Mother of a Muttenhorn

Many years ago I went on a hike and said to myself “I could really do this again some day because I didn’t see anything!” The fog was so thick that day that there was no view. All I remember was a couple of men down in a really impossible spot trying to knock out some crystals, because there’s a lot of quartz and other pretty, shiny minerals on the mountain.

I’d had a cold/flu thing and my partner chose that weekend to organize a climb with the Alpine club. There were eight of them for a really long climb, and they started at 5am. I begged off, too sick to want to be a burden to the others if I wasn’t feeling well. Just on the other side of the valley, though, was this mountain I’d done in the fog. It was destiny!

My walk was, say, 30% easier than the climb they did, but it was still a three and half hour hike up, with some climby bits. My step counter thing on my phone went berzerk. It doesn’t actually count anything related to reality, but it still registered a peak higher than anything I’ve done this year.

It was nice to spend a day in the quiet of the hills, alone, stopping whenever I wanted to and taking a million photos. The ironic thing is that I mostly took photos of flowers, which didn’t depend on having a view at all!