...and swimming in a lake for lunch.
Tired and cold I get up. Everything hurts, I slept like a bird on a pole, woke up many times during the whole night, feeling like I would fall from the bench which was my bed.
It did rain and there where some crazy winds blowing over the mountain top I slept on. Glad that I had found that shed, I pack up my gear.
It’s a foggy day and I have to get down 800m of height just to re-climb 1500m. It’s freezing cold, as my numb hands remind me, that I had forgotten to bring gloves with me, again. Not sure what I dread more, the freezing decent or the sweating climb on the other side of it.
Somewhere between the first and the second downward bend I cry for the first time that day. Why am I here? Why is it me? Who actually am I?
Everything feels awful. I am cold, hungry, tired, dirty. Why am I doing this?
Eventually I reach a little village, my fingers didn’t freeze off and my mind got a little calmer. I buy some bananas at a market-stall that is about to set up and fill up my water bottles. Now I am as ready as I can get on a foggy morning in June, somewhere in the Swiss Jura, to clime that “Col du Chasseral” in front of me. Maybe I should thank the clouds to envelop the top of it, otherwise I might have despaired to much, to see what laid in front of me.
Of what happened after I don’t remember much. A few endless bends in a thick forest, that didn’t seem to stop. Sweat, cars overtaking. Eventually I reach a first top of another mountain on the way. I eat some bananas, dates and peanuts on the bench of a closed restaurant.
Soon I set off again, now my cold sweat makes me shiver. How fucking cold is it here in June? Or did I just forget how awful these mountain climbs where?
Then I cry again. It actually feels good. Still not sure why I am doing this, who I am and what for. But this time I get a glimpse. I know this mountain has a top. I am still far from it, but I know eventually I’ll reach it. And I know there is one road leading me there, steep, hard and freezing cold, but I can’t miss it.
A few cute cows say hello on the way, I eat some more dates and the forest disappears, lays under me now, there are no more trees growing up here.
All of a sudden it is getting easier, as if I had crossed all limits of resistance. I am getting there, I see the end of this. And I go along the last few kilometres with my spirit lighter and my legs stronger, looking back at the road deep down on my right side. “That’s where I have been struggling just a little while ago...”
I arrive, drenched in my own sweat on a foggy mountain top, now view, no wind and no bench to sit on. I take it as it is. For the missing wind I am willing to take all the other inconviniences. My eyes fill up with tears again. How beautiful it is to be here?
Not sure why I did this, but somehow it feels great.
My mind feels cleared out and fresh like the air around me. Nothing is there for me and still I belong here as much as the rocks that have been laying there for centuries. There is no comfort to enjoy, except the one I carry with me, but there is all this beauty to admire, that no one can take away from this place.
A cyclist couple passes and we chat a bit. She tells me about the current temperature which is indeed only 4°C and further more felicitates me on having climbed the mountain from the west with luggage, which she remembered to be barely managable. Reassured I agknowledge my achievement a little more.
Even though the cold is forcing us to set an end to the conversation and they part the way I came from, all the cold in the world couldn’t hold me off making that coffee I had been looking forward to through all the painful eternities climbing up these 1500 metres.
As I drink it and eat a lot of bread, almond butter and dates, I am wondering if I will be able to stop eating before my fingers will now definitely freeze off.
All fingers and toes still in place I reach a lake for lunch. After an endless descent, the water of that lake feels almost as warm as a bath.
A mountain before breakfast and a lake for lunch.
Cheers for stopping by and enjoy your week!
All photos and words are owned by ©kesityu taken and written by myself.