If the Lammenhüutte is too strenuous for you there is an easier option. A walk to the Majinsee and back, via the Thermal gorge. This is an easy hike with 300m of climbing and descent on wide gravel paths rather than narrow hiking paths. It takes you by a cold water lake before taking you through a vertiginous gorge that is not for those that suffer from a fear of heights.
I have gone up to Leukerbad at least three times for the via ferrata and this could have been the fourth or fifth time that I do it. I chose not to do it. During the pandemic I spent a lot of time hiking, with little to no exposure to heights. As a result of this I lost the habit of being high up.
I realised this when I was just three or four meters up on a sea defense in Javea/Xabia and felt afraid of the height I was at. In the past I would have been oblivious to it.
When I was flying between England and Switzerland regularly I packed so that everything would fit into a bag that I could take on board. When I travel by car I pack less effectively. Today I have two tents, two different types of sleeping bag, a sleeping mat, a Bare Dry suit inner suit, a single set of via ferrata stuff, crocs, hiking shoes and trail glove 7s on my feet.
We are currently in a heat wave. During heatwaves my velux heat up in the afternoon sun and radiate heat both into the apartment during the day but also at night after the sun has set. I have found that during a heat waves it is wise to close the blinds and close the windows as soon as it is hotter outside than inside.
When it is hotter outside than inside closing windows keeps the apartment slightly cooler, but not much cooler. As I write this it’s 11am and the bedroom is at 30°c. I had cooled it down to 27°c earlier this morning but as soon as I close the windows the apartment temperature shoots up because the core is hot.
More often than not I speak about the desire to do something, rather than the desire not to. Before showeing this morning I was looking at hiking ideas, to find some that would appeal to me and I did. Some friends/people I know want to do the Daubenhorn Via Ferrata on Saturday but I feel little to no desire to do it.
I have done this Via Ferrata three or four times and almost every time I have said “never again”. If you end an activity with that thought three times I think the message is clear. I don’t like that Via Ferrata. It’s especially the second part that I find so hard, after the “lunch” break. It’s especially the last exposed bit, high above the ground.
For a few days I played with an e-bike around St Moritz and in the process learned that riding an e-bike is intuitive. It’s on hills and when you’re riding into the wind that you feel the advantage of e-bikes.
The trick, with e-bikes is to learn to ride gently. With a road bike and mountain bike you get into the habit of pushing hard. With an e-bike you need to pull back. You need to learn to ride more gently. The more gentle you ride, the less you’re pushing against the motor.
Yesterday afternoon I was convinced that I would have a short easy walk, just to get out of the house. In reality I walked from Nyon to Bonmont and back along roads, but also farm paths. I walked this route because I decided that going for a walk would keep me cooler than if I stayed in my apartment.
At first it was going to be a short loop, but eventually I thought “If I walk slowly it doesn’t matter how long I walk for so I modified my course and walked towards Cheserex. I was going to check the lending library in Cheserex but someone was sitting there so I walked by the swimming pool and then up towards Bonmon and across. The grass cutters were out. With so much rain this summer grass is growing fantastically well.
This weekend has been physically demanding. On Saturday I rode with people who do nothing but ride, so they’re far fitter, on a bike than I am, so by the end of the ride I was struggling to keep up.
I fully expected the weekend to be difficult, Originally I considered the Tour D’Aï walk but that would have been a long climb, followed by a long descent. It would have also been exposed to the sun during a sunny hot day. The first hot day of the year. It would have required hours on trains. It’s because the bike ride was close and convenient that I chose to do that instead. No commute, or at least no commute by public transport.
Most of us will associate Škoda with the Tour De France and vice versa. When my brother got a Škoda that’s what I associated it with. Škoda France has a team of people that organise group cycling events to promote the Škoda brand.
I have cycled with groups before. I cycled at Critical mass events in london, but also one or two smaller cycling events in Geneva. With critical mass bike rides everyone is dressed in normal clothes, on normal bikes, cycling at a sociable pace through towns and cities.
Next year all goo.gl shortened links will be dead due to the planned obscolence of hyperlinks. Any website, blog, or social media site that used Goo.gl shortened links will find that their links are worthless from that point on.
URL shorteners thrived for a while because Twitter had a 140 character limit. This limit was put in place to allow for all tweets to be sent as SMS. Quite quickly Twitter found that sending SMS was too expensive so they abandonned the idea but the shortened URL stuck around.