2011-08-19 47 8

Location

Summit of Gnipen

Participants

Calamus

Plans

Take train from Zurich to Goldau
Walk in the general direction of the hashpoint
?
Profit!

Expedition

It is said that the Swiss imbibe mountaineering from their infancy. On 2011-08-19, Calamus proved that this is wrong.

As the weather (one of the first really warm days of this summer) was definitely too hot for a bike tour of 35 km as the crow flies, Calamus decided to take the train to Goldau, which happened to be the closest town to the hashpoint. The distance being only 3.5 km, it looked like an easy trip. Perhaps Calamus should have consulted the height map as well.

Upon arrival at Goldau, Calamus began wondering whether it had been wise to come completely unprepared. Goldau was surrounded by mountains, so how big were the odds for the hashpoint to be on the summit of one of them? Anyway, he bought some provisions at a nearby store and left the town.

As he had expected, there were no more paths to be found pretty soon, so he started to walk-climb towards the direction his GPS told him. Actually, there was quite a lot more climbing than walking.

After a little more than two hours' time, Calamus reached a clearing and was amazed by the 2π view that spread out before him. It took him a while to realize he had in fact reached the peak of the mountain - the very same peek that he had been admiring for a full two hours - without even trying. And there even was a summit cross! And an information panel on landslides! And ... a signpost pointing to a comfortable path™ down the mountainside, less than 150 m from the hashpoint (Swiss definition of "comfortable path™": An ordered sequence of geographical points p₁,p₂,...,p_n with at least two elements, with each p_i with i in [2,n] being accessible from p_i-1 for at least one element from the set of humanity (usually the guy who defined the path) employing any subset of the set of all techniques and devices known to mankind now or at some point in the future). Well, RTFM. Where M is for Map.

Anyway, the hashpoint happened to be just next to the path, and after he was done admiring the view from it, Calamus decided he should get back down pretty quickly, as he really, really didn't want to follow a Swiss comfortable path™ after sunset. On his way down, he wondered whether he would have actually been faster this way. He didn't have big problems going down, but he wasn't sure whether he would have been able to slide huge smooth steep rock slates up.

He reached a recognizable path before sunset and made his way back down to Goldau. Almost there, he asked a bystanding farmer for the way and couldn't hide a smile when his answer was: "Goldau?! But that's bloody far down, it is! 'ang on, I'll just finish reapin' that grass and then I'll give ya a ride, I will!" Because he had walked at least ten times as "bloody far" this day and "don't get into cars with strange men in them" didn't apply on the countryside, Calamus gladly accepted the offer.

On their way down, the farmer explained that the fields Calamus had seen him working had been the property of none other than the recently deceased Professor Carl Hidber of Zurich, traffic planner of Switzerland. This had led to the fact that the farmer's 27-year-old son had fallen in love with a Zurichoise and now wanted to move there. The farmer stated his immense hate against cities in general, particularly Zurich. When asked about his own origin, Calamus crossed his fingers, claiming to be from Sellenbüren village and looking forward to take over his father's farm. Luckily for him, they reached Goldau station before the friendly farmer could start a conversation on the best fertilizing techniques.

Calamus got to the station just in time to wave his train goodbye, so he treated himself a nice beer in an even nicer pub, collected a few signatures for his current initiative from passersby and then caught the train back to maybe-evil-yet-beautiful Zurich.