At major way points, the Swiss mark their signs not with distance but the expected time to the indicated destination. By 8:30, we had covered the indicated 4 hours to the break-off to Bourg St. Pierre, fifteen minutes ahead despite our errors. The sun had not yet crested the mountains. The valley was in shade, the temperature warm but comfortable. We were almost half way to our destination, the sign indicating that the Col was just under five hours away. 

We had to decide whether to branch off to Bourg St. Pierre for supplies and lose a half hour to get to the village plus time to shop. The delay would mean we would not reach the tree line until later in the day and we wanted to minimize our time walking in direct sun. We judged we had enough food and water and moved on. 

Later that afternoon we would realize that we were perhaps dangerously close on supplies and had made some bad choices. I had packed 3 liters of water equal to 3 kilos, 6.5 pounds. Patrick did not tell me he had only packed 1.5 liters. We had a can of tuna, some hearty bread, and a pint of cherry tomatoes for lunch. That turned out to be far too dry. It would stick in our throats. I still had most of the fresh fruit I bought two days before, a peach, two bananas, two apricots. Patrick may have had a piece of fruit or two. I don't recall. He had walked 8 km, 5 miles, more than I the day before and may have needed the nourishment then. We had already eaten into our store of dried figs, our primary source of fast sugar. Patrick had two left. I had eight. I still had a couple of handfuls of a simple trail mix made of mixed nuts and raisins. At the end of the day, all we would have left is two figs and a half liter of water.

After the Bourg St. Pierre turnoff, the trail sloped up, leveled off and turned to the left. The sun crested. It started to get warm. Ten minutes in, Patrick started to flag. His feet were heavy. He is usually the stronger walker and rarely shows any sign of fatigue, though in the last few days, under the searing heat, there were a couple of times when I held up better. Maybe I was drinking more water. Today, we both were walking on five hours of sleep, at most. That also had to be a contributing factor in the fatigue Patrick was feeling now and I would feel later. We ate Patrick's last two figs. There was a broken bench a bit further along and we sat for a while. I ate a banana and some trail mix. Patrick had tomatoes. We both had water bladders with drinking tubes, so we were consuming water the whole way as needed. Patrick would tire another time and need some fuel. I was doing well, though by the end of the day our situations would reverse. 

When the figs and other nourishment kicked in, we took the next major upslope well but we gave up most of that elevation as we descended to the concrete face of a dam and then had to regain what we lost as we climbed to the height of the reservoir's enclosure. We walked the length of the lake and then along some of the streams that feed it, a few more kilometers, first on a dirt road. Then crossing a roaring stream, the trail climbed to an abandoned stone building. But there are compensations. Just after, a dripping falls sprayed the trail and gave us an impromptu shower. 

We had completed about three quarters of the walk, perhaps two to two-and-a-half hours to go, but we were now in full sun, well above the tree line. We were both greedily drinking water as we walked. The mountains around us were hard, unsoftened by forest, spectacular.

We would lose the trail one more time. A way point sign indicated a directional change, which led, eventually, to a dead end. We had missed something. Our GPS indicated a track to the right of our direction of travel and higher than we, but there was no evidence on the ground to suggest how to reach it or where the trail might be. Finally we spotted a yellow diamond on a rock, a blaze for the trail, and, next to it, an eroded section of dirt making a near vertical face about ten feet tall. Patrick was first to find some footholds. He went up and saw the trail. I followed. 

We were about six and a half hours into the walk and had covered just over half of the vertical.  Patrick suggested we stop for lunch and we enjoyed relaxing at altitude, surveying the ascent we had made thus far. The lunch, though, was not satisfying. The tuna, direct from the can on coarse bread, dried our throats and we used up water to get it down. The sun beat on us, and, though the temperature was not as high as it had been in the valley the day before, the heat, the wind, and the altitude had a dehydrating effect.

From then on we walked continuously uphill, sometimes shallow, sometimes steep, on rock and scrub paths, the kind I was used to from prior hikes in the Alps and Patrick from hikes in the Basque Country and Corsica. At every turn and every top, we hoped we would catch a glimpse of our destination. St. Bernard had tamed the devil, a metaphor for the mountains that ravaged and humbled medieval travelers making the same climb we were attempting today, but his hospice continued to elude us. 

Then Patrick ran out of water. I heard gurgles coming from his water hose. That's when he told me he had only packed a liter and a half thinking there would be a village or two along the way where we could refill from a fountain. Every Swiss village, it seems, has a public fountain with potable water, but no village, no water. I still had a liter left and started sharing with Patrick, but now it seemed likely that I had not been drinking enough or that the altitude was taking its toll on me. My legs were lead. I had trouble lifting my feet and had to choose lower lying rocks on which to make footfall, or halt my walk and deliberately lift my foot to a larger rock's upper surface as if I was climbing stairs.

There were some actual stairs cut into the rock, a short span, part of the Alpis Poeninas, completed, I think, by Augustus in the first century AD. The road was also famously used by Napoleon in 1800 as he moved more than 40,000 troops along with supporting cannon, munitions and supplies across the Alps to lift the Austrian siege of French controlled Genoa. I was not, however, at that moment, thinking of either Augustus or Napoleon. My thoughts were on a snow field up ahead and the fact that I had not yet seen our destination. 

Earlier in our walk, when approaching hill cities in France, like Laon and Langres, I was able to see them miles off and it seemed I would never close the distance. Here I longed to see the destination no matter how far away it still might be.

Patrick seemed to have revived and was walking slowly but steadily. I was making progress but stopping more often then he. We reached the snow field and Patrick stepped onto it, breaking the crust, sinking in to his calf. With the weather as warm as it was, the snow was incapable of supporting our weight and it was still pretty deep, as we could tell from the height of its face. It was about two feet there but inestimable any where inside its perimeter.

We had to go around, perhaps fifty meters further than a direct path would have taken us, but in making that extra distance, when I turned round to the right, above I could see a cross and a building, the hospice at Col du Grand St. Bernard.

I then had no doubt that we would make it, but it would still take some time. The building I saw gave a deceptively small appearance. All I could see, as it turns out, was the top floor of a 4 story building, plus sloped roof. That last pitch was somewhat more than fifty meters, 150 feet, of elevation. It was not going to be taken at a sprint. And there was one further snow field to circle around, smaller than the first, but it also entailed crossing broad but shallow streams of melt and mucky sod from where the water had accumulated.

But we did make it. We took that last step from the trail, our first step onto the main road, together. We hugged and high-fived. A motorcyclist who was stopped on the road to admire the view saw us crest and when we hugged he smiled. That man knew what it was to accomplish something. After 46 days of walking, more than twelve hundred kilometers, just over 750 miles, we made it. 

Patrick is a man of faith. He felt a hand from above had lightened his load over the last several kilometers.

I felt a lump rise in my throat. Finishing something I have set out to do, accomplishing something difficult that I have set out to achieve, turns out to be a very emotional event for me. There are very complex, personal reasons for it that go back a long time, to my childhood. I never understood this until I started walking but walking gave me the time and space to reflect on it. It was on my walk to Santiago de Compostela that I arrived at certain understandings about what drives this in me. I began to remember the formative events that led to this aspect of my personality. Every year since, more of why I am who I am reveals itself to me. 

This is why I walk. 

Comments welcome at: garyontheway@gmail.com