Reflections

by John Banks

It’s not just the mountains………

I was in my mid-fifties when I discovered the Alps, since when, for the last twenty five years, I have spent a month walking over high passes every summer, usually alone. There have been days of intense happiness, days of monsoon-like rain, I’ve been lost, ended in the wrong valley (occasionally in the wrong country), I’ve given up when I should have carried on and carried on when I should have given up. Sometimes exhausted, occasionally terrified, but always aware of just how lucky I am. The closest I’ve been to death was on an Austrian postbus near to Obergurgl. Stopping to let people off, the driver left his seat to deal with a jammed back door. The door closed and the automatic brake came off and we slowly rolled backwards through a fence and stopped, thanks to a quick acting passenger near the front, as the rear of the bus was poised over the abyss in the manner of ‘The Italian Job’. This proved conclusively and satisfactorily that public transport is more dangerous than alpine walking. But this is not about thrills and spills, vistas and blisters. It’s about the unexpectedly memorable experiences that we all collect on our Alpine journeys.

Extortion by the Aletschgletscher

It was early in the season and I appeared to be the only person walking on the path below the Eggishorn high above the glacier. I saw a group of workmen walking towards me, picks and shovels over their shoulders. As we met, their leader spoke to me in German. I replied (in German) that I didn’t speak German and that I was English. In perfect English (of course) he replied “Aha! – so you are English and I am Swiss and you walk on our mountains and therefore you owe me five Swiss francs!” I expressed scepticism and may have raised an eyebrow. He got down to business: “Tell me, you walk from Marjelen Stausee; the path, are there landslides, is it good?” I rose to my full height and spoke portentously “I walk in the Alps for twenty years and I can tell you with authority that the path is good and that mountain etiquette now means that you owe me five Swiss francs!” There was much back slapping and hilarity and as I strode off they all sat down for a fag, their work for the day done.

Mayhem in an Austrian Hut.

I had walked from Antholzer Tal over the Riepenscharte and into Austria. It was cold, grey and wet with old snow and frequent hailstorms, and I was pleased to reach a small private hut, which shall remain anonymous to avoid embarrassment. I was greeted warmly by the young couple running it and I asked if they had a room as atratzenlager tend to lose their appeal as I get older. “We have only two guests, so Matratzenlager is fine”. “Ah yes, but what if ten young men arrive unexpectedly?” They said this was unlikely, but a room it was. Later in the bar, I meet the other guest, but then mine host informs me that in fact thirteen noisy young men have arrived and despite being Austrian are proceeding to get drunk in the English manner. So a planned dinner for two has to be expanded to fifteen. It is at this point that a family of eleven arrive demanding dinner. Madame is in panic mode in the kitchen, now preparing dinner for 26, sir is serving vast quantities of drink at Olympic speed. It is utter mayhem and with perfect timing my wife phones the hut landline. I hustle into a kitchen full of steam and anxiety and she hands me the phone. I press the wrong button and the phone goes dead. My wife tries again and this time we speak, although I can’t help feeling that I’m not aiding the situation. Slightly more worrying is that the picture on Madame’s phone screen is of her husband’s naked bottom. She is however beyond embarrassment by now. Later I talk to the other solo walker. He is much younger than me and asks where I walked from today. He looks shocked. “From Antholzer!” He pauses and then says words that are unjustified but which I shall treasure – “You must have tremendous power!” If only, I think, but I drink my schnapps with a smile on my face.

And what about the affair of ‘The French Bed’ in Gspon? My doomed attempt to speak Ladin? Wise words from an old French mountaineer on my first day in the Alps? How to spot an English walker at 200 metres? The mountains are what inspire us and draw us in, but it’s not just the mountains…

The Postbus near Obergurgl
Photo John Banks

A day of intense happiness
Photo John Banks

The real reason I go to the Alps. The Dom from above Jungen
Photo P Hadley

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