Snow at last

Harry Emerson Fosdick said, “The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.” This quote resonates with me this year, as I have been so hectically frantic that I have finally after 11 months of being on the road, stopped rushing around, planning, organising and expeditioning. I am now tucked away in a remote Swiss village, on a hill side in a quiet chalet on my own, a lot like solitary confinement but the views are better. I have no phone, Internet connection (to hand) or television. Just lots of books and great views down the Pays D'Enhaut.

Yesterday it was 15 degrees centigrade, warm and sunny and the whole valley below 1500m was spring green (above that height there was a little snow.) Today I awoke to 20cm of fresh snow filling the whole valley – your perfect winter wonderland, the boughs of the trees bent double from the weight of fresh snow, a still silence that comes with the frozen insulation, the noise of the passing train in the valley below muffled from the fresh veil cotton wool that had descended in the night. I woke in the early hours of this morning from another 'Greenland nightmare', my tent had yet again been swallowed into a crevasse and through the dawn light hear the rain, then at some point in those early hours, the temperature must have dropped and the snow settled.

I am using this time in the mountains to recover from my journey South, as the weeks rolled on at home. I was traveling too much, visiting friends and catching up with family, I hadn't really stopped and rested from getting off the plane and I was worse for it. Not only has my body needed to recover, but mentally I have had to take stock of what has happened this year – 3 major expeditions with hardly a break in between, I have put my body through 7 months of endurance and covered 3000 miles under my own body power on ski and bike. I have not considered really effect if any this has had on my head. The journey to the Pole seems to have left me, I can't quite recall the details or the feelings and to be honest I am a bit scared that the experience might have left me, so this time now is therapeutic in recovering and allowing me to take stock of all that has happened.

Have you ever spent a day watching snow melt? This is what I have done today, when I sat down at my desk this morning there was 20cm of freshies on the slope outside the chalet, there is a picture window infront of me and as I look up from my laptop I can see the snow melting, the sun not quite exposed from the clouds is doing its best to rid the ground of its new white blanket.
On my slope now there are only 5 spots of golf ball sized snow left. The rocks, dead grass and mud are ugly compared to the supreme whiteness of the snow, I miss it. The snow and the ice that is, I want to be back on the plateau hauling my sledge and all my possessions towards a pointless goal on an unending horizon.

Being back has felt like being on a holiday and it is now over and at any moment Clare or Shaun will call to pick me up and we'll get back to work on the ice, like it is where I belong. You know when you have been on a 2 week holiday and over the last few days you are ready to get home and back to work, well I feel like this about the ice.

So I suppose being in the mountains as spring draws near and seeing the snow melt around me is good place to be to soften the reality jolt, a sort of staging post from the extreme to the comfort of friends and family, because I feel I had plunged far too quickly into the comfort of the sofa.

No more snow outside my window now – just green grass.

p.s - if you are wondering how I uploaded this with no Internet connection, it is a 45 minute walk down to the village, where I have piggybacked off an old ladies unsecured wireless network...not so remote afterall!
p.p.s – the picture is my view this morning to the 'hidden valley' so don't feel too sorry for me all alone up here!
p.p.p.s - who is Harry Emerson Fosdick