When my husband suggested a few moths ago that we should hike the Panorama Weg around Lake Thun, I nodded absent-mindedly. He would either forget, or remember who I am and thus understand that this would never happen.
Unfortunately, I miscalculated just how determined he was, and over the past weeks have found myself on numerous training walks and reading up on how to prevent blisters. We sacrificed our spring holiday to climb Ingleborough Mountain in Yorkshire and I spent a lot of time crying or nearly crying or at least thinking about crying. I absolutely dreaded it for a number of reasons, one of them being that I simply did not feel fit enough to even consider walking for four days. This fear inspired - at least in part - the alphabet of sports journey.
Despite doing all I could to prevent it (including getting a migraine the night before), the day arrived, the bags were packed and the laces tied.
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| Ready to set off, Thun train station in the background |
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| This is what I thought it would be like. I mean, I did expect it to be hard... |
What I did not expect was that the Swiss were sensible to close off paths that had been affected by a recent bout of powerful thunderstorms and therefore potentially dangerous.
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| I forgot to draw the horseflies.... they were all there... they were all hungry. |
Following one of the detours back into the valley we found what we thought was a sort cut - a set of steps that looked to bring us back onto the right height to continue on the path. I stopped counting at 300, but Matthew is confident that there were 430. My guess is closer to 764.
This first detour was not ideal, but I thought it would make it all a bit more of an adventure. When we came across the second closed path, I did feel quite differently - I desperately scoured the map for alternative paths that would prevent us from having to go back into the valley from where we would have to climb again. We were confident we had found one - only to found ourselves limping across a field and scrambling up the edge of a stream to try and find an actual path. Map reading... another skill to be learnt.
During the second unplanned ascent I recall thinking that I was quite impressed with myself. Up to that point I had found it hard and felt my heart sink, but even after finding the path closed twice I didn't consider turning around. Mentally I patted my own shoulder and felt we were now on the final straight. Nothing could go wrong now...
Having finally rejoined the official path, I learnt differently: A number of trees had been blown over by the storms, obstructing the path. At this point, I told Matthew that there was no point, we could't go on and had to turn around. Ignoring me, he marched on, climbing over trunks, branches and through leafy crowns. He was still carrying water and Banana chips - what can a girl do other than follow?
It turned out to be the right choice. Scratched and bleeding from a cut on my leg we arrived at yet another high plateau - the final one of the day.
The last thing left to do was to cross the Panorama bridge - something I had been quite excited about. However, looking down into the 182m rough and wild gorge, my heart did stop for a little second. Only long enough to remember that the alternative would be an additional climb of 45 minutes.
Arriving on the other side, I was greeted by a smiling attendant with the words "Your first time crossing?" "Yes?" "I can always tell - people desperately hang on to the handrail the first time they cross. After a while they realise that - if it all were to collapse - the handrail would go with them".
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And then: Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, A summary on walking
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| We took about a million pictures of the stunning views - we won't bore you. |
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| OK, we'll bore you a little. But that's it. |
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