The 800th Mile

    My goal for my 80th birthday, on July 20, 2024, was to have hiked 800 miles during the year. 

    By June 18 I had hiked 796.2 miles. Then I stopped so I could share the 800th mile with my sister Sharon in the Swiss Alps.

    On June 25 we got off the gondola at Schreckfeld and started on the trail towards Scheidegg. Wildflowers colored the hillsides.

The snow-encrusted  peaks of the Wederhorn, Jungfrau, and Eiger rose above the trail. I kept an eye on my mileage. Suddenly I stopped. 

    "The 800th mile!" I cried. Sharon congratulated me and took pictures.

That night she raised a toast to me at our hotel.

    By July 10, I had hiked 856.3 miles on 90 different trails. I invited everyone who had hiked any of those miles with me to join me for brunch at the Jacksonville Inn on Sunday, July 21.

    On July 15 my son, Ela, came down from Washington to hike with me and help me prepare for the party. We created a chart of my hikes, one axis showing the chronology, the other the distance, each entry naming the trail and the people with me. I added notes: "Downed trees!" "Swim!" "Skied this trail." 
    We mounted photos from the hikes and pinned them to the wall of the patio at the restaurant.

We displayed a large poster Sharon had sent me of my victorious moment at the 800th mile (see below). It was a wonderful party.

    Here are the stats from the year.

        Total number of hikes: 145

        Total miles: 868.3

        55 hiking partners

        70 solo hikes

        Person who hiked the most miles with me: Cheryl Bruner (306 miles)

        Person who traveled the longest distance to be at the party: Traci Esslinger, from LA

        90 different trails (40 in the Applegate, 10 in the Rogue Valley, others elsewhere in Oregon and in Switzerland)

        Swims in 16 different lakes, rivers, and creeks

        Longest hike: 80 miles in 10 days (Lower Rogue River trail)

        Steepest hike: Bort to Waldspitz, Swiss Alps, 1643 feet in one mile

        Longest descent: Männelichen to Grindelwald, 4295-foot descent in 9 miles

        Highest elevation: Ice Lake, in the Wallowa Mountains of eastern Oregon, 7980 feet.

        Biggest disappointment: Car trouble that waylaid my birthday hike

        Most fun: The whole darn year.

Highlights from Grindelwald

     The Swiss Alpine town of Grindelwald is, as it has been for two centuries, a tourist destination, crowded these days with Asian, Muslim, European, and American bicyclists, hikers, zipline riders, paragliders, and other sports enthusiasts and thrill-seekers, including many families with small children and teenagers. They zoom down the mountain in three-wheeled carts, fly across canyons on zip lines, and throng the easier trails under the famous Eiger, Jungfrau, and Monk mountains. In winter, mountain climbers and skiers flock to Grindelwald, too.

    I was there last week, along with my sister Sharon, for the hiking. It did not disappoint, on any level.

(1) Every trail offered astonishing expanses of wildflowers—

yellow globe flowers; deep purple, yellow-eyed spurred violets; lavender-hued, heath-spotted orchids; Carthusian pinks; the Alpine rose; azaleas; and then, just as I thought I had seen the epitome of Alpine beauty, astonishing clumps of deep purple, neon-glowing gentians. 

(2) Every trail was stunning—winding, climbing, and flowing under and among mountains spotted and streaked with the late snow. I hiked up to Bäregg, eye to eye with Grindelwald Glacier. (Until the 1980s, you only had to walk to the edge of the town to meet the glacier).

The hostel at Bäregg

On the way down just past a split in the trail, I saw fresh blood on the rocks, a good cautionary tale for a solo hiker: danger is only one false step away.

    I took a gondola up to Männelichen, meaning to hike up to and along the Eiger trails, but these high-altitude trails were closed because of snow and snow-melt flooding. so there was nothing to do but hike down—and down and down and down, for nine miles. Total exhaustion.

    I rode a different gondola to First (at 7165 feet) to hike from there to Waldspritz on what turned out to be a long, high trail over snowmelt streams and across tundra-like, fog-wrapped landscapes so lonely I was glad to keep in view the only other two hikers on the trail. 

    Another day I climbed from Bort to Waldspritz, with an elevation gain of 1643 feet  in less than a mile on tight zig-zag switchbacks. I kept passing people coming down, not another soul going up. (I mean, who would?) Finally, finally one of the hikers passing me said what I had been longing to hear: "You're almost there." 

    In short, the hiking was everything I had wanted—rugged trails, breathtaking scenery (and trails!), all in Alpine splendor. I was in my element.

(3) Actually, I was really in my element at Bachalpsee, a pretty lake at 7432 feet under snowy Alpine peaks, at the end of an easy two-mile trail. Snow clung to the lake's edges; two long, thin, mushy-ice lines on the surface of the lake stretched from the shore towards its center. When Sharon and I got there, we watched a young man in shorts (or undershorts) walk into the lake, quickly dip in, and rush gleefully back to his companion on shore. A few minutes later two young women arrived. One stripped to her underwear, walked into the lake, dipped in, screamed with the cold, came back grinning. 

    Yes! I stripped to my underwear, walked into the water,

Just before submersion and swimming

submerged, and swam, stroke after stroke, towards the center of the lake. In the video Sharon took, I swim until I disappear; then I reappear, swimming back towards shore. It wasn't a long swim, but it was a great one. Total exhilaration.

(4) Fondu. Of course. After all, we were in Swirzerland.

Sharon enjoying fondu

Me enjoying fondu

Yoga in France

     When my sister Sharon, an Iyengar yoga teacher in Georgia, suggested I join her for a six-day yoga workshop in Beaune, France, I said, "Yes, if you will hike with me afterwards in Switzerland."

    Deal struck. We met in France on June 20.

    Beaune was a delight—narrow cobbled streets lined with centuries-old houses and beautiful flower boxes,

 the ramparts of the walled city, the good food and wine. Every morning we walked through town to the yoga studio, stopping for coffee on the way.

    The yoga was intense. The teachers, Mary and Eddie, had studied in India for decades with B. K. S. Iyengar and his daughter, Geeta ("The best yoga teacher in the world," Mary said). Everyone in the class except me had studied with Mary and Eddy before. Avid followers, they had come from around the world for this workshop: from San Diego, Georgia, England, Thailand, Spain, Scotland, France. The class was beyond my skill level, but when I sneaked a look around, I saw that although some students were better in some poses than I was, I was better in other poses than they. I would do all right.

Me preparing to enter the yoga studio

       Eddie and Mary alternated teaching days. While one was teaching, the other walked around helping students. They taught the same routine every day, an approach that I thought would be repetitious but that instead brought deeper understanding every class period. Their teaching style was what B. K. S. and Geeta's reputedly was: barking orders and sprinkling instructions with sarcasm. I wasn't sure I liked it.

    But it produced results, and, in truth, both Mary and Eddie were more sympathetic with our hard work than they let on while teaching. By the fourth day my muscles were rebelling. And yet, every day, after a long and directed savasana, I walked out of class as exhilarated as I had been tired only an hour before.

    Between yoga in the morning and yoga in the late afternoon, Sharon and I had lunch in town, walked on the parapets, toured the Hotel Dieux, the 15th-century hospital with its beautiful Burgundian architecture, famous glazed-tile roofs, and, in days gone by, gracious nuns who cared for the indigent sick of Beaune. We ate regional specialties: boeuf Bourguignon and chicken in mustard sauce. (Dijon is nearby.) We had crepes.

Sharon with a crepe and egg

We had cheese from the market with good French bread. One of the best things I have ever eaten was a gazpacho with goat cheese sorbet—gaspingly delicious—at the RenDez Vous brasserie. 

    And the wine was good, too. Very good. 

    But the best part was sharing the whole experience with my sister.

    On June 24 we hugged everyone good-bye and took the train to Switzerland.

Gazpacho with goat cheese sorbet