Patrick Wheeler on the Furka Pass 2013

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Patrick Wheeler takes a run over the Furka Pass in October of 2013

Please excuse me if I time travel a little bit? Before I could get to the Napoleon route, I did need to get down there... and here is the rest of the story (as told to me by my camera)

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, some hairy big-footed hobbit left his little shire home and moseyed out on an adventure, he had no sooner left home than he stumbled upon some Alsatian elves selling fresh apples and apple juice and grapes by a roadside stand. I suppose I could tell you the elves enchanted him and then fed him to a mean ogre who lived under the highway bypass?

Well, no, the satellites had told there was a large storm brewing out over the ocean and I had an appointment in the sunny southlands, so, choices, take a quickie airline or grab the gps and plot a route no home loving hobbit would countenance ... may I introduce you to the Andermatt, Furka pass, and friends? I hear there is sunshine on the southern part of Europe, but we have to get there first...

To say this is a route of legend, well, it does not do it justice...

But, please, don't take his word for it, take mine. In the modern parlance... SQUEEEEEE!!!!!! OHMAHGERD... OHMAHGERD... pure awesomess (does anyone have any dramamine?) (did I ever mention heights were, well, not really my thing? No! oh good, cause I _love_ this stuff!!) (stop taking pictures and drive dammit!) (stop the car and back up, you have got to see that again!) (did I get that photo?) (oh wow)

ok, not all fun and games, there is an incredibly dramatic overlook at the receding glacier, the falls below, well, I could send you just 22 photos of the glacier alone, or maybe this guy's video or these images...

Unfortunately, the walk to the glacier is getting rather long these days, and pretty soon it will be gone, this postcard from not so long ago shows the glacier stretching to the parking lot, this postcard is even more touching:

The resorts are all dead now, the stately building at the bottom of the pass is boarded up, the day we were there they were shutting off the electricity and closing for the season at the 'new' parking lot gift shop halfway up the mountain, I bought a postcard, not sure if they would be opening up again anytime soon... "The Rhone glacier has been a tourist attraction since the middle of the nineteenth century. The scenic glacier next to the road over the Furka pass retreated dramatically over the past 150 years. Pictures from 1870 show the ice reaching to the village of Gletsch in the valley. Now the ice is almost 3 km further back disappearing behind the edge of of a 450 m high ice-polished slope. A lake is forming at the foot of the shrinking Rhone glacier." That was written in 2009, the lake is now well formed and the the glacier even further lost...

With a seriously changed outlook and dampened spirits that have nothing to do with the looming weather I point the way downhill, and what a downhill it is, what an utter treat... the car shooshes and behaves in all ways as it should, cannot say the same for its pilot... oh wow...

Whooaaah... having the road almost entirely alone it is startling to encounter another car, this is certainly the time to make such a run, during the summer months I hear the roads are slammed with cyclists, bikers and caravaners from the Netherlands carrying loads of cheese to southron europe... here the larch trees are turning yellow and the colors are popping from the hillsides...

Interesting snippets in town, am sure Wikipedia would explain this is an early version of pest control from the days before monsanto blessed us with so many chemicals, you build your store-houses on pegs and placed large stones between them and the rats were not accomplished mountaineers and could not scale an overhang such as this? I dunno, but it is handsome, and must be unique to the region as there are a lot of them and they are all being kept in repair (see the new roof on this one?) I also noted the charred timbers, if you burn your log's exterior but not all the way through, the charcoal is a natural anti-everything that serves to preserve, no boring beetle will risk his life trying to get through, no mold spores and etc... someone get the blowtorch for the underside of the new roof

Oh, yeah, Swiss mountain passes, cowbells, cows, cowsmilk, cheese!! DOH! Yeah, got it... too bad was closed this day...

More rocks and houses and ladders and late fall leaves and slate grey sky...

There is an undermountain route, you put your car on a train, they take you under the mountain to visit the dwarves and out the other side. _SURE_ you come out the other side! No self-respecting hobbit goes into dwarf territory if he can help it, he may live under a hill but not getting this boy under a mountain... too bad the main road is having roadworks... half an hour ago there was a detour sign, the road became a goat path, mostly paved, as it wended its way along clefts and crevasses and through the barnyards of the mountain farmers... finally it opened up and rejoined a two-lane road... whew! Shoulda gone to visit the damn dwarves...

On second thought no, been in tunnels before, is an island nearby one can get to via a train and a tunnel. They are black and dark and nothing to see but your glowing computer screen and a deck of playing cards...

Here the mountains have captured the rain and every other rock has sprouted a cascade that whishes and tumbles and rumbles and slips and shooshes over the polished stone... would only miss this if the dwarven route promises a visit to their treasury, as far as I can tell, all the dwarven gold has found its way to the trees on the mountain side...

Sigh, but all too soon we leave our dwarven wonderland behind for more prosaic matters... a small Italian vineyard Piemontese village is sourced, one with not-as-young-as-they-once-were-but-still-doing ladies carry their groceries back from the market while a fella drives his three wheeled vespa powered Ape through traffic... all as if it were still 1950/60 some odd and a half...

Although this is sparkiling wine country, it is also home to one of the three bottling plants of Aperol and Campari, for some reason it was a Campari lunch...

Gnocchi are a regional specialty... and a little place is sourced from a local englisher's blog... and an exceedingly late lunch is indeed possible, and oh my, the drinking girl is right...

The red diavolo spicy is a delight, but the butter and sage is simply sublime, worth every artery hardening bite oh sigh... http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jul/10/how-to-make-the-perfect-gnocchi

And the 'kitchen sink' pizza is a revelation... the aged elf still running the place is a total charmer... if ever in town Via Giacosa 2, Alba, Cuneo, Italy. Open Daily for lunch and dinner.

Dead heart of serious wine country, vineyards to a density only dreamed of by the French. Hard to drive, breathtaking scenery, twisty one-lane road with farm implements and no site distances...

Haze is coming back in after that long long lunch... the Campari is long worn off, but the gastro load is making me lazy, slow down far too often to look at the scenery...

Rocking this route , absolutely loving it, tiny car is a dream, handles the rough road with aplomb and does not rattle teeth... The little hillside villages pass by in a flash, each one with a small cafe and amazing coffee on the square, did I mention how friendly the hill people are? Always startled at a stray English speaking Belgian, but ready smiles and good humor always seems to be welcome here and all it takes... and me with a room at the thermal baths waiting...

Pretty sure that bright beam across the room is the thing called 'sunshine', have been long in search of its golden ray, is very welcome... There is a little town of faded glory here, a spa town, calla Acqui Terme, romans used to come for the volcanic hot springs... a spa is to be sourced to soak the aches and pains of a long hard slog over the hills... Have been reading a fair number of these spa towns have fallen on hard times, taking the waters is not as fashionable as it once was... but the one sourced by the hotel is incredibly modern, well cared for, the clientele are not all old and is a well mixed crowd of couples (new and not so new), just friends, mom's and daughters (no dad's and sons, and no nephews either surprising enough)...

... with visions of Mr. Bond, cars and glaciers and freshets and torrents and many swirling thoughts in the head...

|..and so to hotel and to bed..|

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