So, what I didn't stay awake long enough to say about yesterday's hike to Staefeli was that we had superb views of the amazing Titlis monolith as we came over the Surenen Pass: clouds on all sides framing the snow-covered peak with its glacier below. At times it seemed as if only we, the valley we were going to descend, and Titlis were in the sun: beautiful.
I should also add that the hut at Staefeli was very nice, although a little light on the construction materials in the bunkroom building -- you could hear every movement! Fortunately we were about the only ones there, so I believe that we all slept well. Except, perhaps, for Sally, who seems never to sleep well. Apparently she can't go to sleep quickly and she always wakes up at first light (at this time of year in these parts around 4:30 or 5). Add these two facts together and it also means that if we are going to have breakfast at 7 (which means getting up at 6:30), then she doesn't go back to sleep after waking at first light.
And this causes friction between her and me, because for various practical reasons I believe it is better to start a hike early (most days -- shorter hikes on days with good weather forecast are exceptions), and, perhaps worse, I also am a morning person, so I like getting up early. The practical reasons are:
o safety: if something goes wrong (injury, massive error of map-reading, washed out trail), then you have more time to recover.
o safety: in general thunderstorms in the Alps come up later in the day, and if you start early you have a better chance of avoiding being in an exposed position (at a pass or on a ridge) when a storm arrives.
o comfort: since we mostly do passes, we can get more of the climbing out of the way before the hottest part of the day.
o comfort: you get a better choice of bed and/or room if you get to your accommodation early.
Sally is normally exceptionally safety-conscious, but not in this case, where she pooh-poohs the safety concerns listed above. She also is generally good at not sweating the small stuff... but not in this case, where she will argue vigorously for an extra 30 minutes and then look daggers when she doesn't get them. And on her side, I'm sure that she thinks that I am being arbitrarily tyrannical and am totally ignoring her needs and wishes based on illogical arguments just because I like getting up early.
So that you don't get the wrong impression here: in general we get along fine, and being a hard-bitten Jersey girl (unlike overly-sensitive English me :-), she probably doesn't even regard the friction as significant. But such are the interpersonal dynamics in a small group on an expedition! And to give you a feel for what it is like to be here, sometimes I'll write about them.
Now what else did I want to say? Oh, yes, something strange: it seems that we are losing our appetites. For example, we started out with a pact to only eat dessert every other day. Well, now we rarely eat dessert (and only have a green salad as an appetizer at dinner) because we just aren't hungry. I have heard of exercise-related appetite suppression before, but never experienced it myself. I wonder what causes it?
One theory I have come up with is that the body's fat-burning metabolism is being used at a high rate for so much of the time that it simply isn't shutting off, or only shuts off partially. Effectively, therefore, the body doesn't need as much food... at least as long as fat reserves last. Well, looking at myself in the mirror, I definitely see some improvement, but there are nevertheless clearly plenty of reserves left! So it may be some time until I can eat the amounts of cheese fondue that I have been dreaming of :-).
And I think that's about all I wanted to add to yesterday's post. So I'll move on to today (in the next post).
