Climbing up this mountain - 2'429m by bike.

In front of me I can see the road going up in endless serpentines. Suddenly I have to assume, the two hours of climbing I had done previously haven’t been part of the real thing. It is still all in front of me. There is no other way. Right and left are two huge mountains one of them I have to cross, that’s if I don’t want to turn around to take a roughly 200km detour.

“How crazy is it to be here?” I think, a bit overwhelmed by the project in front of me, but mainly very excited about it. Excited because meanwhile this mountain looks scary and invincable now, I know by the end of the day I will be up there, no matter what.

In that instant I can’t believe I will ever reach the top, but I also know I will. I know it, because there is no way around. I decided that there is no way around only across.

All around me it’s very busy. Normally I avoid crossing Passes in the weekends, due to all the traffic, sport-cars, motorbikes and tourists. This time I had no choice, if I didn’t want to cross in pouring rain, this was the day, Saturday.

In a little quiet spot I have some eggs and peanuts. Already hungry from the previous kilometres and meters of elevation. One egg, two eggs, three and suddenly the 500g of peanuts is gone too, I could still keep on eating.

I marvel at the stones and rocks around me, the river coming from up there, splashing out of these huge rocks behind which, the glacier fuelling that never ending flow of life is hiding. The peaks are covered in little patches of white, red shrubs and grass make their way between cold stone. Now and then a few Sun rays pierce through the Gray clouds and light up one patch of pure and rough nature along these slopes.

“What are you going to teach me?” I ask the mountain. As I make my endless and slow way up. I advance meter by meter, motorbikes race past me. Each sound of an engine makes me hope their ego isn’t too inflated to give me enough space on that road. Some pass me nice and slow, others race along squeezing me against the rock to my right.

Isn’t it interesting how different our motives are to get up there? While for them it’s about speed and power, I guess save to say involving some high on their ego. To me it is all the opposite, long hours of sweat and my ego getting shut up and put back into place after each bend. A weird contrast, especially if you are on the vulnerable side of the lane.

One moment of stubbornness not to say anger arises. “How many more times do I have to do this?” In this very moment I could literally just hang out anywhere at the beach in Italy eat some food and drinks, buy some stuff, go out. Any leisure holiday activity. I could, I have the time I could afford it, no one tells me what to do. Why am I here again?

It only takes one bend to clarify why I am here suffering my way up this mountain instead of leisuring in Italy.

Because it is real. Everything I feel is real and raw, the views make me cry that’s how beautiful they are. Every drop of sweat is worth the effort. I didn’t know it was possible to love just “life” that much. Difficult to put into words what I feel. As I glance into the Abis to my left, seeing how the Rhone river bubbles out of the rocks, falls down and splashes up, roars down all the way into the sea. That’s how it feels. That’s how I feel everyday, at least once when I cross these mountains. Yes it’s hard, yes I hate it sometimes. And it is all worth it for that feeling of knowing I am exactly in the right place. Every drop of sweat repays in a rush of love, free and endless, like the river below me.

“See”, I tell myself, while I stand there alone, looking back at what I have just accomplished, eating for two again “it seemed impossible back there, and now you are here. Not so impossible anymore.”

Just for a second tempted to get arrogant about my achievement to have made it up here by myself without an engine and an inflated ego. As the sunset places a few tears in my eyes because of how dramatically beautiful everything looks and the icy wind reminds me of a falling long night ahead that I have no idea yet where I will spend it and how I will prevent myself from freezing in my summer sleeping bag out here in the wild.

Thank you for passing by, enjoy your week!