As I sit comfortably nestled in the Alps of the Bernese Oberland, I am painfully aware of the wildfires that are consuming the Rocky Mountains. These mountains here get rain every other day, and myself and the other Colorado vollie, Carly, are blowing hard to send it back west. It's been such a surreal experience to follow the progress of the fire and evacuations via facebook feed; I feel a little selfish, enjoying these bright, sunny, fire-free days here while people back in Colorado are losing homes (and pets, and lives, and Girl Scout camps).
These mountains here are not so different from the Rockies, and though the altitude is significantly lower, the same sort of mountain-culture is still here. Granted, people in Adelboden smoke more cigarettes and backpack a little less, but I've really enjoyed the few very Swiss mountaineering moments. Klettersteig, a cross between hiking and rock climbing, has become the best thing to ever happen in my life. Think scrambling, but with a harness. Up the side of a mountain. It is EXACTLY what eight-year-old Cate would have wanted as a career. And also it makes me feel like Katniss Everdeen.
On a potentially cooler level, though, this week we hiked to the peak of Elsigenalp (called Elsighorn, because the Swiss feel it is important to label different parts of the same mountain differently). This was my third peak I've hiked to in the valley, but the first where I've had a view, and it was absolutely breathtaking. The hike from a lower alpine lake to the peak was going to be myself, one other summer vollie and the Program Director, Katie, but at the last minute another vollie and two from the Ohio troop jumped in. The girl, Emily is this really sweet sixteen-year-old who was actually quite nervous about the longer hikes, but she matched us step for step all the way up to the beautiful view that met us at the top. From the orange "X" carved into the rock, we could see the mountains two valleys away, every home in Adelboden, and Thunersee, a lake really far in the distance. At some point, the clouds briefly rolled in around us, and Emily couldn't stop looking around in awe. "I've never been in a cloud before," she said, and I promptly got goosebumps.
Katie got really excited about searching for Edelweiss, and since we're Girl Scouts, we obviously had to sing the song once we found one. You know how the lyrics are all, "Small and white, clean and bright?" Yeah... They're not. I mean, yes, they're small, but real, live, Edelweiss are kind of fuzzy little grey flowers with these weird yellow growths in the middle. When I told Katie this, she looked like I had just killed her puppy (because Edelweiss are her favorite thing ever), but it worked out because when we started singing "Edelweiss," a rainbow came out in the valley beside us. A rainbow. It was like someone was apologizing for making Edelweiss so awkward-looking by letting us pretend we were in The Sound of Music.
On a completely unrelated, but really sweet note, there's a Girl Scout/Guide superstition about this grace called the Johnny Appleseed Grace, and how if you sing it, it will rain. Pax Lodge is the WAGGGS World Centre in London, and they've been singing the Johnny Appleseed Grace to send rain to Colorado. If that's not a supportive international community, I don't know what is.
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