Snowshoeing

So Saturday was Orrin’s three month birthday.  And we thought what kind of a Swiss kid hasn’t climbed a mountain by the time he’s three months old?!  So by golly we took him to a mountain and he climbed it!

See him there?  Right in front of Brett in the blue hat.

 

We tied on some snow shoes and away we went.  We let some friends come along.  This is David and Sarah, and Josephine (she’s two months older than Orrin and riding in front of her daddy).  And there was Hans, who actually  led the expedition.

We were incredibly lucky and could not have asked for a more beautiful day.  Look at the perfect blue sky!  Ahhhhhhhhh (angels singing).    This was our first rest, about half-way up the mountain.

 

So, I had told my friend Talitha that we were going snowshoeing (when I was asking if she could babysit my hooligans), and she responded with “Uggghh!  It’s like dying a thousand deaths!”  And I laughed at her.  Then I started climbing the mountain.  And I died.  A thousand times. 

Now, I like to think that I’m not in tooo terrible of shape, but then again, I don’t really compare myself to really athletic, fit people.  I only compare myself to normal people.  ;)  Well, whatever, all I know is that I started dying a little bit.  At first it wasn’t too bad, and I had my pride, you know, so when I was about ready to call a rest, and Hans pointed in the distance to the cabin/lodge place and said that that was the first stop, I didn’t say anything and kept going.  But after that rest when we kept going, I definitely was a straggler.  It was steep!  And a mountain!  And we were trudging through snow in snowshoes!  And I just had a baby three months ago!  And, ummm… I’m out of excuses. 

And it was hot!  I mean, after we had gone a ways, we stopped and everyone pulled off some clothes (which sounds more exciting than it really was).  See Brett?  He was in a t-shirt a lot of the way.  Then someone brought up the hiker who got in trouble last winter for hiking in only shoes and nothing else.  Then the conversation naturally turned to nudists, as both Sarah and David have some in the family.  We debated the various pros and cons (full-body tan vs. sunburns in areas you’d rather not sunburn, one with nature vs. poked in the rear with sticks/rocks, or ants crawling anywhere they wish). 

The following two pictures were at our second rest stop at another hut.  We only had a bit left, and it wasn’t too steep, and they had me walk first to set the pace.  Pretty cool.  Kinda like being picked last for a team.  Just kidding.

See how red my face was!  This was definitely a work-out.

And we made it!!!!  And it was all worth it!!  Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky.

~Thomas Campbell

  

This is Hans drinking some Rivella- the Swiss pop of choice.  Weirdly, it contains dairy—whey, I guess (and in my opinion it is not the greatest).  As the guidebook says, “Switzerland is not for the lactose intolerant.”  We thought Hans standing there with his Rivella in front of the peaks looked like a pretty awesome advertisement.

    

Cute little family picture, with some perty good background stuff.

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!

~John Muir

 

Just snackin’ and chattin’ at the top of the world.

Then the descent.  MUCH faster, but not as easy as you might imagine.  Brett and I were laughing because the night before we had looked up a couple of youtube videos about how to snowshoe, which were pretty superfluous.  There was one in particular about how to get up when you’ve fallen down, and the instructor said, “If you fall, just get your feet back under you, and get up.”  So when Brett and I fell, we’d say, “Just get back up.”  Ha ha.  It was fun.

Crazy kids.

I really, REALLY need to just hit the books—or manual, rather—and figure out how to take snow pictures so I don’t overexpose them so much.  Okay, enough about that.

 

This picture kindof illustrates how steep it was and you can see Sarah is down.  We all fell at least a few times.  If my legs hadn’t been so tired it would have been a lot easier.  (Which makes sense, right?)

Now, I really appreciate each of these pictures because I had to make them all stop and wait while I took them.  But the sun was going down, and honestly it was the most GORGEOUS, buttery, soft, golden light and I could not NOT take pictures.  It was so beautiful and quiet and perfect.  We all agreed that it’s incredible that anyone could see this world and not acknowledge that it was created by the hand of God. 

 

 

The end.