Midnight Climb

My friend Lionel has fun ideas. By "fun" I mean ideas for adventures which no one in their right mind would take him up on. Luckily for him, I live in the Congo, so I'm obviously not in my right mind and I'm always up for a new adventure.

His idea for a fun adventure during my stay in Switzerland was to climb Chasseral, the highest peak in the Jura Mountains of Western Switzerland. This in itself isn’t a very shocking thought. It’s fairly simple day hike. The real goal was not the climb itself…it was to see the sunrise from Chasseral! The plan: Leave as soon as he got off work at 11pm on Saturday night, take the bikes to the funiculaire at Chaumont (tram that takes you up the side of a mountain) for the last trip of the night, ride the bikes for a number of miles to the base of Chasseral (think dark road through the woods, across pastures, down rocky hills, etc.), climb Chasseral, arrive at the peak around 3am, get a few hours of sleep, be up in time to see the sunrise, book it on down the mountain, pick up the bikes, ride like the wind all the way back home in time for the harvest festival Sunday morning at church. Yeehaw!

When we took off on the bikes I was winded after about 5 pedals. Bikes to me is something kids ride around the block. This was perhaps an over ambitious first cycling trip, but I survived. My butt hurt though.

The climb was not so bad either. It wasn’t even cold! Plus Lionel was carrying almost all the stuff :o) The only crisis of faith was when we started talking about how much we love cereal. We almost had to turn around just to go get a bowl. But we pressed on. We tried turning off our headlamps to see how it would go. After a few steps we turned them back on and were shocked to find we were already off the trail!

We arrived at the top earlier than anticipated and set up camp in a charming little carport :o) I don’t think I’ve ever had as good of tea as was in our thermos that night. We chowed down on apples, bread, and cheese and zipped up our sleeping bags as cozy as we could. One hour later… “Are you cold?” “Yesssss!” Out came the giant refrigerator size plastic bags which instantly blocked the chilling wind out of our beds.

Got up in the morning and it was FREEZING cold! This was the only point when my attitude may have faltered a bit. Staying positive was my #1 goal for the trek. Making it to the top alive was only secondary. I bundled up as best I could and sat down on the hillside. “Are you sure this is east? Where is the sun? Why is it already light out?” Yeah, who knows why, but for some reason we never saw the sun that morning. Too many clouds I guess. Disappointment!

Making it down the mtn was fine. Until we reached the bikes. For anyone out there who is as ignorant as I am about cycling I do not recommend, I repeat DO NOT recommend riding downhill on gravel roads. These were my thoughts: “This is the most miserable experience of my life. I’m getting the snot beat out of me.” At this moment I hit a large hole and the snot literally did fly out of my nose. This was too much. Lionel, speedster that he is, was long gone. But I had to press on. And I did.

We did make it back to Neuchatel. I’m sure I looked 100% ridiculous zooming down the streets with Lionel in front of me carrying ALL of the stuff, even my little backpack. He looked the part. I looked...ridiculous. But again we did make it back. All of 15 minutes before the harvest service. I’m sure that was the fastest recovery anyone ever made from such a trek. Moments later I was back on the bike and then sauntering into church looking as lovely as ever.