Switzerland - I love the mountains.

Picture: View from Chalet Martin where I stayed in Gryon

My first day in the Swiss alps necessitated some very important things. the first of which was the needed to get some Swiss Francs. It seems that I am a bit naive and figured that Switzerland had adopted the the Euro like many of the EU countries. The second was getting food as I was without.

Since I had now Swiss money as of yet I couldn't take the tram/train up the hill to the village of Villar. Instead, I hiked in the 5km with my laptop to add surfing the next to my list of things I wanted to do.

Picture: Swiss Village of Villar.

The hike was long and uneventful. I got on the net and bought food for the week. I took the tram ride back and spent the rest of the day gorging myself on the food. The next day it rained so I spent most of the day sleeping in and relaxing with the people at the hostel. It was a terrible shame since this was the only day that Matt had available to go climbing. Matt did tell me about some boulder fields up near Solalex, a 5 km hike up the hill.

The next day the sun had returned so I grabbed Matts crash pad and my shoes and head up to Solalex. The hike was mostly off the road. I arrived at Solalex after about 1.5 hours. The hike brought me in front of the Mirroir D’Argent – a 500m high sport climbing wall. The routes up this wall were many and varied from 16 pitch 5.10a to 5.11d. The boulder fields were made from the rock that was shed from mountain top.

Picture: Miroir D'Argent - 500m of limestone!

The bouldering was fun despite the stinging nettles that were growing around the base of the boulders. The problems were conveniently developed with little white arrows painted at their base to indicate the start. It took several goes to work out the problems. I ticked off most of the problem in the area with the exception of a dyno problem that pulled off a sit start and two pockets to in-cut flake nearly full arm span away. After 3 hours of bouldering I was spent and the light was slipping away so I headed back down the road.

Picture: Boulder Field at the base of the Miroir D'Argent near Solalex.

The night had fallen when I wander back into the Chalet Martin to find Matt and everyone at the hostel drinking Mojitos. Matt said we could catch a half day of climbing the following morning as he didn’t have any contracting. I put back a few Mojitos before returning for the night just a touch wobbly.



The next morning I was up and ready to go by 9 AM when Matt returned from his bike ride. We pilled into his Van and headed to a crag on the other side of the valley called Sex Du Corbeau. We warmed up on some easier routes before turning up the challenge on a slightly wet 6c and then a really nice 7a. I fell off both but had a good time. We started packing up to leave when four English climber showed up and offered to let me join them and give me a ride back to the train station in Bex so I could get back.

Their names were Jon, Jon, Bruce and Susan. Two of them were climbers from Geneve who worked for CERN so we instantly had the nerd connection. We talked a bit about the particle accelerator they have there and how there is legal action currently against the installation to prevent them from completing the high energy particle accelerator as there is fear it might open a black hole that could swallow the planet. I told them about my trip and how I was debating if I should go to Ceuse or Magic Wood for bouldering next. Bruce said he had just dropped off a single climber from the US who was climbing the same grades I was roughly. So I decided that I would go to Ceuse after visiting Kevin Baumer in Lausanne.

After pulling down several more fun 6b’s I got on a beautiful overhanging 6c+ that exhausted me for the day. With the light failing we packed up and headed down to car. Because I had forgotten my wallet back in my pack at home they gave me a ride all the way back to Chalet Martin even though it was far out of the way.

That night I packed up so that I could check out and head down to Lausanne to meet up with Kevin. I hadn’t had internet access for the last couple of days so I wasn’t able to warn Kevin of the exact time of my arrival. So when I rolled into Lausanne at noon on Friday morning he wasn’t aware that I would be there. I found a internet café and spent the day there. I got a message through to Kevin and he met me at the café after work.

We went out drinking and caught up on old times. It was really fun, we did a lot of people watching that night as we moves from pub to pub. The Swiss definitely tend to keep to themselves and after a certain age doesn’t seem at all interested in forming new social bonds. I gathered this from observing them and how Kevin relayed his experience with them.

Picture: Kevin on the streets of Lausanne.

The next day we were a bit hung over so we moved very very slowly. We went out to go shopping and then walking around Lausanne in the afternoon. Kevin showed me his work and I bought camp stove fuel for when I got to Ceuse.

Kevin and I talked about books we had read recently. Mostly Kevin who has been into interesting books and he passed on 1984 and Girls of Riyadh to me for my time in Ceuse. I had no book for him with the exception of sharing what I had read so far of Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception.

The following day I was to leave for Apt France and had to be up early. I said good bye to Kevin that night. He was a generous host and it was good to catch up with my old friend.

Next stop, arguably the best climbing crag in the world.