Trans Swiss Trail – On Top of the World (almost)

So I sit at breakfast in the café that morning, looking out into the cool morning, somehow glad to escape this strange place.

There are a lot of people walking on the street, all of them on their way to someplace, no idea where. They look so purposeful, as it is supposed to be these days. The dogma of the time: one should always have a clear goal in mind, everything else is wasted life.

Sort of sad. One misses so much in the uninterrupted forward striving.

But the almond croissant is exactly the same as yesterday, a delicacy. The aroma unfolds in the mouth, the dough melts, you hardly need to chew. And the coffee is strong and distantly reminiscent of the place where the beans have grown. I would like to be there, but not here.

I have - pretentious as I am - once again combined two stages, i.e. from Andermatt to Airolo. After all, it worked ten years ago, why should it be different now? I'm keeping quiet about the fact that my age has increased by the same number of years. But I know what's in store for me.

Two great stages.

The first leads to the Gotthard Pass:

In the footsteps of the mule drivers on the centuries-old north-south axis from Andermatt to the Gotthard Pass. Up to Hospental on a level path along the Reuss through the romantic Urserental. From there on a historic mule track next to the rippling Gotthardreuss up to the most important alpine pass in Switzerland.

The second stage as a bonus:

From the king of the Swiss passes on a steep mountain trail down to the Leventina. Spectacular alpine mountains combined with traffic engineering masterpieces from different eras. Up close and personal with the listed Tremola Pass road.

The Sky, my old friend

So then off to the next stage, over the mountain, over the Gotthard Pass. The sky, my old friend, greets me with gloomy clouds, no matter. In the valley beyond, where the ascent begins, a concoction of fog and whatever.

After yesterday's rest day, my muscles are looking forward to dealing with the altitude, the distance, the inclines.

Nothing can shock me anymore.

 

 

From time to time, the roar of a saw is heard in the woods along the Reuss. And once again a tree has to perish. No mercy.

The maintenance of the forest is a mystery to me. Nothing irritates me as much as the carnage taking place in the forest every autumn. Heavy machines rushing mercilessly over the sensitive forest floor, carelessly, thoughtlessly. Probably (as always) committed to profit.

Ancient trees that might have had a lot to tell are left behind, ruthlessly tossed to the ground as if they meant nothing, sad remnants of a long life. In each case it feels as if someone has taken close friends from me.

What remains are meter-deep tracks in the forest floor. Decapitated tree stumps. Carelessly discarded branches.

A battlefield.

The path leads along a golf course, nobody to be seen. Who is going to get lost in this godforsaken place, when there are beautiful places all over the world. I can't help a mockingly grin.

I find much more interesting that right here, under my feet, the train races through its tunnel towards the south. I listen, but there is nothing to be heard. No dull roar, no metallic thump. It will arrive in Airolo in a few minutes, while I will still have hours on my feet.

But then Hospental, the last village. This is where the Furka Pass, leading into Valais, and the Gotthard Pass branch off. During the time of the muleteers, the village profited from the lively trade. Numerous inns and the old customs station bear witness to this.

And there an old tower, although in decay, still defiant and ready for almost anything, it seems. It makes you wonder who had to defend against whom here.

The morning is made of blue and white

The ascent begins. Quite harmless, inviting. The valley floor stays behind, quickly forgotten. I am alone, as it must be, in the footsteps of the ancestors, to whom this mountain, this pass meant a promise, sun, warmth, Mediterranean art of living.

But also the gateway to Italy, the sole traffic route to the south at that time. Imagine all the things that must have happened here. Sometimes I think I hear a whisper, of the ghosts of bygone hikers, probably heavily laden, alongside horses and mules and donkeys, snorting with exertion.

Was the sky like today, blue and white, above green, treeless slopes?

 

It is quite easy. The path leads slowly upwards, bend by bend, you hardly break a sweat, but again and again I stop, drawing the cool, spicy air into my lungs, sensing the old feeling of happiness reliably setting in when everything is just right.

Just like this morning.

A bridge leads to the other bank of the brook, nobody knows where. Maybe into a valley, at the very back an alp. I take a quick look, a thought or two, and move on.

A flock of sheep, crammed together, surrounded by metal fences. The man next to the pen provides an answer: the sheep are ready to be taken away. The summer is coming to an end, when the weather changes, it might happen pretty quickly until the first snow falls.

The narrow sky

The sky, adorned with sugary clouds, is narrow, as if constricted by the treeless slopes. Not much is growing here anymore. The tree line has long since been reached, although it continues to grow a little higher up each year. Climate change sends its greetings.

Eventually, in the not so distant future, survival for the animals of the upper mountain regions will be endangered. Mountain hares, capercaillies, marmots and others, they will all have to adapt or disappear.

Like so many other things if we're not careful.

High in the sky a bird of prey circles, perhaps a golden eagle. The sun dazzles, blurring the view. In the silence, the barely perceptible whir of its wings can be heard, perhaps it is looking for a careless mouse. Who knows what he might see from up there.

The world in the eyes of the eagle.

Very rarely, surprisingly, the roar of an engine penetrates the devout silence. The pass road is not far, the narrow valley does not allow any distances.

On our last trip, we were surprised by a horse-drawn carriage. Apparently there are still appropriate offers to be pulled over the Gotthard by horse-drawn carriages like a hundred years ago.

Wind turbines at the top

Long time since the last wind turbines. It feels like months, but it's just three weeks.

I sit down, water bottle in hand, and look at the huge behemoths. At first glance they are foreign bodies, and yet they nestle gracefully into their surroundings as if they had always been there.

I actually find them beautiful, so elegant in their gentle forms, you only hear a soft whirring when the huge wings turn in the wind. Very slowly, almost silently.

One wonders how they can produce so much energy with so little movement.

The top of the pass

Quite surprisingly - the expected effort didn't materialize - I suddenly reach the top of the pass.

Traffic routes from three eras meet on the last section of the trail: the ancient mule track, the old pass road from 1830 and the new road, expanded with a gallery that protects against rockfalls. The path leads through a moor landscape with diverse alpine flora.

At the beginning, a plain covered with large rocks leads to a small lake, and shortly after, already from afar the pack of motorcycles and cars can be seen and heard. I stand in front of the board announcing the top of the pass at 2100 meters, and I pat myself on the shoulders. Shortly before reaching the top of the pass, the enormous dam of Lago di Lucendro catches the eye on the right - the source of the Gotthardreuss.

However, if I think of the World's Highest Motorable Pass in Ladakh think then everything is relative….

The crowds at the top of the pass, where, as expected, there is a restaurant and stores and tables and benches and parking and souvenir stores, are amazing. Apparently this place has its own appeal, hardly surprising given the particular location.

It's all getting to be too much for me. So much noise, so much movement, so many voices. After a leisurely coffee in the restaurant, I start the descent. Airolo, the day's destination, lies over 1000 meters below me.

Downwards along the Tremola

The noise lingers behind me, very quickly, as if nothing had happened. There is no one left to give me astonished looks. I am glad to be alone again. Lucky me.

On the other hand, I do not forget the fact that right here there is an important watershed. The Rhine, the Rhone, the Reuss and the Ticino have their sources in this area (but I am skeptical about the Rhone).

So if I take a step southward, the spring water under my feet will eventually end up in the Mediterranean with all the dirty Po water. And a few meters away, the water decides to go north, first following the Reuss, then the Rhine to the North Sea. It reminds me of a bath at the southernmost point of the Indian subcontinentwhere two oceans meet...

One should be able to follow the rivers. Maybe an idea for the next hike. From the source of the Rhine to the North Sea. Let's see ...

Anyway, the road initially leads across a marshy plain, crisscrossed by trails, probably pushed into the ground by cattle. On the other side of the valley, deep cuts are visible in the rock where the road passes through. It was built in place of the old Gotthard road, the notorious tremola pass.

From 1953, Uri began to fully expand the Schöllenenstrasse. The Urnerloch was expanded and a new Teufelsbrücke was built. In the summer of 1967, the first part of the new Tremolastrasse was opened; the rest of the Tremolastrasse could only be used after 1977.

The new road largely bypasses the old Tremola road with its new line, thirteen bridges, a tunnel and its long avalanche galleries. In the summer of 1983, the Andermatt bypass was opened to traffic as part of Hauptstrasse 2, the last section of the new Gotthardstrasse. The old Tremola road between the pass and Motto Bartola forms the main road 561.

The hiking trail down to Ticino leads for the most part along the Tremola. At times the path is steep and full of scree, not what you would wish for after so many hours. I imagine that the people responsible for the maintenance of the path have not been here for quite a while.

But then – Airolo… and my hiking buddies

The afternoon should end at the finish line, but there are still many kilometers ahead of me, but above all many meters of altitude. I descend from the highest point of this hike, from now on a new chapter begins, the last one.

The Tessin, the sunniest part of Switzerland, is not only geographically, but also linguistically and culturally an independent region, sometimes more like a piece of Italy (which the locals would of course vehemently deny).

For the time being, however, little differs.

The slopes to the left and right of the road are worn out by the long summer drought, the grass has withered, a sickly brown stretches from the peaks to the valley floor. In between a few trees, only further down they become more numerous, providing a little shade, asthe sun is still burning passionately from the sky.

When you glimpse the elegant loops plowed through the landscape by the new road, you are torn between amazement and admiration for the grandiose work of the architects and the deep wounds that are being inflicted on nature. But mobility, the sacred cow of Swiss transport policy, is always at the top of the canon of what is really important. In any case, more important than the preservation of nature.

But we know that by now.

But then, a village peeks through the trees, the day's destination is approaching. More than 8 hours have passed since the dull morning in Andermatt, the legs have become a little tired, but the spirit is still there, of course.

All is well, one might say, if the reservation for the room were also on hand at the hotel. But it is not, the communication channels between the mailbox and the reservation seem to be a bit suboptimal.

But hey, we're in Ticino, far from the tense reliability of north of the Alps. But no problem, no worries one would say in Downunder, an alternative room is quickly found, the host and I laugh heartily, what the heck, everything is wonderful.

But before I can even catch my breath, the train pulls into the station and there they are, my old hiking buddies. And so the solo days come to an end after more than three weeks, that's definitely a good thing.

The next few days, still a whole week to the final destination in Mendrisio, we will walking on the famous Strada Alta following the valley of the Leventine to Biasca. What follows is pre-planned, but still has to be turned into reality. What reality it will be, we will see.

Then new stories are written, new unforgettable anecdotes, stuff for the annals of our adventures together.

In fact, you can't wish for more.

 

Matching song:   Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell - Ain't no Mountain high enough

And here the trail continues... along the Strada Alta