Alpine Panorama Trail — Stage 3: Appenzell to Urnäsch

The learning curve is as steep as some of the hills on this walk. After last week’s aimless perambulations above Bühler, and the spirit-shrivelling dehydration, I made a couple of small adjustments for this weekend’s outing. I dug out an old compass, last used in the Yorkshire Dales in the nineties, and found a water belt of more recent vintage to ensure easier access to fluid out on the trail.

I repeated the format of previous weeks, first driving to the day’s destination, then making my way to the start point by public transport. This week I was aiming for Urnäsch, still in the Kanton of Appenzell. According to the typically detailed Wikipedia article, it’s a less cerebral place than Trogen, with a mere 57.4% of adults having been through tertiary or other post-school education, compared with a brain-bulging 74.7% in Trogen. Population is 2268, of which about 250 are foreigners. A striking illustration of the economic health of the nation is found in the unemployment figure — just 1.33% of the village are registered unemployed, and this is fairly typical.

Back in Appenzell, something apart from me was afoot. As I approached the Zentrum from the station, I could see flapping temporary canvas walls going up everywhere, partitioning the small central square from the rest of the universe. Being still early in the day, the erection was not fully formed, so I was able to breach these makeshift city walls without anyone putting up much of a fight.

Inside the tarpaulin citadel, all was revealed. Ah. Of course. The mini festival at which Uriah Heep were performing, along with Al-Berto and the Fried Bikinis — mentioned last time. This improvised arena was looking good with a proper stage and lighting, and an array of bars and Wurst dispensaries around the perimeter. It looked inviting, but the Fried Bikinis wouldn’t be twanging their banjos and slapping their Lederhosen for a few hours yet. It was a tiny auditorium, perhaps 20 square metres, and I could see Uriah Heep blowing a few socks off before the day was out.

I had more wholesome fish to fry, and set off…. in which direction? I found a town plan with Trail Number 3 marked, but the map wasn’t detailed enough to show the street names. All I knew is the path led west of the town. Aha! Hang on! I pulled out the compass and headed west. Within 200 metres or so, I was in business. The same distance again, and I was already leaving Appenzell behind, cheese unchomped and beer undrunk. Another time.

I became lost only once on this leg, about 45 minutes in. After arriving at the golf course, as expected, I skirted round it and headed into some dense woods. The path was crossed with glistening tree roots and sharp rocks – not an ideal combination for anyone lacking the agility of a ballerina. But I made it to a small river and crossed a bridge into another stretch of woodland. After scrambling up a steep bank and past some insolent cattle, I came to a well made trail with a sign, clearly telling me that Gontenbad, my immediate destination, was back the way I had just come. Eh?

I gazed at my map, as if this would prove the sign wrong, but the places I was apparently heading for were plainly not where I wanted to be. Again, the compass was summoned, a bit like the third umpire in cricket, and grimly confirmed the verdict. I couldn’t even negotiate an obvious detour, so after a minute or two of disconsolate blinking, I sighed and headed back the way I had come, past the insolent cattle, down the steep bank, across the river and back up the path with the glistening tree roots and sharp rocks.

Back on the edge of the golf course, I sat on a bench and watched some rich people take confident swings with their clubs. They kept peering at me warily, as if anxious about what I might do next. All I did next was to eventually get up again and find another route around the course. This one took me across a field and up a horribly precipitous hillock that I guessed had been landscaped in by the designers of the course, because as I finally struggled over the top, gasping for breath, I found myself on the edge of a green at which two elderly ladies were shrinking backwards, away from me, as though I was an extra-terrestrial, or an ogre emerging from a hole in the ground.

It wasn’t a time for breathless explanations or apologies. Instead, I transmitted what I hoped was a vacuous grin and issued a lusty “Grüezi! Ein schöner Tag!” and marched off in the opposite direction.

I still wasn’t on the official path, and so I spent a nervous ten minutes tip-toeing from one inadequate hiding place to another as the golf balls flew. Finally reaching the neutrality of a tarmac path seemed no less an event than the Von Trapps escaping across the Alps to Switzerland. Hurrah! I hurried away up the path.

Shortly afterwards, I began to notice something rather strange – a procession of families with young children, passing me on the path in bare feet. Most had dark liquid mud coating their feet and lower legs. From where had this impoverished tribe appeared? And where were they heading for? All around us were small huts that reminded me of the shielings in the Outer Hebrides. Have I ever talked about my youthful experience in Stornoway? I must talk about the Hebrides sometime. As a boy in my mid-teens, I twice ran away from home to this most extraordinary of places. The shielings are tiny huts where the peat cutters and jobbing croppers would be accommodated. Could I have stumbled across a ghastly Swiss secret? A herd of nomadic agrarian serfs?

I felt even more uneasy when one of these chaps approached me, tugged my shirt and began jabbering away in some unrecognisable guttural tongue. But then I realised he was speaking German while sucking a large boiled sweet. And he wasn’t tugging my shirt so much as, sort of, indicating it. It was my bright yellow Boston Marathon shirt once again – an item that has accompanied me on all three legs so far. My German wasn’t good enough to jabber back but it was clear he was paying homage, or at least expressing sympathy over the bombing of this year’s race. I thanked him earnestly, as if I were some sort of roving ambassador for the event. We shook hands and parted.

The truth about these people emerged shortly afterwards, when I noticed that every footpath sign carried a small notice saying Bar Fuss. I hadn’t instantly twigged that this wasn’t an advert for some local hostelry, but was saying “barefoot”. It was a special barefoot trail, complete with muddy trenches here and there to increase the fun quotient for the kids.

Once I realised what was going on, or coming off, I felt a sort of unspoken peer pressure weighing on me, and decided to join them. Shoelessness made me ponder the uneasy relationship between the modern world and this more elemental state of nature. For people accustomed to shoes, it’s actually quite hard to walk unshod, though it was fascinating to watch a group of young children ahead of me, running and skipping along the trail while their parents took more tentative steps. I suppose the kids had not yet been taught that walking barefoot was difficult.

The Bar Fuss signs continued for some way, but my experiment ran out of steam after a kilometre or so, when I had to cross a main road and join a stonier path. This ain’t no pilgrimage, I told myself, and reconsidered the decision. The compromise was swapping bare feet for a pair of light sandals I’d had the foresight to stuff into my backpack. I bought these Teva Toachi 2 walking sandals a while back. Not cheap, but good shock absorption, and useful for crunching round my kitchen floor in the nervous days following another glass breakage. Today I wore them all the way to Urnäsch, almost killing myself only once or twice.

I stopped to admire some insouciant pigs, who tried in vain to pretend to have no interest in me. Peering round the pigsty, I was reminded I had to clean my apartment before the arrival of the great MLCMM and Frau MLCMM next week. I also need to break the news to this human Roman numeral that I am not imbibing alcohol at the moment, and haven’t been for… crikey, six solid weeks.

This time around, I’ve eschewed the usual blogatorial pronouncing the final vanquishing of alcohol. It’s been very easy to take a break from the stuff — though it always is. It’s usually at this sort of point, when I’m starting to develop a smugness about my victory, that the switch gets flicked by some remote, invisible finger, and my good intentions crumble on the altar of mild temptation.

So I say this very very warily — that it’s starting to feel different this time. And it is different in that I’ve remained more disciplined about food. In 6 weeks, I’ve eaten almost nothing processed. The odd can of tomatoes or kidney beans — hardly processed food hell. A tin of pineapple. Some soya yogurt. A few slivers of cheese, and some tortellini discovered frothing up at the back of the fridge that seemed a shame to waste. Only twice have I eaten wheat bread (and one of those was a few croutons in soup), and a few more times I’ve had a slice of pumpernickel with my scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast. The pumpernickel sold here is the authentic German style, made from 100% rye. Not totally gluten-free, but packed with nutrients and fibre.

I didn’t intend going wheat-free and lactose-free, but that’s what seems to have happened. No bread or cakes or biscuits or crisps. No potatoes, no pasta, no rice. I’ve discovered gluten-free qinoa, which is an admirable stand-in.

No coffee. I’ve stuck to green tea or rosehip to avoid the need for milk. Plenty of chilled Zurich tap water which, as I think I’ve bragged before, has been pronounced more pure than bottled mineral water.

But: forgive me Father for I have sinned, for each of my Saturday walk days has started with a bowl of muesli and splash of milk and yogurt to fuel me up a bit. But that’s it.

Breakfast remains my favourite meal. I tend to alternate between 1) fresh fruit salad topped with a spoonful of soya yogurt and ground seeds (linseed, sunflower, pumpkin etc), washed away with a glass of homemade smoothie (melon and raspberry usually), and 2) two scrambled eggs and smoked salmon or mackerel on pumpernickel that’s first spread with my ‘green mix’ — a sort of pesto made with spinach, basil, parsley, garlic, chilli, avocado and a splash of olive oil, whisked in a blender. A bit of pepper and a splash of Worcester Table Sauce. Cup of green tea. Job’s a good ‘un. And ok, 3), my Saturday treat of birchermuesli (oats soaked overnight in apple juice and plain yogurt), topped with chopped banana, blueberries, dried prunes and anything else in the fruit category I have lying around.

I’m seeing a link between processed food and a craving for sweet things. In fact, I think there is a strong link between processed foods and a craving for… processed foods. It’s self-perpetuating. And beer and wine have offered little temptation either. The closest I came to succumbing to beer was two Saturdays ago, when I limped into Appenzell, severely dehydrated, and had a brief fantasy about walking into a bar and croaking an order for ein grosses bier. It was the cold liquid aspect that held me in temporary thrall, and not the alcohol.

How long will it continue? I don’t know. Despite my resolve, a 4-day visit from one of the Southern Hemisphere’s most notorious beer enthusiasts presents a challenge. And the penultimate day of the visit is 1st August, Swiss National Day, when a frenzy of public celebration is traditionally doused with a few cold ’uns or a bottle of something vinous and fizzy. Pray for me.

Back to the walk. There isn’t too much more to say, which may explain the preceding narrative detour.

The final third was a pleasant and unchallenging experience, drawing me through the usual mix of open hillsides, farmyard and woodland. It was a path through a patch of forest that gave me my trickiest moment. A steep track descended into the V-shaped, wooded hollow. That wasn’t bad, but in the base of the cleft was a small stream that I had to cross. Sandals and a heavyish pack gave the task an edge of peril that I didn’t greatly enjoy. It was one of those situations where confidently, and rapidly, striding across in two or three large steps might have been the best answer. Instead I took seven or eight small, nervous steps which did eventually deliver me to the other side, but not without an anxious gasp or two.

Then up the other side of the wood and onto an open hillside where Urnäsch lay before me like a large buffet. Unlike Appenzell, which never seemed to get any closer, today my destination was grasped within a reasonable 30 minutes or so.

Back at the car, as I changed my shirt and prepared to set off on the hour’s drive home, I glanced up and saw the Appenzell train approaching in the distance, just as it had earlier in the day. For a fleeting moment I thought about jumping on it again to treat myself to a blast of Uriah Heep, not to mention Al-Berto and the Fried Bikinis. A sudden stab of longing dragged me half out of the car. I could see along the platform, and noted there was no gang of Italian schoolgirls to obstruct me this time. I could make it if I tried.

But then… but then I remembered the array of beer and sausage stalls running around the edge of the town square arena in Appenzell, temporal sacraments to service the needs of a head-rattling congregation. And I was thirsty and hungry. Hmm. With a sigh, I got back into the car. I remain confident, but not yet ready to jab an arrogant finger in the ribs of temptation.