December 20, 2012. A memorable day in my life.
On this day, I, together with three friends, hiked up to the Grand Saint Bernard, a monastery at the border of Switzerland and Italy.
I have done many hikes before, not without difficult ones. Just a few days before, I did a day-hike with my friends in the Black Forest in Germany. But this one is probably the hardest in my life. Precisely this very hardness makes the day memorable.
I was in the Alps during the summer, studying French in Grenoble. That is one of my most pleasant summers, with plenty of enjoyable hikes, good food, and very nice weather.
But the Alps in winter are quite different. Particularly for this winter, there are so much snow in the mountains that transformed the whole landscape. When we got off the bus at the beginning of the trail, the hostility of the mountains felt imminent. The whole world is white. Underneath our feet are six meters of snow. The mountains only expose themselves at the top, the rest completely covered by snow. It was not snowing, but the strong wind powerfully threw the snow up to the air, darkening the sky above us. We couldn't see the sun.
This harsh weather doubled, perhaps even tripled the difficulty of this five kilometer hike. We were on snowshoes (called rackets in French), and moving very slowly against the wind. A few minutes after the start of the hike, I already felt tired. I knew that this was a bad sign. This is my first time to take the trail, and obviously there are no signs telling you how far you have walked (even there are such signs, they are probably buried in the snow). Ed told me that it takes only a couple of hours to reach the monastery. Yet after walking about an hour, and I still felt I was nowhere, I started to realize that the hike was much more difficult than I originally fathomed. That was not a very pleasant feeling.
And I was not very prepared. I didn't try my ratchets the day before, so they felt like a new machine under my shoes (they are certainly essential for the hike). I didn't eat much before the hike, confidant of taking care of a two-hour hike with an empty stomach. Most seriously, I didn't adjust my backpack very well, so all the weight landed on my shoulders. Oh, my poor shoulders! How unfairly I treated you, and what an excellent job you have done! Even worse, among other unnecessary things, I carried four books in my backpack, a typical bookworm behavior. Well, the legend goes that Henry Widner died from the Titanic shipwreck because of his foolish act of trying to save some of his books on the ship. I hope that my fate will not be like that.
The thought that I could not make it never occurred to me. I was confident that I was able to finish the hike, just with more time and difficulty. There are some comforting factors: Among the four of us, the only four hiking on that morning, Ed is a very experienced one who took this hike many times. Likewise Margo is also familiar with the environment. For her mom Tania though, this is her first time, to take the hike, but she was determined to make it. Well, if she can make it, why cannot I?
Perseverance is the key. I am not a very sportive person, so my physical body has not been challenged quite often. This time it was quite an extreme. One step after another, slowly but steadily, I was moving toward the destination. There were not too many thoughts in my head during the hike. Perhaps the physical challenge really cleared up my mind, with a concentrated goal to finish the hike. Most of the time I was thinking about the strategies to execute the hike. Should I count the number from one to one hundred as a unit of hike? That didn't work out. Should I inhale the air from the nose and exhale it from the mouth? That didn't work out either because I soon ran out of breath after I did that a few times. The experience resembled that of my running a 1500-meter track: towards the end of the run, my leg became so heavy and my breath was so out of control that I had to drag myself with great effort and mental strength to finish the run. But when was the last time I did that? Perhaps in college, which means more than a decade ago?
The hike also reminded me of another one I did almost thirteen years ago, with my family. We went to hike up to the top of the Long-White Mountain, a dead volcano in Northern China. It was also during the winter, perhaps in January. We hiked against the strong wind (yes, the wind is ubiquitous) and eventually reached the top. A different time, a different place, but a similar experience.
It is a hard experience. I cannot help comparing this to a pilgrim's experience. After all, we were heading to a monastery. For a pilgrim, physical difficulty, or even suffering, is a means to achieve spiritual elevation. That is why we see Tibetan monks prostrate their bodies every three steps on their way to a sacred site. It is interesting to think of the relation between the body and the mind in this case. My own experience during the hike clearly revealed that an intense bodily experience has purifying effect on the mind. On the other hand, practices such as meditation certainly have beneficial effects on our bodies. Well, this mind/body discussion almost becomes hackneyed, isn't it?
Back to the hike. It was hard, but this doesn't mean it was utterly miserable. Even under such a harsh condition, nature revealed her beauty to us. The mountains are truly magnificent, with their peaks piercing into the sky. The wind constantly blew off the snow at the peaks of these majestic mountains, creating a beautiful halo on them. At one moment, we even discerned the sun, hidden behind the heavy mist created by the wind. In this utterly white world, even a hazy and distant sun gave us a sense of warmth, and hope.
Finally, after three hours hike, we reached a hub where we took a rest. The hub seemed to be a haven for me. I filled my stomach crazily; the food never tasted better. I adjusted my backpack, making it less of a burden. It was cold in the hub, and without moving, our bodies became cold quickly. So we continued the hike soon after this much-needed rest. The remainder of the hike was significantly easier. Soon after the start of the second half, we saw the monastery from afar, which was certainly an inspiration. With a clear visual cue, the hike became easier. Even for the last part, which has this ominous name of the "Valle de mort," I did not experience much of a challenge. At around three in the afternoon, we reached the monastery, finishing a five-hour hike with five kilometers covered. One kilometer per hour, that sounds quite slow. But my dear readers, try yourselves and you know what I am talking about. For me, it is truly an once-in-a-life experience.
As proposed by Ed, we did a group hug together to celebrate our incredible achievement. From now on, we will stay in the Grand Saint Bernard monastery for a week and spend the Christmas here (yes it is here because right now I am sitting in the salon of the monastery to write this piece). It is time to explore this very interesting place.
And history rolls in.
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