Where I like to go on vacation

Many of you may know that I am not at all a city person. In fact, I completely despise large cities. Some straightforward reasons are that you are more disconnected from nature, the air is dirtier, and there are more people. I generally just feel a lot safer around fewer people. Just walking around in a large city stresses me out. I like living in Champaign-Urbana because it doesn't have the same crowded feel, and there is still plenty of green and fresh air. For any city folks reading this post, I can totally understand why you might like big cities, but I'm just not that kind of person. I don't like to visit cities when my family goes on vacation because I don't find sightseeing interesting and I am content with the food and activities around here. Instead, I prefer to vacation in the mountains.

My family is fortunate enough to afford about 1 major trip per year, either in the summer or in the winter. I am always trying to persuade my parents to go skiing in the winter or hiking in the summer. The two major mountain ranges I have visited are the alps and the Rockies, and I have visited both in the summer and in the winter.

Skiing is one of the main reasons why I like the Winter. Over the years, I have become a reasonably proficient skier. I can handle green, blue and black slopes with ease, but so far, I have never dared to go on any double black diamond slopes. I told myself that once I successfully descended a double black diamond slope, I would try out snowboarding (which I have been told is a bit harder than skiing).  A couple of times, I have stood at the top of one of these slopes, not quite summoning the guts to go down. One thing I have learned, though is that when you start feeling apprehensive, it is a good idea turn around. As I have experienced before, skiing is an activity where you certainly do not want to bite off more than you can chew.

One other winter time activity for the mountains is sledding. almost everybody has probably been sledding before, most likely at a local hill. I got to sled down a mountain In Austria. Sledding down the ski slopes is even more thrilling than skiing. When you sled, you have very limited control--almost zero stopping power and a very large turn radius. I often had to bail to prevent myself from hitting trees and flying off the trail into who-knows-what. Having to bail at high speeds can really hurt sometimes and making sure your sled doesn't continue to the bottom of the mountain can be tricky.

In the summer, when skiing is only feasible at extreme altitudes and for great costs, hiking is a great activity for the mountains. It is a lot less crowded, as long as you know how to avoid the touristy areas. The Valais, in Switzerland is certainly my favorite place to hike. It is a very pretty region with many small towns and farms on the mountainsides.  In addition, this region has many hot springs with huge spa towns built around them.

Unlike many people, I am not a huge fan of going to the beach. Maybe I just need to try surfing or something, but I have always found the beach a bit boring. There are several other locations in which I do not enjoy vacationing. Paris, which I have been to a couple times, is at the very bottom of the list. I don't really appreciate the architecture, the food comes nowhere close to its reputation, and it is practically impossible to escape the cigarette smoke from all of the smokers.

My trip to switzerland

This past summer, I spent 2 weeks in the Valais in the Swiss Alps. As a child, my dad visited Switzerland every year, usually staying in the same small village. I had been to switzerland twice prior to this past summer. Normally, my family and I just went on hikes with little equipment besides a backpack and hiking sticks. We never traversed anything more serious than roped ledges or occasionally some small cliff-like rock structures with spikes drilled into the rock face for footholds. On this past trip, my 10 year old brother (who is a really fit swimmer), was eager to go on long hikes with my Dad and I. Most of our hikes ranged from 8-12 hours. Some were more serious, where we stayed focused and tried to limit our time hanging out and taking pictures and simply cover as much distance and altitude as possible. Some hikes were more relaxed, where we stopped to play in the fresh cold glacier water in the creeks. My Dad, who had years of experience in the Valais, knew where the best trails were and where the least touristy areas were. We were able to avoid the crowded, ridiculously expensive touristy areas, and enjoy the peaceful Alps undisturbed (and for little cost besides the ridiculously priced Swiss food). On many of these hikes we only saw people every few hours. I was very glad to wake up, pack, hike all day, return home, eat a late dinner, and go straight to bed. I always yearned, however to try out something more advanced.

  This past summer, I had a great opportunity to try something a bit more serious. My aunt's Swiss boyfriend is a semi-professional mountaineer, and he was willing to come down to our Chalet to take my dad and I on a couple serious hikes. He showed us some equipment to rent, including climbing harnesses, crampons and ice picks, and we learned how to use them. We then prepared for a huge hike that would prove to be the best of the entire trip. We got up before 6 AM and each packed warm clothes, several sandwiches, and all our gear and drove out to Saas Grund, a very touristy town near a cluster of the highest peaks of Switzerland. We took a bus to Saas Amagell and then on to Stausee Mattmark to one of Switzerland's many water dams (the primary source of power in the area). Many of the touristy towns are car-free to  keep the air cleaner and also to increase revenue (they couldn't fool us).

We hiked uphill for a couple hours, reaching a moderate peak To give you a sense, there were several snow patches, and it was the end of July. We then hiked across a large snow field, maintaining a pretty constant altitude, until we reached the Allalin glacier. We put on crampons, and harnesses and grabbed our ice axes and we crossed this glacier, which was almost completely flat. We almost had no need for our gear. We then crossed a large moraine in between the Allalin glacier and the Hohlaub glacier, and then put our gear back on as we crossed the Hohlaub glacier. this glacier was covered in crevasses and holes at least 20 feet deep. In addition, there was a large river to cross flowing through the glacier which was partly concealed under ice. It really was a sight like no other. Traversing the Hohlaub glacier was an experience I will never forget. Even though it was a cloudy day, the rich blue ice in the cracks and the was small streams flowing through them were indescribably beautiful. We hiked uphill to the Britannia Huette SAC, a mountain cabin used by serious mountaineers to sleep overnight and wake up hours before sunrise to mount the highest peaks of the Alps. Cabins like these received supplies via Heli-drop and were powered by solar panels on the roof. We crossed a couple more snow fields, following a trail closed due to avalanche warnings. In our defense, it was our only choice or we would have been hiking until after nighfall, at which point things got seriously dangerous. We then finished the hike at 4:58 PM, unscathed by avalanches ending up at a cable car line leading to Saas Fee, just making the last ride by a couple minutes. It had only been a nine hour hike, but nonetheless, it was the by far the best one of the whole trip. It had been one of the most exciting days of my life, and an extremely memorable experience.

If you are curious, you can see a picture of me and the glacier on my Facebook wall.
I'm not sure this link will work, but you can try it:
https://www.facebook.com/lyle.regenwetter