The Matterhorn and Scale

Ever since I was little, I have always wanted to See the Matterhorn. Sometime back in history, I created a mental Bucket List. And the Matterhorn is on it. But now I can check it off. In fact, there are several items on my Exit List and Bucket List that are the same, so I fully expect my time in the Land of Milk and Money to be fruitful and lived to the fullest.

Why the Matterhorn? Well, I cannot pinpoint the exact reason. It happened when I was a child and unfortunately, my memory fails me sometimes. I guess my head is too full of random useless facts to remember with detail all the "critical" memories sometimes. But I am creative. So whether this is accurate or whether I created it in my creative mind to make myself happy, who knows. But this is what I remember and I like it this way.

We had a video game system by Texas Instruments when I was a child. When everyone else was playing Pac-Man on Atari, I was mountain climbing on a game called Alpiner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpiner). Yup, my love of mountains started young. The goal of the game was to climb 6 of the world's highest peaks. The Matterhorn was number 5 on that list. That's OK, I was only 9 or 10. Hadn't quite reached overachiever status by that point in my life and I was playing against my Dad and older sister at the time, so it was what it was. In fact, I have no idea how far I actually got in that game. But something about the Matterhorn appealed to me and it has stuck in my head all this time.

My grandmother also lived with us at the time. Her parents both immigrated to the US from Switzerland. Do you see another Bucket List item here? She probably told me stories about her trip to Switzerland and saw that I was excited about the Matterhorn, simply from playing this game. And so my need to See the Matterhorn was born.

I am certain that none of this made any sense to me at the time. Can anyone really explain why we get so nicely fixated on the things that we do? But I believe that everything in life happens for a reason. That reason may not be clearly evident at the time, but it will be eventually. So here I am, just a girl living in Switzerland, with Swiss ancestry, standing in front of the Matterhorn, Seeing that which I have admired from afar, for unknown reasons as a child. Priceless!

It was also all about scale. It was big, in fact immense, but it felt like it was totally conquerable. Our Field Trip only allowed us a few days in Zermatt. Too much to See and too little time, as usual. On our last day, we were a little tired and had a few well-earned blisters. But the mountain air is exceptional in making one feel like they can accomplish just about anything. We went up the gondola at Schwarzsee Paradise and decided to do the short hike to the lake.

Scott and I discussed what time we needed to leave by, so we could get back to Basel at a decent hour and give him a little time to relax. He had to work the next day. So we get to the lake, take in the immense scenery and I start watching a few people heading higher up. They seem to be making good time. Again, it is all about the perceived scale.So I say to Scott, "Lets just go a little further, up to that bump there. I can get better pictures from there." He lovingly agrees and we proceed.

Next stop, more of the same on my part. First a bump, then a hut, then a ridge. After a few of these discussions about, "just a little farther, please?" finally we get to a really shaky metal staircase that looks like it is barely attached to the side of the rock face. You can see through it because it is made form metal grids. But I insist that I must go on. I made it this far, I wasn't turning back. So instead of walking, I ran so as to cover more ground in less time without making Scott worry too much. But on my way back, after resigning to the Matterhorn, he had followed me and was insistent that we head down. He is a very wise man.

Talk about Seeing. It was amazing. I stopped when I realized that the trail turned into what looked like a mountain goat path. At this point, some sort of mountaineering gear would have probably been recommended (unless you are Swiss of course - they do this stuff from infancy). But we were so close, it looked like we could just reach out to touch it. Or fall to our untimely deaths into the valley below.

Along the way, we kept passing pairs of young, strapping Euro men with climbing gear who were descending so quickly that it looked like they were running down the mountain. On our way back down, one passed us. I wanted to talk to him to find out if he had just summited. But me, who walks faster than anyone else I know on normal terrain, except my husband, couldn't catch him to chat. I am just going to blame that on the blisters on my feet and that he was in such a rush, he probably wasn't interested in chatting with silly Americans anyway.

When we made it down and were relaxing on the train back to Taesch, we looked at the map. Little did we know at the time, we had been on the path to Hoernli Hut, which is at an elevation of 10,696 feet. This is where the climbers go to spend the night, before they try to get to the summit, a base cap of sorts. We probably stopped and turned around at about 10,000 feet, with basically just the ridge left to go. We were so close, but had to think about heading back to Basel. If I had known how close, I would have insisted on getting there. My sense of scale failed me in this vast landscape. Hmmm. Perhaps another time.

All in all, this Field Trip rocked. As a landscape architect, I think I understand scale. But one really has no concept of it until you spend some time at that altitude in such a vast, gorgeous expanse of harsh terrain. Seeing the Matterhorn was priceless.