jumpingfish

Do you remember those apple trees? Those gnarly apple trees? 

There was the easy one. Just around the corner from the clubhouse. The room we called the clubhouse that was attached to the back corner of the barn. The room with the dirt floor and the door that you had to push hard to open. The room with shelves of boxes of treasures that didn’t seem to have been touched in centuries. The clubhouse with a window looking out into the Jone’s yard until Bunka and his cousin built that stone fireplace just outside. The easy tree was just around the corner from there.

And then there was the row of the others. Were there two or three in that row? I remember three just outside the shed on the backside of the barn where we got wood for making swords. Just uphill from the Sycamore that Nani and Bunka planted somewhere near the tetherball pole hole that we were never able to find again. Those were the trees that Ben and Burt climbed.

But oh, the easy one… Its low branches bent out so gracefully over the lawn, and it was a breeze to climb. With only a slight pang of (unregretted) inferiority and not a moment of hesitation, I remember preferring it to the harder ones every time, because you didn’t have to jump so far to get down. And because that tree whispered to me every time I walked by.

You remember them, I know you do. You just mentioned them as something that is woven into the you who you are. Me, too. Let’s go climb them, shall we?

So yes, I was the pokey little puppy on that hike down the mountain. And yes, Jerry and Gabrielle and Trudy had to repeatedly wait for me,

which admittedly they did with sincere smiles on their faces.

Yet every time they waited, I would fall behind again, because, well… because.

Epic, you say? There should have been bread pudding, you say? I agree. There should’ve been. For all we know, there probably was bread pudding the next night. They know comfort food at Sardonahütte. But there was no bread pudding the night we were there, which was no real loss, because we made prompt bee lines to our beds very soon after dinner.

Although the room was mighty cold when we laid ourselves down, sometime in the night by virtue of the eight people in that room we jettisoned most of our covers, and by morning it was mighty toasty.

After a hearty breakfast of coffee and … (on second thought, I won’t list specifics lest my memory lapse again), we packed and made ready for our descent.

We were greeted by the morning.

And the clouds. Yes, the clouds blew over the crags just above us.

Some of the hardy hiking men from the night before booted up, threw their packs onto their backs and continued trekking deeper into the mountains to another hut somewhere far away.

And with that, we began our descent.

I’m telling you, I told Jerry and Gabrielle and Trudy. I’m going to be slow. This is a good day for pictures.They smiled and nodded, and I promptly stopped and looked back at Sardonahütte which was already hidden behind the rise.

And as I turned back, they had already begun to leave me in the dust.

So this is how it’s going to be, I thought to myself and took hold of my trekking poles and set off to catch up (which in the event I never did).

After the hike up to Sardonahütte from Vättis, we were a little bit cold, a little bit wet (and I was massively sweaty).

I suppose if it had been earlier in the summer rather than September, it might have been warmer, and we might have found it pleasant to relax outside taking in the view, visually retracing our route up valley. But it wasn’t summer, and the day before it had snowed in the mountains just above us. (Alternatively, it could be that I am just a Texan and that the weather that day was indeed balmy by Swiss standards and I was just being lame.) In any event, we went straight inside.

Now, Sardonahütte is hardly a hut. It is a large, comfortable alpine cabin. Even the word cabin does not do it justice. See for yourself:

credit: Sardonahütte/Wikipedia

It has three stories, a lower basement-like, dug-into-the-mountainside floor where you take off your boots and coats and where you find the bathrooms and sinks and showers, a middle story with the kitchen and dining areas and an upper story with the unisex dorm-style bedrooms.

Upon arrival, our hosts took us upstairs where we staked a claim on some palettes (having been the first to arrive), and we opened our backpacks and changed out of our sweaty clothes.

credit: Sardonahütte

Over the next few hours, others arrived in twos and threes. When we finally all sat down to dinner, the dining area (part of the new wing that they had added on to the building in the early summer with the construction materials being flown in by helicopter) was full. We ate heartily — bread and butter and generous pots of stroganoff. And there was a bread pudding for dessert, something which lit Trudy’s eyes afire.

Afterwards, we sat for a while and talked with the people sharing our table as hardy hiking men at the table across the room drank beer and told stories and laughed, gradually growing louder just as Gabrielle said they would. And then … well, then there was nothing left  to do other than retire, which we were quite willing to do.

As we were getting ready for bed, with the fair and industrious Trudy upstairs scooting our two palettes closer together so as to simulate a queen bed, I went downstairs to brush my teeth and wash up (chuckling at the notion that someone might actually use those showers in that unheated basement in weather like that). And as if to top off the day, as I rinsed my toothbrush I heard the hardy hiking men just outside the window talking and laughing loudly and then — I kid you not — yodeling.

Yes. There, at the end of that spectacular hike in the Alps, for just a few brief moments, there were Swiss men outside in the chill night air under the turning stars yodeling loudly in multipart harmony.

Moooooooaaaaaaa, my brother texted me.

Now to understand this, you must understand my brother… or rather you must understand us, which you probably don’t. At least my guess is that you don’t know what he meant. So I will translate.

He was making cow sounds in response to that story that involved cows.

But I must tell you that the relevant sound wasn’t the lowing of those Swiss cows but their bells. And I have a confession to make: when I told the story, I used the word clang to describe the sound of the bells. But these were not cowbells of the clanging kind. These were cowbells of the singing sort.

I have not the time to describe them any further. So instead, I leave you with them: