today, well, yesterday now, was the annual IBM Zurich Research Lab evening hike — this year i had (foolishly?) committed myself to joining it. we leave the lab by half past four and arrive at our starting point (about 1km past innerthal) around half past five. the weather has been hot (over 30°C) all day and it shows very little inclination to cool down soon…once everyone is ready (we are 19 in total) it's up the mountain — and i mean up. no dilly-dallying on level paths, nope, this is the real stuff: up the mountain to schwarzenegg (short reprieve, watching horses, cows, a hippy-ish farmer and his young wife [partner?]), and then onwards up through step incline full of scree, up, up, up. and up. all in all we conquer about 1000m in altitude. 

i'm one of the last to make it to the summit, and am, frankly, quite exhausted. i guess it's at that moment that i decide that i'm more of the horizontal, distance walker than the vertical, altitude-guzzling climber. however —  the view up here on bockmattli is fantastic:

it about 20:15 when we start again and make our way back. walking down is worse than up: relatively unknown territory, lots of loose gravel and scree all over make for uncomfortable companions. the sights, though, are terrific. the sun is setting, casting its last rays over the swiss alps, a rather large variety of clouds joining in to render a spectacular performance — makes you almost forget the pains of getting here (almost!). the farmer, his bikini-clad young wife, and the horses seem to have called it a day, they are nowhere to be seen. it's really getting dark now, requiring full concentration not to stumble. eventually we make it and arrive back where we started four and a half hours earlier. it was a fantastic walk, exhausting, tiring, painful, but fantastic.

we conclude at a nearby pub — though for me it's just lots of mineral water, a large coke and a fruitsalad. driving back it seems like we are the only people on the road — at ausserthal we nearly kill a cat who foolishly had assumed the road at 23:20 to be a safe place for a cat nap…on the way back we see lightening from afar, hit some rain spots, and make it safely back shortly after midnight. done. well done.

done. well done..