Day 18
Sleeping location: A temporary marquee at the back of FC Faido’s ground
Distance (km today/total): 123 / 1937
Estimated climb (m today/total): 2100 / 12100
Hours to climb the Gotthard Pass: 5
Day in three words: Alpine mountain? Pass.
A tough, tough day for two reasons: incessant heavy rain, and crossing the Alps. But let’s do things as they happened.
The day started inauspiciously as I quickly realised that I’d camped in someone’s garden as a result of following a google maps “path” (which wasn’t). It turned out I was the wrong side of signs saying “no right of way” or some such, and also “mind the dogs”. Because I’d come from the other side due to the “path” I hadn’t seen them. I got up and left as quickly as possible, pausing only to flick away the ridiculous number of slugs that had crawled onto my stuff overnight. A lot of stuff was wet but I thought I’d dry it out later, HA HA HA.
Had a pleasant dip in the Zugersee then stopped at a cafe for some mega blog updating. The guy was quite nice considering I stayed there for about 90 minutes and made the chair all wet. At this point (9.30am) it started raining, and it didn’t stop until after bedtime. Made some nice progress along increasingly beautiful lakes and rivers until I was stopped on the lakeside road to Fluelen due to a landslide across the road. Luckily I could take the train instead, which knocked 7km off the overall distance. I did the ticket buying all wrong and the train lady was very nice in choosing to charge me for the difference rather than the (official policy of a) 200 CHF fine.
Soon after this was the sign warning of 1560m of climb over the next 34km. Unsurprisingly this was a grind, especially as the rain kept getting heavier and the temperature kept dropping as I climbed. The whole thing took 5hrs, including a few shorter breaks and one longer stop for a warming hot chocolate and soup. It wasn’t so cold whilst I was cycling, because of the effort, but whenever I stopped the wind on my wet clothes was brutal. At least my phone was in a plastic bag this time (there you go Mum).
I should have been overjoyed but the summit was a total anticlimax because I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible - it was still belting it down and the wind was howling. It’s not even that beautiful up there, at least not when the visibility is down to about 50m. Still, 2106m is my highest peak by far, so that’s fun (in hindsight). I had another hot chocolate and put on all my clothes in an attempt to stay warm on the descent.
The way down is meant to be the fun part, but the first 10km were absolutely awful. Some idiot had chosen to use cobbles on the road, which are absolutely lethal when wet. As well as this I had to contend with dozens of switchbacks, steep drops off the edge, more driving rain and strong gusts of wind, and I was basically jamming on the brakes the whole way and trying to keep my speed below 20kmh. I was on the brakes so much that I actually wore the pads away to the extent that the brakes stopped working and I had to stop in a train station and adjust the cables. This was the lowest point of the trip so far - bike not working, soaked and shivering, still raining hard and with an hour until darkness with nowhere to sleep and a dead front light. I considered checking into the hotel across the road but decided to press on and try and warm up through cycling.
The idea of pitching the tent in the pouring rain was not fun, so I looked for somewhere with readymade shelter, and found an absolute beauty in the form of a marquee at the ground of FC Faido.* It was dry and had a raised wooden floor that I could just roll my mat out onto. There was even a socket to charge things from. I put on lots of dry clothes and got into “bed”, and it was even quite cosy all snuggled up on the floor, listening to the thunder echo off the mountains. A nice end to a hard day.
*This was the second time in two days I’d been saved from the rain by a Swiss football ground.
The day before I sheltered from a thunderstorm at FC Dottikon’s ground.
Distance (km today/total): 123 / 1937
Estimated climb (m today/total): 2100 / 12100
Hours to climb the Gotthard Pass: 5
Day in three words: Alpine mountain? Pass.
A tough, tough day for two reasons: incessant heavy rain, and crossing the Alps. But let’s do things as they happened.
The day started inauspiciously as I quickly realised that I’d camped in someone’s garden as a result of following a google maps “path” (which wasn’t). It turned out I was the wrong side of signs saying “no right of way” or some such, and also “mind the dogs”. Because I’d come from the other side due to the “path” I hadn’t seen them. I got up and left as quickly as possible, pausing only to flick away the ridiculous number of slugs that had crawled onto my stuff overnight. A lot of stuff was wet but I thought I’d dry it out later, HA HA HA.
Had a pleasant dip in the Zugersee then stopped at a cafe for some mega blog updating. The guy was quite nice considering I stayed there for about 90 minutes and made the chair all wet. At this point (9.30am) it started raining, and it didn’t stop until after bedtime. Made some nice progress along increasingly beautiful lakes and rivers until I was stopped on the lakeside road to Fluelen due to a landslide across the road. Luckily I could take the train instead, which knocked 7km off the overall distance. I did the ticket buying all wrong and the train lady was very nice in choosing to charge me for the difference rather than the (official policy of a) 200 CHF fine.
Soon after this was the sign warning of 1560m of climb over the next 34km. Unsurprisingly this was a grind, especially as the rain kept getting heavier and the temperature kept dropping as I climbed. The whole thing took 5hrs, including a few shorter breaks and one longer stop for a warming hot chocolate and soup. It wasn’t so cold whilst I was cycling, because of the effort, but whenever I stopped the wind on my wet clothes was brutal. At least my phone was in a plastic bag this time (there you go Mum).
I should have been overjoyed but the summit was a total anticlimax because I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible - it was still belting it down and the wind was howling. It’s not even that beautiful up there, at least not when the visibility is down to about 50m. Still, 2106m is my highest peak by far, so that’s fun (in hindsight). I had another hot chocolate and put on all my clothes in an attempt to stay warm on the descent.
The way down is meant to be the fun part, but the first 10km were absolutely awful. Some idiot had chosen to use cobbles on the road, which are absolutely lethal when wet. As well as this I had to contend with dozens of switchbacks, steep drops off the edge, more driving rain and strong gusts of wind, and I was basically jamming on the brakes the whole way and trying to keep my speed below 20kmh. I was on the brakes so much that I actually wore the pads away to the extent that the brakes stopped working and I had to stop in a train station and adjust the cables. This was the lowest point of the trip so far - bike not working, soaked and shivering, still raining hard and with an hour until darkness with nowhere to sleep and a dead front light. I considered checking into the hotel across the road but decided to press on and try and warm up through cycling.
The idea of pitching the tent in the pouring rain was not fun, so I looked for somewhere with readymade shelter, and found an absolute beauty in the form of a marquee at the ground of FC Faido.* It was dry and had a raised wooden floor that I could just roll my mat out onto. There was even a socket to charge things from. I put on lots of dry clothes and got into “bed”, and it was even quite cosy all snuggled up on the floor, listening to the thunder echo off the mountains. A nice end to a hard day.
*This was the second time in two days I’d been saved from the rain by a Swiss football ground.
The day before I sheltered from a thunderstorm at FC Dottikon’s ground.
Comments
Post a Comment