Guest from New York

Pam and Eric are out for a dusk walk - either they need to digest their raclette (melted cheese on potatoes), or they need some alone time.

They arrived yesterday from New York. Pam, of course, is Eric's significant other, from Portland as well, living in NY, a tap dancer.

After spring weather, slush and mud, we are back into winter. Almost a foot of fresh snow last Friday, and again enough last night for a true winter wonderland for my visitors this morning. I coaxed them out of bed with fresh croissants, and I admit that I was impressed by how quickly they got going, given that they had been up a good part of the night watching movies and eating whatever they could find - jetlag will do that to you! So this morning it was once again perfectly blue sky, over perfectly white snow... I felt bad rushing them, but by now I know the weather patterns. We hustled to catch the 10:30 am train, to take the walk up to the mouth of the glacier. It paid off. It was sunny, warm, the view was awesome - and just as we got back to the train station, the clouds closed in and it started again to snow.

The picture is of Pam and Eric having lunch in the cave at the mouth of the glacier. With the sun beating down on us, it was warm enough to be in a t-shirt!

I am glad to have visitors this week. Last week was challenging: it was too slushy and muddy for either skiing or good walking. I still forced myself to go out every day, but it was not easy to find something to do - I had to strategize each day as to where the walking would be the least painful. Now, with guests, and winter weather it's much easier.

I did have a great day last week: snowshoeing in the national park. I signed up for a tour, but I ended up being the only participant, i.e. I had my own private guide. Although he usually wants a minimum of 2 participants, he wanted to go nevertheless because he wanted to test the snow. I had a great day, we went for some 5 hours, with fortunately a hut almost every hour to huddle in the wind shield and eat and drink. However, the test was negative: it had been quite warm the previous few days, and the snow was rotting, i.e., under a thin crust, it was disintegrating. Every few steps the crust would give and the guide would fall through, sinking in up to mid-thigh, despite the snowshoes. Since I was a bit lighter, I didn't fall through as often - thank God. Each time it scared the daylight out of me - you never know when the snow will give out under you. Then it was downright dangerous and I was worrying about twisting a knee or an ankle. Climbing back out was at a minimum very tiring, and sometimes very difficult. Once I was unable to make it on my own and the guide had to help me. At the end, he was even more tired than I was! Nevertheless, I had a great time - except for one other party we were alone and the landscape was dramatic, with clouds and breaks of sunshine.

On another note: Monday I submitted 2 job applications: one to be a ticket checker on the little red train, the other to work in the tourism office in St. Moritz. My mature age and my sketchy work history in Switzerland are strikes against me - but I had to try. If I am offered either of these jobs I would stay here for a few years - probably to retirement. It would solve both my financial and my existential problems.

Going to Davos

Last Friday I got up at 5am to catch the 6:13am train to make it in time to my 8am appointment in Davos. Davos is north of Zuoz, on the north side of the Alps, not very far as the crow flies, but the train has to make a huge detour. Make that 3 trains, actually. I had an appointment with Gian-Paul Calonder, the man who is responsible for environmental issues for the municipality of Davos. It was informative, interesting, and he had good ideas for how I could become involved. If I decide to stay in the area for longer than just a few months I might pursue them. Since I didn't know Davos at all, I decided to make a day of it. The meeting was over by 9am, and so indeed I had a great long day ahead of me. Gian-Paul recommended I hike on the interpretative trail he had designed. I hiked the rural section in the morning, the more urban one in the afternoon. Thanks to the signs and a brochure, I learned much about the area. Yes, this is the Davos where the World Economic Forum meets, and also the Davos featured by Thomas Mann in The Magic Mountain. Before the invention of antibiotics, consumption patients (tuberculosis) were sent to Davos to spend several months in one of the sanitoriums (a cross between a hotel and a clinic) to rest and allow the fresh air to heal them. Davos has its own architecture style: most houses have a flat roof, which is now required by the construction code. The flat roofs prevent the accumulated snow to fall into the streets, while the snow provides a thermal blanket preventing heat loss from the buildings.



This week marked the major transition from winter to spring, or, from skiing to walking in slush and mud! The warm weather has arrived very suddenly and has turned the ski tracks into a sticky line in the snow - nothing I'd want to ski on. Water is dripping and running everywhere. The creeks have emerged from their snow and ice cover and are rushing down from the mountains. Because there's so much snow, the winter hiking trails will take another while to morph into regular hiking trails. Presently they are predominantly slush, which makes for difficult, messy and very tiring hiking. Today I decided I had had enough of that and took the train some 45' down the valley to find solid ground. What a pleasure! I am rediscovering the smell of the woods warmed by the sun. The birds are busy courting, and I notice that their symphony is different from the scores they use in Oregon. Different birds, different pitches, different tunes. And all of a sudden I am reminded of the woods behind Neuchatel, my home town. Recently I saw my first butterfly and the first swallow. Today it was the first wild flowers, wild crocus, and the first blade of green grass!

While today's hike was very relaxing, this is not always the case. Yesterday I left home on foot, going down the valley to enter the next lateral one. I knew that the army was having their exercises. Since Monday, planes are constantly circling the area - very noisy. As I was passing above the army compound, I saw the anti-aircraft guns pointed in a direction that seemed straight at me! I could hear the commands to fire from their loud speaker (very loud!), but couldn't hear the guns until I had changed my direction somewhat. I heard the first salve just as I had a woodpecker in my binoculars. Both the woodpecker (never to be seen again) and I jumped/flew! It was the most unpleasant hike. I did not feel threatened, since I was on an official winter hiking trail and I presumed the army takes this kind of info into account. A little further I saw a information board: DANGER. It was placed a ways from the trail, so that I had to leave the trail to read the finer print, getting mired knee deep in the soggy snow. On the board, a lousy map of the danger zone, the transition zone, and the safe zone. Now I am pretty good at reading maps, and I know the area quite well, but the map was of such bad quality that I could not figure out whether I had just crossed the danger zone or not... Going forward I decided to play it safe and follow one of the two roads leading to the village up the lateral valley. A ways up the road I found a barrier blocking it. Since at this spot there is some kind of official building (pump house?) I decided that the barrier was to prevent cars from proceeding - and I went on, happy because I could no longer hear the guns and decided that therefore I must be safe. As the road reached town, there was another barrier, and this time also a sign: road closed because of avalanche danger!!! This took the last bit of fun I had on the walk, and I walked back to the bus stop - using the road on the other side of the little valley. As I was waiting for the bus I heard a big rumbling and with my binocs observed a huge avalanche tumble down across the main valley! With the warmth everything is thawing out and coming lose. I had already seen an avalanche the day before!

I keep thinking that one of these days I'll feel bored or lonely. It definitely hasn't happened yet. I am not doing anything, really, but time just flies. Because I am having so much fun? I can't even find time to clean house, let alone wash the windows which sorely needed it. I increasingly like the simplicity of life here. True, life is easier and simpler when one doesn't have to hold a job. Still, I like not having a car. I am feeling so free and nimble. I haven't seen a traffic light in weeks, let alone been stuck at one! In Portland grocery shopping is a chore. Here it's fun. Just a 3 minutes walk from my house, and I usually run into someone I know.

In case you are not aware of it: I have posted my February pics on Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/irenevlach/February2010#

Engadiner Marathon

Sunday March 14 was the day of the Engadiner cross-country ski marathon. It has been a yearly event since 1969 and my racing friends tell me that it is one of the largest races. This year 11,000 skiers competed. Since my last posting my time has been framed by this event. During the week before the marathon the population of the valley just about doubles. The infrastructure for the race is astounding and everybody is involved at some level, from the Swiss army to Irene!

As I mentioned in my last posting, Buck arrived all the way from Grand Marais (MN) for the race. The day after his arrival we took the train to St. Moritz to pick up his bib. The Nordic center already was a hive of activity, with music, booths, waxing services, athletes milling around. On Friday his friend Tim, also from Grand Marais, joined us. Buck knew on which train he would arrive, and we took a beautiful walk up the Val Bever, at the end of which we hopped on that train - and indeed Tim was on it! He quickly settled in, ate a hearty snack and the two guys were off for a late afternoon ski outing - a mere 28 k! The next day Tim met up with Spanish racing friends and together they checked out one of the more challenging stretches of the course, between St. Moritz and Pontresina. Buck had decided that he would run the marathon for the enjoyment of it and therefore opted to ski with me rather than train for the next day. This is what real athletes are made off: they are in such good shape that they don't even need to do special training for a marathon. I am not an athlete.

So Buck and I headed to the start of the marathon at Maloja. While the marathon course goes straight through the middle of the frozen lakes in the upper Engadin, we took the more difficult but so much more interesting trails along the southern edge of the lakes. Lunch was at Isola, a town on the south shore of lake Sils with no road access. It feels like going back a couple of centuries. I gave up after some 10 k. My back was still bothering me (I ended up seeing a chiropractor on Monday) and we were skiing against a nasty headwind.

That night I fed my two athletes the required pasta. When I got up the next morning - race day - they were long gone, to be in Maloja with the other 10,998 skiers at the start time of 9:00am. Meanwhile I went to the Zuoz feeding post - at 9am.



It was a gorgeous but very cold morning. By 10 am the elite runners whizzed by: ahead of the group was Dario Cologna who had won the gold medal for the 15 k race at the Olympics (they had started 15 minutes before the other participants). After a short break the next group arrived - and for the next 4 hours it was an uninterrupted line of skiers. Those who made the race in a couple of hours didn't need any refreshments. But as their time increased and the sun got hotter, they arrived more and more tired, more and more hungry and dehydrated. The first ones would grab a cup on the fly, sometimes missing and splashing both themselves and me. The later it got, the more time the skiers were willing to take to refuel and hear a few words of encouragement. There were the aggressive ones, those who took the race very seriously. They were followed by the many who were just proud to be able to do it. After noon some arrived wearing costumes. All kinds of animals, Scots in kilts, Mexicans dragging a cactus, sexily-clad Italian women, Swiss guards... After 1pm the most moving racers arrived: teams where obviously a good skier was hanging back to encourage a weaker spouse or friend; those who were way behind but nevertheless had huge smiles on their faces and said thank you when given a drink. And last, but not least, the classic skiers, many of them very old, many of them running the race for the 30th or 40th time. And I was humbled by all of them - they all are heroes in my eyes!

By the time I met up with my athletes at my house (they both had done really well!) they were showered and all rested up, ready to go on a nice big walk, followed by a great meal in a restaurant. Tim left on Monday afternoon, after I took my guests to the ice cave at the Morteratsch Glacier. Buck had another two days. On one we skied together the 19km down to Zernez. By then everybody had gone home and we met only one other person on the trail. However, we did meet a chamois that crossed the trail just a few meters ahead of us. Then we were fortunate enough to be able to observe it for quite a while as it made its way up the forest. The following day, Buck's last full day, we hiked up Val Roseg, out of Pontresina. It took us forever because the valley was lousy with chamois and we spent much time spotting them, counting them, observing as they were grazing on the southern slope's patches of grass.

Buck left this afternoon, with the cold Tim has passed on to him. I am keeping my fingers crossed for not catching it as well.

Chamois and Gypaetus Barbatus

My friend Buck arrived today from the United States to run Saturday's cross-country ski marathon. Having not slept in some 36 hours, he turned in early and I am using the quiet evening to write. You'd think that all my evenings are quiet, but that's not the case. Last Friday Brigitte arrived for the weekend, so the evenings were spent in conversation. Monday was rumauntsch class, yesterday the detective movie on TV. It's the only night of the week when I watch TV, and invariably one or another friend calls. Ruthlessly, I tell them I'll call back at 9pm when I know who the murderer was. So last night it was Pierre. I had just hung up with him when Paul skyped from Brussels, and after that long conversation it was Eric's turn! All much fun, but not what I would describe as a quiet evening. And this morning at 8:15am I was back on Skype, this time with sister Francoise in Australia!

One of the conversations Brigitte and I kept coming back to was the reconnecting with my father's second wife and her son. For those of you who don't know: Mom died in 1970. Dad remarried in 1972 and separated from that wife in 1977. Shortly afterward he got into a relationship with the woman who would be his partner for the next 30 years, until his death. Some of you also know that Jocelyne, Dad's partner, declared a few years ago that she couldn't stand me. She also gradually cut Dad off from most of his friends, and eventually estranged herself from the whole family. She last visited Dad a whole week before he died and did not come to the funeral. Despite my sisters' efforts to reach out to her, she no longer is in contact with us. However, just as we were losing her, we reconnected with Dad's ex-wife. It was a difficult marriage, we didn't like her, we all were hurting from our recent losses (she was widowed as well). Her son came to Dad's funeral and reintroduced himself to us. He is now in his 40s - I had neither seen him, nor had any news from him since I emigrated to Canada when he was 13. One thing leading to another, Brigitte visited Marcelle (the ex-wife) last week, and had a really pleasant time. It is quite ironic that we are reconnecting with this difficult and painful past, but in a very positive way, as we are grieving not only for our father, but also for Jocelyne whom we all used to like.

We've just had a terribly cold week - probably record breaking, to hear the locals complain. The only sign of spring is the fact that the days are getting longer. The river, which was running unobstructed just a week ago, is again freezing up in many places. Much strategy is required for any ski outing or walk. The cold takes a lot out of me and I need to eat to keep my energy, but it's too cold, really, to stop to eat. Fortunately the area is dotted with mountain restaurants that are eager to serve hot drinks and goodies. Sometimes I scarf down a sandwich just before getting off the train, to make sure I can make it all the way to the next warming opportunity before hypoglycemia hits. Those of you who have been hiking or skiing with me, know what I am talking about. Skiing or walking is ok despite the cold while the wind is in the back. On many days there has been a bitter cold and strong east wind that's no fun to deal with. Sometimes I can barely see the trail because my eyes water despite the glasses. And when I get home I am exhausted. I thought I was becoming a wimp until I realized that my sister was even more tired than I am!

At least, some of these cold days were also absolutely gorgeous. That means a cloudless sky, ice floes sailing down the river, steps and ski poles screeching in the cold dry snow, and the 4,000 meter tall peaks huge, clear, towering above the glaciers. I took advantage of these sunny days to explore a couple of high altitude side-valleys. At times the beauty of it all is almost overwhelming. With Brigitte I saw chamois (a goat/antilope kind of animal) and Gypaetus barbatus, Bartgeier, a huge vulture kind of bird recently reintroduced into the National Park and now expanding throughout the valley. On my own I skied to the mouth of the Morteratsch glacier. Said mouth actually is an ice cave. While in the summer it's dangerous because of crumbling ice, in the winter the cave is stable and safe to visit. A feeling of awe and timelessness, since this ice now visible to my eyes has been part of the glacier for perhaps hundreds of years, and also a feeling of loss, since the glacier itself is shrinking at a scary pace. When I was a kid the hike to the mouth was indeed substantially shorter.


All would be fine if my back wasn't acting up again - for no reason. Today was spent alternating walking up to the train station every hour to pick up Buck (I didn't know when he would arrive) and lying on my bag of frozen peas! I hope that between the peas and the Aleve I'll be ok tomorrow!

Chalandamarz

Every one knows - or should know - that March 1 is Neuchatel (my home town) Independence Day. I am embarrassed to admit that this year I forgot. However, I have a good excuse: in Zuoz it's the most important holiday of the year: Chalandamarz. The tradition goes back all the way to the times when the valley was occupied by the Romans (BC) and it probably marked the beginning of the New Year. When the date of the New Year shifted to January 1, the tradition evolved into a rite to chase away winter. In most towns it takes place only on March 1. But Zuoz is too big to get it all done in one day - so it's a 2-day affair. It starts on February 28, at 7am. The boys (up to 9th grade), dressed in traditional garb, as a group, go from house to house. If the entry way of the house is large enough to accommodate them all, they enter, otherwise, the stay outside, and the owner of the house comes to the door step. They then sing, 2-3 songs per house, and between songs they ring the cow bells they all are carrying around their waist.

Another friend was visiting that weekend, Jacqueline, whom I met in 1971, in Geneva. We got up at the crack of dawn to follow the boys for a while. We got hungry before it was time for their mid-morning snack and treated ourselves to fresh croissant at the bakery on the main square. We then had to go home, for Jacqueline to collect her belongings and catch her train back to Geneva. At 10:15 the boys were arriving in my neighborhood. Two of them don't carry cow bells. Instead they wear sashes of little bells and an urn around their neck: they are the cashiers, receiving the donations from the public. At 12:30 I again walked up to the main square: a train of horse-drawn wagons has assembled and were getting ready to load up the boys and take them to the next town where they were going to spend a good part of the afternoon, still going from house to house for their ritual signing and bell ringing. It felt odd to see all the boys leave town and just the grown-ups remain on the square. The sounds of the bells were gone too and the town all of a sudden felt very quiet.

At 4pm they were expected to return - and I met them at the far end of town. Meanwhile it had started to snow quite hard. The boys were still singing and ringing. I had much admiration for them, as they had been at it for some 9 hours already, and especially the little ones were starting to slow down.

The festivities continued the next morning, March 1. The boys' schedule started mid-morning, working yet another part of the village. I met them at 11am, as they were reassembling after a break for the last part: the old houses in the center of town. Meanwhile the women teachers had dressed up in the traditional red costume specific to the valley. Second to last came the school house, and the very last house was the town hall. They then assembled on the stairs of the school and gave yet another performance of all the songs to the whole population now assembled on the square. Monday was a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky and you could almost believe that spring was not too far off. The public part of the program ended with the ceremonial cracking of the whips. The boys had been practicing since February 1. I have never seen anything like that. The 9th graders gave a stunning performance, followed by the younger boys all eager to show their mastery of the art. And when the boys were done, adult men, in turn, walked onto the reserved space and showed that they could still do it.

It was all very beautiful, colorful, and moving. The children really were the most important people in the village during those days - everything revolved around them. In the afternoon of the 2nd day they were treated to food and games, and then dancing. The adults had to wait until 11pm to have access to the dance floor. Needless to say that I was in bed by then.

The only sad part for me was that the girls were excluded from the public part of the festivities. They were at the party of the last afternoon, but they were never seen in public. The 9th grade girls were the exception, being allowed to walk through the town with the boys. However, they were wearing their every day clothes, and therefore didn't seem to be really part of the honored group.

That afternoon I took advantage of the great weather to ski all the way to Zernez - 19 kilometers. As I was passing various towns at a distance, I could hear either cow bells, or the cracking of whips - as the children of those towns also were busy chasing away winter.