wonderer

Hiking from Gipf-Oberfrick to Genova. Summer 2002

Sometime during my apprenticeship as Electrician in Basel, the wish emerged that I want to travel east - to the far east. I wanted to do this by foot. Walking I thought is the ideal traveling speed for humans. You get the time to take in the environment, adapt constantly to it as opposite to taking a plane, being thrown into another culture with different climate, that demands a lot of energy to adapt and often is quite overwhelming. You can stop when you see something interesting, and hiking leaves you with a much larger choice of routes. In other words the soul can follow you on such a trip.
At first it was a romantic idea, but I kept thinking about it and slowly working out details of how this might work and what I would need on such a trip. I my last year in Basel it then really became concrete opted for a trial trip, to see how this would work out. So instead of heading east, which are completely unknown regions to me, I wanted to cross the Jura going west and then the Alps (south) until I reach the sea. It wanted to take the challenge in doing it ALL by foot. So the main stations were Basel, Biel, Bern, Sion, Aosta, Asti to arrive finally in Genova.
The trip of some more than 700km took me a round 40 days with a 5 days break in Biel because of a inflammation of the Achilles tendon.
Looking back the trial trip was a real voyage. I was surprised who beautiful and voluptuous the Jura was and was yet again stunned by the Alps whos appearance is monumental to me.

I also learned many lessons about how to choose a path, that the shortest distance, is often not the best way to go, or at which point it is tiresome to walk on a main road. More concretely the Jura and the Alps are regions where you have a dense network of trails and you can avoid the sharing the paths with motorized vehicles. Moreover the people that live in this area are accustomed to people hiking and probably go for a walk from time to time themselves. I think its this culture, that allowed so many friendly encounters with strangers, who would even show great hospitality. Sometimes I had the impression of benefiting of some kind of special status, like a pilgrim. I just came of age, and I really enjoyed the respect and the curiosity with which people would approach me.
Now in Italy I did the mistake to go away from the alps and follow the river Po instead of holding closer towards the Italian west border. There it was getting harder and harder to find nice trails and I ended up walking longer distances on normal roads. Also all the properties seemed to have watchdogs, so barking would follow me where ever went. Furthermore the people did not seem to understand, that I want to walk to the sea, and felt like a romantic idiot sometimes. I often was offered rides. So people would not only take me be bit along their own way but would make an extra drive for me. Since my ambition was to walk all the way, I asked instead for a place to stay the night, which lay a lot less in their domain of favors to do and raised more question marks.
Later I realized spending some time in Alba, a couple of kilometers west from where I passed several years ago, that there you find trails. I also learnt, that a couple of kilometers east, from my route, there are the ancient Roman roads, which are supposed to be also quite nice. So my current perspective on the matter is that you should choose the right mode of transportation. If you want to hike, find trails, if you don't find them, consider hitch-hiking.

Of course everyone, that goes on such a trip searches confrontation (or will be confronted anyway) with the question of "how independent am I?" And I think by now I have a pretty good idea who far this can go or not, that is at least for me. Having traced a good bit through middle europe in a continuos streach, I also realized how dense the villages and cities are distributed all over these countries. Later in 2007 I had the chance to visit Matavenero in the north of Spain. A community of people that tried to found an independent village, largely providing for themselves. There I learned about the difficulties they encountered and out of an idealistic project became some holiday village, that was mostly populated during the summer. This was very much in line with my own experience of realizing that the state penetrates almost any corner of middle europe.
Beside these rather idealistic reflections that where accompanying me throughout this trip, I also learned a lot of stuff, that is not so easy to put in words. While walking, throughout the day my body thought me a lot about rhythm and anatomy. For instance when walking down a hill or mountain, I learned to look into the distance instead of the path. If you use all your articulations right, the steps do not result in a propagation of the shock right up the spinal cord making shake you head and view, but walking becomes almost like floating through the landscape. My rule of thumb is that once your marching becomes quiet (avoiding brawly steps), than you have found the optimal pace. A nice side effect is, that animals are less disturbed by you walking through their territory and you get the chance to actually see them. When the wind would blow in my face, I managed to approach groundhogs and other awe animals to the surprise both, animal and myself.

One of these encounters was not far away from where I started. that day I was going corss-country not following any particular path and often ending up on these little trails that are traced by the animals. You don't really see it as a path, but when the terrain is difficult I sometimes realized, that the bushes where a little less dense and the trajectory of these traces seems usually the ideal way to go. Along one of these paths I found a nice spot next to a tree covered in dead, dry leaves. I decided to lay there and since I was tired I tried to go a sleep just before dusk. Lying with my head towards the tree, I suddenly heard weird noises. I listened harder and decided at some point that there was something. I got up, grabbed my walking stick and standing next to the tree I looked around. Nothing. Then I was slowly peering behind the tree where I met the stare of a deer and was shouting in surprise. It went away and probably was pissed of that I took his spot. Before sliding back into my sleeping bag (just a bivouac), I marked my territory in only a five meter radius.
A funny thing was also, that during that time, there was a Lynx spotted in the Jura. No, no, I did not get to see that one though, but speaking with farmers, this topic came up from time to time. It was said that the animal has been spotted around here. So a shepherd was joking about the Lynx biting me in my but. My retort was that I don't worry as long as there are his sheep around. After quitting my remark with a sour smile he than said: "Anyway, you don't have to be afraid of the animals, as long as you respect them. It's the men you should approach with care."
Another moment that was quite marking happened a couple of kilometers south of Aosta. It was late afternoon and sunny when I just crossed a pass and entered a valley on about 2000m altitude. The vegetation was gaunt; grasses, dosh and these beautiful, filigree alpine flowers. I stopped to deposit the backpack and rest my shoulders. When my breath had become calm, I realized that I was emerged in a complete silence. I listened harder - no wind, no nothing, just a little tinnitus in my ear. Silence!
A real spectacle happened at a refuge a few kilometers after a pass and a couple of hours away from Pont-Canavese. The tiny refuge was in the middle of the valley with a beautiful view downhill. I had to get up around midnight urged by my full bladder. When I opened the door of the refuge I saw a clear dark sky full of stars and even before I could make a step outside, a shooting star traced the sky form one horizon of the valley to the other on the opposite side. I involuntarily commented with "boooaah!" and felt very happy.

Interestingly the voyage ended somewhat like a pilgrimage. In a small village near Aosta I got to know a priest who offered to me to go to an abbey in Genova, apparently I was pilgrim enough to him. I actually did that and after I said who sent me I was invited to stay over the night. The abbot was a very pleasant person who was joking about washing my feet at my arrival as it is a custom in Santjago de Compostela. But I didn't felt that much a pilgrim.
From there I also sent cards to people that I met along the way and who asked a post card at my arrival in Genova, at the sea.