Marianne was right – of course she was… – I did not make it in an hour. Not even after 1 ½ hours was I able to step into the small guest room of Berggasthaus Tierwies, a mountain cabin, that was resting precariously above the Schwägalp plateau in Appenzell.
With my last consultation finished right on time at 6 pm at the clinic in Nesslau, and with no emergency duties, I had changed and had picked up my backpack and my hiking boots for a sun set hike and dinner at the cabin.
Marianne was the clinic’s receptionist. The sort of absolute fitness nut that seem to grow somewhere on trees in the more remote regions of Scandinavia and the Alps, who outside of the clinic are only seen on a mountain bike, on various sorts of skis or dressed in long distance running gear for a few short moments before disappearing behind the next hill.
When telling her about my plan, she had frowned and doing some brief calculations, had summed up her verdict with a laconic: “It will be pitch dark before you are back at the plateau. Shall we prepare for no vet tomorrow morning ?….”
Despite all preparations, I did not reach the trailhead near the lift station, that was currently being repaired, before 7 pm. From there I could already see the cabin right on top of the steep rock face and just 600 altitude meters were between me and my dinner.
The first section was easy enough, a brisk hike along the last stretches of grazing pasture dotted with colourful alpine flowers, where grey Appenzeller cows were gathering the fuel, that made their milk and by that the resulting cheese so special.
Crossing a Bergschrund, I reached the rock face and when the first steel cables next to some exposed way sections came into view, I secretly congratulated myself for not having left behind my £ 1.99 DIY gloves.
While this was not a technical route, the extra security the cables provided, helped to lower my adrenaline level. Both Lake Constance to the north as well as Lake Zurich in the south-west came into view, while the sun was relentlessly nearing the horizon.
After an hour, just 450 altitude meters were covered, but I already felt, that I had earned my dinner. And yet, there was some more climbing to do, before the 2000m mark and with that the cabin was reached. Reassuringly there were still a few other hikers on the trail, even if most of them where already on their way back down to the valley.
It was getting close to 9 pm when I finally arrived at the cabin and I placed an order for a well-deserved beer and a quintessential Swiss “Rösti”.
The sun was about to set, and the first candles were lid, when my meal arrived.
Far too much and yet too good to let anything go to waste – so after eating half of it, the other half went into my backpack, the water bottle was refilled, and I started on the descend.
Now there was not much time left to admire the intense blue of the bellflowers and the purple of the thistles next to the trail in the fast-fading day light.
My luck though, that the path was running along the north-western face of the mountain, so that the red glow that followed the setting sun, continued to provide a warm light, while the mountains on the other side of the plateau were already shrouded in complete darkness.
Most of the exposed sections were behind me when I finally had to make use of my head torch. Although the lights of the hotel on the plateau looked so near, there were still a couple of hundred meters to descend, before reaching the pasture again. Holding on firmly to another steel cable while watching some smaller stones tumbling into the abyss, I faintly recalled some advice about “never walk alone in the mountains”, but I reasoned that at this point, it once again had been far too late for that.
Back on the pasture, with just the light of the torch illuminating the path, I cut through groups of cattle that had retreated to the etch of the forest. Their massive bodies appeared twice the size in the dark and their sizeable horns and the green light reflected from their eyes failed to make me feel more at ease. Thankfully, the damp grass had a larger appeal for them, than picking a fight with a visibly lost glow worm or related, oversized insect in the middle of the night, so that I managed to pass this final hurdle as well unscathed.
Standing next to the car shortly before midnight, I noticed the full moon moving slowly around the mountain site, saturating the rocks, the fields and the weatherbeaten trees of the plateau in an argent glow, while the bells of the cows, the music from the hotel’s terrace and the laughter of the remaining guests, enjoying their glasses of wine and Aperol, made for a magical midsummer night in the mountains.
Marianne was right – I did not make it to the cabin in time, but they would have a vet for the morning consults the next day. Slightly tired but happy……
The Blue Vet Diary 