Day 5; 6; 7: Samoens

APOLOGIES FIRST: for the double send of the lqst dispqtch; qnd for the odd spelling here! I am using a French keyboard; and the sun is in my eyes:

From Chapelle dAbondqnce we walked rqther easily up through forest; past a fine waterfall; then scrambling up stony paths through woods and finally across snow patches to a col and down through alpages -- pastures peopled if that is the word by nice Abondqnce cows -- and ultimatlely to the Refuge de Bassachaux; where we had a nice roo, to ourselves overlooking the terrace: Good dinner; comfortable bed; fine breakfast.

Yesterday; day 6, oh; theres the commq*a; was a bit harder especially at the end. It began easily enough with a stroll along a flat dirt road leading to Switwerlqnd; cuckoos appropriqtely singing in the forests below the trail. Once across the frontier (nonexistqnt) we found a gite, alas not yet open; where a number of wo,en wwere preparing the opening twà dqys hence: wqshing tables (we were not allowwed to sit at them), wiping down telephone books (no kidding), and such. Uncomprehendingly we walked on past the Lac Vert and up to a col overlooking fine alpages; different cows here; flora too:

We met our Austrian *again, a young 50 very slender vegetariaqn and very strong and pleasant who hqs walked many trails and is preparing the aPPqlachian pacific crezt and rocky ,ountain: a brqve femme:

Then back into Franbce for q difficult descent through pasture on rutted stony trqil; stepping carefully and descending steeply; to the refuge mines dor - there really zere gold mines here: A fine room agqin and a nice dinner; also q ga,e of boules before dinner:

This ,orning rqther harder; cli,bing to a steep col; then dozn dozwn down to Samoens: where ze perhaps stay long enough to ,aster this da,n keyboqrd:

Donùt count on it

Day 4: Chapelle d'Abondance

Chapelle d'Abondance, June 24--

Let's see: where was I? Oh yes: up early yesterday to watch the cows brought in for milking. One man and three dogs invited them down from the flowery pastures to the milk-barn. All three dogs looked the same to me, black and white, border collies or whatever.

One was the one who always snapped at the water when you washed your handss or filled your bottle at the trough; very annoying. Another, apparently younger, was on a long rope held by the gardien; maybe he was in training.

The cows looked at me curiously, then turned back to their own path to the barn. They're red and white, short-horned, of the Abondance breed, established during the 19th century: there's a plaque telliing me all this here in town, with a nice statue in open ironwork of a cow.

Anyhow after breakfast we ascended the pasture without much trouble, stopping to rest now and then, and then came to Pas de la Bosse at 1816 meters. From there a fine view back over last night's chalet to the pass from which we'd descended yesterday -- I'm sorry I can't post photos from this folding computer! -- and a pleasant view forward: for there, in the distance, lay Chapelle d'Abondance and, I assumed, a hot bath.

But first the long descent, and just now those hurt far more than the climbs. At first it was easy enoough, on switchbacks on dirt cowpaths. Halfway down we made some kind of mistake and lost the path.

We had to bushwhack through vegetation reaching almost our knees, thick lush growth hiding stones and marmot-holes. This is hard on the ankles, but ultimately we rejoined the rutted switchback path, not that much better.

The vegetation! Dozens of varieties of wildflower: gentians, orchids, buttercups, trollius, wild rose, violets... and dozens more we don't identify. The fragrance is wonderful: it's like walking past a gigantic open honeyjar.

At the bottom of the steep descent we entered a forest of evergreens, leading to a place apparently being "developed" into summer chalet country; and then we walked down through a sort of educational nature reserve with panels describing tle local flora and fauna, finally coming to town.

We were hot, tired, footsore, and hungry, and stopped at th firs hotel: La Gentianette, I think. We showered and changed an went to the next hotel for lunch -- omelette fines herbes and a green salad for me -- and then relaxed. We have a swimming pool, a sauna, a Turkish bath, and a room with a nice balcony and A BATHTUB!

The town's a bit depressing to me; I see it as four or five fine old stone buildings surrounded by new stuff built in the last forty years, the transition from locally sustainable agricultural economy to globally dependent leisure industry. Judging by the number of cars in the lots, and the number of closed sporting-goods shops, the previous economy may return.

We're here for a rest day; tomorrow we resume the march. I've seen a number of GR5 walkers today, on our own stroll back from the supermarket a couple of miles down the road. There'll be company.

Day 4: Chapelle d'Abondance

Chapelle d'Abondance, June 24--

Let's see: where was I? Oh yes: up early yesterday to watch the cows brought in for milking. One man and three dogs invited them down from the flowery pastures to the milk-barn. All three dogs looked the same to me, black and white, border collies or whatever.

One was the one who always snapped at the water when you washed your handss or filled your bottle at the trough; very annoying. Another, apparently younger, was on a long rope held by the gardien; maybe he was in training.

The cows looked at me curiously, then turned back to their own path to the barn. They're red and white, short-horned, of the Abondance breed, established during the 19th century: there's a plaque telliing me all this here in town, with a nice statue in open ironwork of a cow.

Anyhow after breakfast we ascended the pasture without much trouble, stopping to rest now and then, and then came to Pas de la Bosse at 1816 meters. From there a fine view back over last night's chalet to the pass from which we'd descended yesterday -- I'm sorry I can't post photos from this folding computer! -- and a pleasant view forward: for there, in the distance, lay Chapelle d'Abondance and, I assumed, a hot bath.

But first the long descent, and just now those hurt far more than the climbs. At first it was easy enoough, on switchbacks on dirt cowpaths. Halfway down we made some kind of mistake and lost the path.

We had to bushwhack through vegetation reaching almost our knees, thick lush growth hiding stones and marmot-holes. This is hard on the ankles, but ultimately we rejoined the rutted switchback path, not that much better.

The vegetation! Dozens of varieties of wildflower: gentians, orchids, buttercups, trollius, wild rose, violets... and dozens more we don't identify. The fragrance is wonderful: it's like walking past a gigantic open honeyjar.

At the bottom of the steep descent we entered a forest of evergreens, leading to a place apparently being "developed" into summer chalet country; and then we walked down through a sort of educational nature reserve with panels describing tle local flora and fauna, finally coming to town.

We were hot, tired, footsore, and hungry, and stopped at th firs hotel: La Gentianette, I think. We showered and changed an went to the next hotel for lunch -- omelette fines herbes and a green salad for me -- and then relaxed. We have a swimming pool, a sauna, a Turkish bath, and a room with a nice balcony and A BATHTUB!

The town's a bit depressing to me; I see it as four or five fine old stone buildings surrounded by new stuff built in the last forty years, the transition from locally sustainable agricultural economy to globally dependent leisure industry. Judging by the number of cars in the lots, and the number of closed sporting-goods shops, the previous economy may return.

We're here for a rest day; tomorrow we resume the march. I've seen a number of GR5 walkers today, on our own stroll back from the supermarket a couple of miles down the road. There'll be company.

Day 3: Chalet de Bise

But it was a harder day than I anticipated. Up about five to see the dawn and take photos, then write with a first coffee -- black, in a bowl, with sugar, okay. Then, at seven, our real breakfast: cafe au lait, bread butter and jam. Not very nourishing for the kind of thing we're doing.

You can't really complain about the Refuge du Dent d'Oche, though: everything's brought in weekly by helicopter, and the gardien makes a trip three times a week to Bernex for bread and such,carrying everything up on his back. Incredible.

We packed up and set out, climbing to the summit of the Dent d'Oche fairly easily, then descending along narrow fairly level footpaths at the edge of the precipice -- the north side of the Dent being virtually vertical -- then rounding the top to descend along an arrete, a spine of small-to-midsize exposed rock falling away on each side quite steeply.

A ridge, in fact, descending at say thirty degrees. Often we were helped by cables attached to the rock: you give up using your walking sticks, hold them both in one hand, grab the cable with the other (left in this case), swing away from the rock to the next footing, then quickly slide your hand further along the cable for the next operation.

This is fairly exhausting, but more normal descent, on scree, cobbles, and occasionally exposed soil, often stepping down six to ten inches at a step, is tiring in another way. Yesterday I was concerned about Mac; today about myself. Quadriceps and knees complained bitterly as we stepped down hundreds of meters on frustrating switchbacks, and then we were faced with another chimney, shinnying up between two stone surfaces, again with a cable to help, only to resume the switchbacks.

Ultimately all this led us to -- the GR5, the trail we intend to take south to Nice. First there was a climb of some hundreds of meters up switchbacks like those we'd just descended to a pass which seemed to define a new area: we were leaving the influence of Lac Leman and entering a different kind of Haute Savoie, a kind more like the Chartreuse we know from thirty years ago.

A beautiful green lake beckoned to us down off the path, but visiting it would have required otherwise unnecessary descents and climbs. Didn't take long to decline that invitation.

Instead we continued, walking into a herd of at least forty bouquetins, most of them adults with long, elegantly curved horns. I suppose they might have looked menacing, but I just walked forward, parting the herd.

Next came a much gentle descent, but one which took us across occasional patches of snow, unfamiliiar footing to me but rather pleasant. We found our way next up to the Col de Bise, another demarcation, and below us but oh so far away was the day's goal, the Chalets de Bise.

One of the two chalets is a refuge run by the Alpine Club, its sleeping facilities similar to those at Dent d'Oche but less spartan. We were first to arrive so were given three lower bunkss at the end of the row, under a window.

We were invited to wash our clothes if we liked, and finally I had an opportunity for a sponge-bath. We washed the clothes in cold water in a trough, leaving a few moss-stains in my pants which in any case now have a good-sized tear on the seat -- I must have slid on something unknowingly.

And we had a decent lunch, at two o'clock, a big salad with bacon, egg, walnuts, croutons and of course lettuce, good lettuce; and a bottle of local white wine.

The Canadians arrived shortly after us, in good cheer but just as tired, and joined us for lunch; we'll dine with them in a minute. Tonight a storm is promised: good. It'll clear the air. But tomorrow may rain, and we have to walk in it for three hours or so to get to Le Chalet d'Abondance. We'll see how it goes.

Day 2 : Dent d'Oche

This second day started well, proved difficult later, ended oddly, at least in my experience. I rose at six to do some writing and thinking; no one stirred; even the parrot was relatively sedate.

At seven, though, we were served a hearty breakfast: the usual croissant, sliced baguette, and coffee au lait, plus orange juice and, later, two fried eggs and big rashers of ham.

We went then down into Bernex, following first a paved road, then a grassy and stony mulepath. We had to wait only five minutes or so for the village store to open, where we found some dry sausage sticks, apples, and peanuts for the day's lunch, and a bottle of water for me.

Across the street the tourist shop was open, but their only hats were heavy winter felt affairs and one straw sized, I think, for Charlie McCarthy; so I bought some sunscreen and let it go at that.

We walked up the asphalt road, infrequently traveled, to Trossy and beyond, finally arriving at Fetiuere where the cafe would open in an hour, at eleven; but the manager saw our disappointment and gave us three coffees and welcome chairs on the terrace -- gratis!

Then began the real day's walk. At first we were in a forest, and the way was packed earth, occasionally a bit muddy, over loose stones. Quickly this led to a harder way, crossing the contours and climbing sharply, many more loose stones but still shaded.

Then we heard sheepbells ahead, and dogs barking, and came upon a small flock just moved into a paddock within temporary electric fence and guarded by two nervous sheepdogs. Now we were in full sunlight, and remained so generally for the rest of the day -- a warm one.

The way continued to climb but began to alternate between climbs and contours, rising above the forest and leading into high pastures with here and there a small herd of heifers, finally to a promising fromagere, an ancient stone building where cheese was made -- closed, of course, the tables and chairs fenced off in a most unfriendly manner, and a prominent sign

Le maison n'a pas des toilettes
Voir la Dame Nature

There was however a long concrete trough with two jets of cold water streaming into it, and here we rinsed our hands and soaked our head-scarfs and rested.

Now we were joined by a number of other walkers, solitaries, couples, and two or three families with children. The path splits here at the Chalet d'Oche, and we took the left, climbing through high pasture on a steep stony trail with many switchbacks.

Always we wondered how we would come to the day's goal, the Refuge du Dent d'Oche, always out of sight the other side of a prominent rock outcropping. Would we round that outcropping on the left or the right?

Neither, it turned out; there is a narrow way, a sort of chimney, in a cleft; and here we no longer walked, we scrambled, often hauling ourselves up hand over hand with the help of chains and cables thoughtfully pinned to the rock.

It was exhausting, but it led to a magnificently placed refuge, its small patio providing views over the whole of Lac Leman and the Alps, Mont Blanc a challenging distant mysterious white presence beyond all.

The Refuge accommodates 60 guests in three "dortoirs," big common rooms with box-beds, really only thin mattresses on the floors, set side by side in rows. There's one toilet, a Turkish affair; you hang onto a rope with your left hand to steady yourself and keep he door closed in front of you as you do your business.

There is no running water, though a bucket of cold water is thoughtfully provided just outside the toilet door for rinsing one's hands. Otherwise there is no way to clean up here.

But the view is splendid. Henry and I climbed to the summit, maybe twenty minutes away, and found a chamois there, grazing quite near the handful of visitors who seemed stunned and silenced by the view -- and inspiring it certainly is.

Dinner was soup, pasta, slabs of roast beef, cheese, and canned fruit cocktail, with a glass of red wine and many of cold water. And then, a little before ten, I retired, to sleep pretty well.

1 Bernex

Creusaz, Friday, June 20--

Definitely a difficult day today though a short walk, no more than twelve km I think. We landed in Geneve about ten am after a long afternoon walking perhaps five miles, a long evening eating a fine dinner, and a five-hour sleep, all in Amsterdam where we'd arrived yesterday morning on an overnight flight from San Francisco.

Train into Geneva, tram to the French train station at Eaux Vives -- a badly outmoded and ill-maintained place, but serviceable. Then an odd hour at Evian-les-Bains, making a reservation for tonight's bed and dinner and finding out how to walk here.

The walk was hard. No more than ten miles, but a considerable gain in elevation, from Evian at about 460 meters to here at 1170, or 3800 feet. Nothing compared to what we'll be doing, but hard given lack of sleep, jet lag, fairly high temperatures, and grades up to 20 percent.

The sleepy vacation resort town of Evian-les-Bains gave way to suburbs; these quickly becoming more rural. Our roads climbed and curved among fields and woods, often with surprising vistas over Lac Leman, always the distant mountains challenging us.

Now and then you come to a hamlet, with only a few of the old buildings to recall their original peasant economy; now nearly all buildings are from the last twenty years or so, in the prefab linconlog chalet style, nicely set about with gardens and potted flowers -- weekend or vacation houses, no doubt: this is ski country.

We are in Haute Savoie; the cows are wearing their delicious bells; the hills are incredibly green, the air soft and sweet. Our gite will not be terribly expensive and gave a decent dinner: trout, french fries (boy did we want that salt!), fresh crisp delicious lettuces, fine ice cream with magnificent whipped cream.

Tomorrow will be even harder than today, but we must do it -- and so to bed.

Travel

TO THE IMAGINISTS LAST NIGHT, there to see a production called Travel, conceived and produced by its entire cast. To the point, since I leave Wednesday for my Long Walk.

The Imaginists is/are an amazing group. I've written about them before here: among other things, we've seen them do a truly memorable Antigone, an intense, resourceful Crucible, a fascinating production of Pirandello's Tonight we Improvise, and, earlier this year, a magnificent Winter's Tale.

In between repertory like this, The Imaginists produce work conceived and developed collectively by the actors. Last night's Travel was in this line, and was particularly to the point, since the company itself is traveling -- leaving the loft workshop they've used for the last six years for a better, bigger, more flexible space a few miles south, in Santa Rosa. (Information about the new space here.) And while recent productions have been away from the loft, in parks or wineries or Healdsburg's own Raven Theater, Travel was produced in the loft itself, the audience on three sides.

The piece is choreographed theater, rarely verbal. I suppose it's somewhere between charades and tableau vivante. I think of it as living sculpture. These actors use their entire bodies sculpturally, expressing in gesture, movement, and even in static position a rich, complex, deeply human something -- something that I hesitate even to name or describe. You get an idea of this in the photo above: a representation of Io, seduced by Zeus and then given the form of a heifer. This Io is costumed, of course; costumes were not a part of Travel. But the kind of chthonic and ancient awareness Io represents, a knowledge-of-something-profoundly-human-but-certainly-not-verbally-expressible, was quite present in Travel, as it had been in Antigone several years ago, and was revealed to be in Arthur Miller's masterpiece The Crucible.

Have I mentioned that the cast is composed of school children? (As we used to call them: "children" comes increasingly resistingly to the vocabulary these days.) The Imaginists, directed by Brent Lindsay and Amy Pinto, have as their chief goal the development of strong and imaginative community theater; and they know the best way to build a theatrical future is to engage young people in the project. All the productions I've mentioned, including this Travel, have been performed by actors not yet eighteen. (Well, one turned eighteen last night.)

And they've absorbed their demanding repertory and developed the means to reproduce its revelations in their own collectively developed work. On one level, I suppose you could say Travel is no more than a series of skits, each the concept of one or another of the actors, all on the central theme of travel, strung together like the coaches of a passenger train, or the benches of a bus, whose occupants momentarily seem to have a common destination. (And that destination becomes all too apparent toward the end, when even members of the audience are involved in it.)

But "skit" suggests mere entertainment, and this work goes beyond that. There's something almost unnervingly profound about nearly everything these Imaginists do. The work is often abstract, but always meaningful, however elusive. Travel continues in the Healdsburg workshop tonight and tomorrow (June 13 and 14). The next production, Amos Tutuola's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, opens later this month: I'm sorry my own travels will prevent my seeing it.

Another day, another walk

IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL HERE. We think about that every day, of course. Gratitude is increasingly the most pressing order of the day's business, and we have much to be grateful for. Here you see, in the distance, the house Lindsey grew up in -- well: that she lived in from aetat. 14 to 22, not counting time out while attending college. It's on Eastside Road about three and a quarter miles north of our mailbox. (If you have Google Earth you can pinpoint it: 38°33'40.92" N 122°50'47.52" W; 95 ft. elevation.)

Fifty-odd years ago, when I first saw the place, it was in mixed production: 300 head of dairy cows or so; extensive prune orchards; hay fields and pasture. No grapevines. The vines in the middle right in this photo occupy the space of the family orchard: apples, plums, apricots, peaches. There were oranges near the house (that may be one there, now I think about it, below the gable).

Ten years before that there was the remains of a tennis court behind the house, beyond that huge satellite dish you can see: for at the turn of the century, the last century I mean, this was the Hotchkiss Ranch, the home of Helen Hotchkiss's parents. What? You haven't heard of her? She was perhaps the pioneering woman tennis player, the first, as I understand it from reading her memoir, to have thought of "playing like a man": that is, aggressively. She was a champ, and changed her world.

I walked past the old ranch, as we call it, today, on an eight-miler from our house in to Healdsburg. Eight miles = kilometers, two and a half hours walking, maybe fifteen minutes resting. Not bad for ninety-five-degree heat, but my feet hurt...

Flower Alphabet

YESTERDAY I READ THIS POEM in a year-old annual brochure from the local Community Foundation and it knocked, as they say, my socks off:

Flower Alphabet

Another flower
blossoms on the
coming of spring,
dandelions or
even roses, all
flowers starting to
gain beauty.
High above
I gaze down on
justice and nature,
kind and natural
lands filled with
majestic flowers.

No flower left
on Earth ugly,
pacing themselves, a
quilt of
roses even
sunflowers pace
toward the best
udder place.
Vegetables or fruit such as
watermelon. The hum of flowers like a
Xaxaphone.
Your flower white and black a
zebra's majestic flower.

--Mike Nicol

I confess it was only the word "udder' that woke me up and made me realize what was going on here; even the title hadn't alerted me. What a careless reader I can be! But "udder" isn't out of place, not here on Eastside Road, or in Windsor, either, where the poet was (at the time of writing the poet, last year) a sixth grade student at Cali Calmécac Charter School. Many of the fields hereabout are worked by cows, some of them dairy cows.

We have a field full of -- not cows, but Mariposa lilies, also known as Mariposa tulips, or golden nuggets. Calochortus luteus. I always thought they were named for Mariposa county, thinking they must have been particularly plentiful there: but it's simply named for the butterfly (mariposa in Spanish), which it resembles.

I don't know much about wildflowers. I don't know much about Cali Calmécac Charter School or, for that matter, Mike Nicol. I called the school; last evening Nicol called me to give me permission to reprint the poem here. I asked if he was still writing. Yes, he said, but not so much poetry these days; he's working on a novel.

This is the kind of thing gives one hope for the future. Justice and nature, kind and natural lands! What a line!

A hard day's walk

Mt. Saint Helena in the distance across the dry fields south of Windsor

UF: IT'S GETTING HOT, over ninety degrees today. I decided I needed to walk, though, so set out at about 9:40, walking over our hill and through the neighbor's vineyard, east about three-quarters of a mile to Starr Road, then north about the same and east about the same and north about a mile and a quarter to Windsor River Rd., then east maybe two-thirds of a mile to the local café, Café Noto.

It's Sunday, and nearly summertime, and there were a few joggers and cyclists out. At one point I was overtaken by a team of runners. How far you running? Oh, about sixteen miles. A few minutes later another runner came puffing along not really trying to catch up.

Well, I'd done four miles in 90 minutes, so I took a half-hour in the café, read my e-mail, and determined that I could not send any. Hmm: there are still obstacles to be overcome if I'm going to be blogging from the Alps later this month.

It was a nice rest, among more cyclists and runners; but then it got hot, and after another two and a quarter miles to Eastside Road I decided against going to Healdsburg & came home instead, another four and a quarter miles, arriving home totally exhausted at 2 pm. Totals, ca 10.5 miles in 4 hours. Going in to Healdsburg would have added another 3.3 miles, and then the same back, for a total of 17 miles! I'll save it for another day...

Guitar in the home

THE GUITAR, that ideal instrument: wood, steel, brass; a body famously like a woman's; a voice capable of insinuating melody or resonant depth. No other instrument, barring the human voice, is so chthonic.

And the place to hear it is in camera, in a room, where its subtle richness is uncompromised by artificial amplification. Last night we heard it thus: friends gave a dinner musicale for thirty guests or so, having received the opportunity to do so in turn as a Christmas present -- from people who had in turn received a similar gift at their wedding.

A gift that continues to give, like music itself or, for that matter, the guitar. Talk about added value!

The guitarist was Gyan Riley, of whom we've heard so much lately. The son of Terry and Ann Riley, his face mediating theirs and their sweet expressions of ggod humor and intelligence, he plays with authority undamaged by excessive pride or vittuosity. He's there to serve the music, whether a Bach suite or Bonfa's "Black Orpheus" -- which supported a thoughtful, idiomatic improvisation.

He played music of his own,too, fascinating etudes investigating various technical challenges. I liked tham; occasionally they suggedted things he must have been exposed to growing up in a sophisticated, globally aware family: much more often they were quite himself, imaginative, accomplished, beguiling.

Walking in the woods

ANOTHER SUNDAY HIKE, preparing for the long walk beginning later this month. Off we went, Mac and Henry and I, to a local state park, there to leave the car in a $4 parking lot and tackle a really nice hike. Much of it was among trees, Douglas fir for the most part. Since we were off in a distant end of the park, accessible easily only by paying to park, we had the trail pretty much to ourselves.

There was the occasional "mountain bike," which I confess to having gradually evolved a prejudice against; and two or three times we met a couple of equestrians. Somehow the horses, and their riders, are less irritating, less "unnatural," than the bikers. They're slower, for one thing, and considerably more visible.

We climbed and descended and strolled along fairly level stretches, among the forest, in open fields which would clearly have been marshland at other times, and conversed, and worked our feet. Lunch: bread, salami, apple, walnuts, dried apricots, cookies. Then more walking.

Turkeys, cougar scat, woodpeckers, Mariposa lilies, buttercups. Eight miles; four hours. A nice rehearsal.