Snow. Death. Love.

          “I bet your not so keen now eh, Evans?” Ed shouted. I was fast asleep at the time. He does that, suddenly entering the middle of a conversation, oblivious to those asleep around him. As I gradually stirred and looked out the window I saw what he was talking about. It was snowing again outside, it was at least a foot deep already, and we were on top of one of the highest mountains along the whole way – just over 2,700m, or almost three times as high as England’s highest point.

            Ed and I had been told to leave our boots outside all night, since they apparently stank. They were sheltered from the snow but frozen solid, a very bad start indeed.

            It was cold outside, really cold. We hesitated for a moment, considering staying in the hostel for a day to let it pass, but in the end we decided to press on, while we were in such fighting fit form.

            At first the path was easy enough to follow, we just watched out for where there were no rocks sticking up through the snow. However, after some tricky ascent we came across yet thicker snow and the path was completely lost. No more red flashes of paint on rocks and trees to follow.

            “Now are you glad we’ve got a map and compass?” I said.

            We set the compass pointing south and forged ahead. The ridge we were trying to cross ran east-west so it should’ve been simple to cross it. The problem was: we couldn’t see it.

            Trial and error took us forward and back as we struggled through another few hundred metres. Snow was falling now, thick and fast. The white sky faded into the white horizon and all became one. Suddenly we found a cairn (a stack of rocks built by walkers to aid those following them). From there we searched for the next and so on, gradually making our way through the blank canvas until all at once the storm cleared for a moment and we saw the ridge straight ahead of us in all its glory. It faded away just as quickly, a ghostly image of hope. It was getting colder.

            I caught a glimpse of yellow below me. I reached down and pawed away the snow with my bare hands (I hadn’t anticipated the need of gloves). There, beneath the snow was a tiny yellow alpine flower. It flickered briefly in the wind until the flurry of snow buried it once more.

            We continued on to the ridge, the slope getting steeper. Without a path to follow we were often losing our footing and I ended up on my hands and knees. I’d lost all feeling in my hands by this point, even the pain had numbed. I looked down at them found them to be a strange orange-red-blue colour. It was a frightening contrast to the snow. I began to worry slightly at this point.

            Suddenly we broke over the top of the ridge and were very nearly blown backwards off it for our effort. I will never be able to describe what it was like up there. Honestly, to stand still was to give up hope. I believe I would have died there in a moment’s indecision. The wind was so strong, so strong we couldn’t hear one another at all. Ed looked at me with a steely expression, inaudible face to face. Even as he paused I saw icicles forming and lengthening from the ends of his matted hair. He saw it too and brushed it off in determined, disciplined panic. He signalled down the other side of the mountain and we quickly set off.

            The wind didn’t abate; we’d entered its kingdom on this side of the mountain. It lashed straight into our faces and I had to turn my back on it every couple of metres to retain my senses. It was slow, painful progress. Ed stopped ahead of me and turned around. He shrugged and pointed about. I looked and could see nothing in any direction. I couldn’t even look up in some directions; the storm stung my eyes too much. I ordered my hand to take the compass out of my pocket but it couldn’t. It prodded lamely at my pocket but hadn’t the dexterity to reach inside and grip the compass.

            Now I really panicked. I really believed I could die there. I turned my back on the wind and stared hard at my hand. I watched it very carefully and forced myself to get it inside my pocket. It was like trying to control a robotic hand in another room with only the power of telekinesis. The compass came out and fell on the snow. I dived down to it and scooped it up. We found south and looked that way. We were expected to go straight into the face of the storm. Going back was unthinkable, we’d never find the way. We could only go on or sit down and die.

            We started to move, a couple of metres at a time until, in a moment, the storm abated. I looked up with absolute relief, sensing salvation, but then I suddenly noticed where we were.

            “Shit, Ed, don’t fucking move!” I yelled.

            We had walked out onto a lake that had frozen on the surface under the snow. Ed spotted it at the same time.

            “Fuck!” he said, and looked across at me wild-eyed.

            “Fuck.”

            “Fuck.”

            “Fuck.”

            “Fuck, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

            Calm steady walking might’ve been a good idea, but we’d lost our minds. We suddenly started sprinting for the edge of the lake together. We saw a rise in the snow, marking out the edge of the lake and made for it. I got there first and jumped onto it with relief. I turned to see Ed sprinting towards me. He was delirious and had started whooping and laughing wildly. He flew off the lake and straight into me. I lost my balance and toppled over backwards.

            Ed fell over the top of me and suddenly we were tumbling down a slope, bouncing off outcrops of rocks. Fortunately the slope wasn’t steep and after a few metres we came to a rest, side by side in the snow.

            “You okay?” I asked.

            “Yeah,” he replied, breathless.

            We simply lay there for a few moments. The storm really calmed in this time. It seemed to be clearing to a normal light flurry.

            “Tom?”

            “Yeah?”

            “I fucking love you, mate,” he said, looking right at me. “I fucking love it all!”

Granite Hard Mountain Men

          Today we graduated. Ed and I are now officially granite-hard-mountain-men.

            We walked 39 kilometres across three mountains, completing a total of one kilometre of descent and one and a half kilometres of ascent. Imagine that: 1,500 metres of pure upwardsness.

            We barely stopped for lunch and we never paused for breath.

            We arrived at the Refuge de Peclét-Polset under the mountain peak of the Col de Chavieré before six in the evening, barely even worn out.

            Ed found some dice and invented some obscure form of yahtzee that he insisted on beating me at over and over again until finally I persuaded him to give me a book called ‘Harlequin’ that he’d found and read yesterday afternoon.

It's Only Bloody Rain

          Bloody Man’s Route. We set off this morning in thick impenetrable fog, and that should’ve been warning enough. The only release from the ever pervading wetness of it was when we managed to walk so high we actually broke above the cloud layer.

            So it was that approaching lunch we were walking along a ridge above the fog on the lower lying mountains below us, when suddenly it started to rain. Ed and I looked at each other with misery in our faces. We were high enough for it to really cold now, and the rain gashed us like shards of ice.

            “‘Shards of Ice’, I hear you say? Hell yeah, I can do that!” thought God.

            And so it was.

In the twelfth hour of the twenty-fourth day of the seventh month of this year of our Lord 2008, we were destroyed by hail.

            We sprinted the final quarter of a mile over increasingly slippery rocks until we made it to the Refuge de la Leisse.

            Once inside we stripped off all our clothes and hung them up to dry over a little coal fired boiler in the corner of what was basically a solid wooden shed up on the top of a mountain. There were six others in there also sheltering from the weather and we laughed at one another in sympathy.

            We ate lunch for half an hour, listening to the hail smashing down into the walls of the refuge. There was something magnificent about it. One could really feel one’s spirit lifting in response to the rhythmic thumping of frozen raindrops on wood and rock. So it was that we resolved to set off again after lunch.

            We opened the door nervously and discovered that the hail had died back down to rain.

            “The Egyptian Sun God’s at home*, mate,” said Ed, with cryptically ironic relish. “Let’s get moving.”

            We stepped out back into the storm once again. At first, as we got ready, standing next to the refuge, it wasn’t too bad. But then we stepped out away from the buildings and back up on top of the ridge. The wind was absolutely howling and rain was thick slushy and horizontal. We were only twenty metres from the refuge when we simultaneously paused and looked one another. We were soaked through to the bone in a matter of seconds.

            Without saying a word (it’s doubtful we’d have been heard) we turned and ran back to the refuge.

 

*‘Egyptian sun god’ = Ra; ‘at home’ = in; together = ‘rain’.

The Man's Route

          Today we started the third stage out of six. We had a choice: a low route via Val D’Isere or a high route through rough, savage mountains.

            “Let’s go skiing!” Ed said. Val D’Isere is, of course, a legendary ski resort.

            “You might’ve noticed it’s summer,” I pointed out.

            “And you might’ve noticed it snowed two days ago.”

            “We don’t have time. The high route is shorter, but harder. It’s more of a man’s route.”

            “In that case, I’m in!”

            And so we immediately started slugging up the nearest vertical face of rock to the Refuge du Col du Palet.

They Must be Lesbians

          “This is it! Look at that, it’s got to be the best APR we’ve seen so far!” Ed exclaimed. He was looking at an odd looking bottle of locally concocted spirits in Peisey-Nancroix.

            “But what about its WPR?”

            “Tom, the weight to price ratio isn’t half as important as the alcohol to price ratio. You know that.”

            “Fine, I’ve found some incredibly high EWR cereals over here.”

            “Sweet.”

            “Look, this one has over 500 calories per hundred grams.”

            “Bloody hell, that is amazing value for energy.”

            This is what shopping has come to. EWR, WPR, but most importantly APR.

 

*

 

            I just checked my emails. Nothing from Annabell… or Sharona. I’m starting to worry about that last email I sent to Annabell, asking her to be straight with me. I might have made a big mistake there, forcing the issue. But I’m determined to know now, this suspense is too much. I sent her another email, making reference to the first, just in case she didn’t get it. Better to be sure…

 

*

 

            I finished Women in Love today and we agreed to put it into action tonight. We hung about all afternoon feasting on gorgeous food without the least care for a WPR anywhere. Towards the end of the afternoon we found ourselves sat at a table outside a bar, having a drink with two blonde Scandinavian girls.

            This was lucky: since our French isn’t that great it seemed essential that we didn’t attempt to pull off complicated character portrayals in anything but English.

            Of course, it didn’t do any harm that they were hot, and a perfect representation of the equally Scandinavian Ursula and Gudrun from the book.

            We set about acting our parts immediately. In Ed’s case this didn’t mean a great deal. He was Gerald, an arrogant uber-male. I was Birkin, dark, depressed and slightly mysterious, or so I hoped.

            To our despair, the girls didn’t really seem to notice our weirdness, confirming my views once again that foreign girls often seem to perceive personality in a very different way, particularly when its coming from Ed. I spent most of the time with my head in my hands, making completely spurious remarks.

            “How are you guys enjoying the trail?” one of the girls asked.

            “It’s magnificent,” said Ed. “We’re conquering nature and crushing her beneath our feet like that women she is, dominating her and taking her. Yeah!”

            “It’s depressing,” I added.

            “We think it’s beautiful too,” said the other girl. “We just can’t wait to get to the next stage.” They were doing the walk in the opposite direction. “We were at the Refuge de la Leisse yesterday and we just didn’t stop walking all the day to here, it was just so wonderful, yes?”

            “Er,” I said, “isn’t that, like 50 kilometres away?”

            “Ja, we know, it’s not far, but we’re only girls,” they giggled at each other.

            “Oh God,” I said, and put my head back in my hands.

            “You know,” said Ed, “you girls are exactly the types I admire. Such excellent physical specimens. The very best of breeding, quite exceptional, yes. I think I should fuck you both, at the same time.”

            “Oh ja, he’s so funny!” said one of the girls, and left to go back to the bar.

            So it went, for the rest of the night, each of us playing the part, the girls innocent, apparently. At the end, everyone was very drunk and we suddenly realised we had to go to catch the final train home.

            We said goodbye to the girls outside the bar. Ed leant in to one of them to try to take matters further but the girl turned her cheek to him and giggled. “Silly Englishman!”

            We ended up back on the train alone.

            “What the hell went wrong there?” asked Ed. “I thought we, or rather I, had that sown up.”

            I shrugged my shoulders.

            “They must be lesbians.”

Grass

          We walked into Landry this morning and were rather disappointed to discover it was nothing of the sprawling metropolis we’d hoped for. That’s not to say that its population of, say, 500 weren’t more than we’d see since the last town, but the real question was: how the hell we were to be Gerald and Birkin here?

            We set up camp in the orchard out the back of the local convenience store with a few other backpackers. Now that we’d descended from the mountains and into the valley the heat was suddenly quite apparent. Notwithstanding yesterday’s snow storm, the weather was once again lovely.

            We agreed that for tonight we’d just hang out with Francois and Davide, two French college students we’d met who were doing the same route, albeit a little slower. Tomorrow night would be the night for Gerald and Birkin in the slightly larger town of Peisey-Nancroix a short way down the train tracks.

            All went to plan at first. The afternoon stretched out magnificently as we compared leathery feet and burnt shoulders with a cool beer never far from reach. As evening began to close in none of us considered bed, it was too pleasurable, too real to just sit under the stars in that orchard and attempt to forge meaning from apples and grass…

            …and then it became about grass. Francois started rolling a joint and it didn’t take long for me to clock it. I’ve never taken any type of drug at all and yet I’ve been in that situation far too many times. You know full well that moment’s coming when you’ll be offered it and you’ll have to say ‘no’. You know you’ll get that look: half suspicious that you’ll betray the trust and half plain contemptuous. But contemptuous of what? Reserve? Conservative rationality? Good sense. Sure enough…

            “You rampant bender!” Ed declared, as soon as I turned it down. “But more importantly, you ungrateful philistine! These kind French people invite you into their country and offer you their hard earned drugs, and you spit it back in their face!”

            “But… First, what about what you said about French pe…”

            “…never mind that, Tom. Just get the hell on with it before I have to come and thrust this whole thing down your throat.”

            The other guys were just watching us in a state of semi-amused curiosity.

            “No,” I said.

            “Why the fuck not? You abandoned your whole life to come all the way out here with me… can’t you let go of this last piece?”

            “No.”

Summer in Southern France

          “Martin Collins tells me that we’ve just reached the saddle of a breast-shaped hill.”

            It was an open goal. Ed laughed for pretty much the rest of the day.

            This afternoon was an amazing experience. We made it to the Chalet de la Balme in broad sunshine, but just as we got there the storm clouds started forming on every horizon.

            The Chalet itself is at the high top end of a great U-shaped valley. It looks out from that vantage point all the way down the valley. It was a wooden porch and we sat down, looking out, to rest after the day’s walking. The storm clouds appeared to take over the blue sky in a matter of perhaps quarter of an hour, and after another quarter they start to rush down into the valley. Mist and fog and cloud poured over the mountains on all sides of us filling the valley below and suddenly rushing towards us.

            Ed and I looked at one another in amazement, but we didn’t have long to admire it. As the clouds cascaded past us they brought a thick flurry of snow. We were in t-shirts and shorts so we dashed inside and watched from the refuge. In another half an hour the clouds lifted once again, leaving the valley pure white and cold.

            In the middle of Summer.

            In the middle of Southern France.

Book Adventure

          Today we climbed the Col Du Bonhomme, a thousand metres of pure ascent. A tough, but satisfying day, and tonight we rest at the Refuge du Plan de la Laie. Ed handed over Women in Love to me with instructions to finish reading it by Landry, the next town in two days time.

He wants us to play the parts of Gerald and Birkin while we’re there, it’s to be the first of the new ‘book adventures’.

I'm Not Really Gerald!

          “Oh my God, Gerald! Shall I die?” shouted Ed suddenly, and began making orgasmic sounds. “This book is hilarious!”

            Ed had found a book called Women in Love, by DH Lawrence, in the hotel. He’d been reading it half the morning laughing out loud. He finally paused at this point to explain the whole thing to me.

            “It’s about two men who want sensuality. I dig it from that point of view, but the language is just perfectly stupid! The girls are ridiculous, which I suppose does make them hot. They’re called Gudrun and Ursula, imagine! They are two teachers at a local school in England, clearly not the right type for two such up and coming young men as Gerald and Birkin, oh yes, those are their names. But they are drawn to them anyway, particularly Gudrun’s coloured tights, another thing I can understand.”

            “So what actually happens?”

            “Gerald is this uber-arrogant egotistic maniac while Birkin is spectacularly, absurdly introspective and never gets past the pointlessness of life and society. Both want love, that is: Gerald wants conquest and Birkin wants relief. But secretly they want each other, so they keep having half-naked wrestling matches.”

Ed winked at me.

I blanched.

“Haha, you idiot, I’m not really Gerald!”

Betrayal

          “These people don’t know they’re born,” said Ed, at the top of Le Brevent, the mountain opposite Mont Blanc, across the valley of Chamonix. It was incredible to see so many people everywhere and so many unnatural buildings clustered together.

            We agreed to spend the night in Chamonix as a reward for completing the first of six stages of the walk.

            “How many miles is that section?” asked Ed. He never has any idea of mileages or directions, he lets me handle all of that and simply walks alongside, oblivious.

            “About 50.”

            “Fuck, we’re barely anywhere!”

            “This was your idea. Anyway, what are you going to do for the Return to Sender adventure?”

            “Well, that’s up to you, but I’m sticking to the no more adventures from French people rule. From now on let’s take our cue from books, since we’ve got plenty of those with us now, and no music to speak of it.”

            “Okay. Return to Sender can be a future challenge. In fact, when you return to England to have to ‘return’ to whomsoever is the ‘sender’ of the very next email you receive.”

            We went, therefore, to check our emails.

            “Here we are!” said Ed, a little triumphantly. “It’s Alice!”

            I looked and to my distinct disappointment it was true. She was emailing him. I restrained myself from reading the contents, I didn’t want to know. It seemed like… a betrayal. A betrayal of herself, that is.

            “Fine,” I muttered, and went to check my own messages. I had yet another friendly email from Annabell wishing me luck along the route and telling me how impressed she was with my resolve! I couldn’t believe. In a moment of madness, with Alice somehow in the back of my mind, though to what effect I couldn’t say, I decided to email Annabell back and ask her straight out where she stood with me, whether we could try again.

            As soon as I clicked send I choked, and I’ve been holding my breath ever since…

Eden

          Today I found Eden.

            Samoëns is a base camp for revellers of the French Alps, and no wonder. As you ascend out of the town and up into the mountains you are very soon greeted by meadowed slopes covered in tiny flowers of a thousand colours. Upon one such meadow did we stop for lunch today. Ed wordlessly walked away from me with his sandwich to a ledge looking back over the valley we’d ascended. He sat down and ate in peace. I didn’t take offence. That’s the way it is now, we are aware of each other’s company, and appreciate it, but we have no need of proximity.

            I lay down amongst the flowers and allowed my eyes to focus on the macrocosmic universe surrounding me. I saw tiny insects wending their way about their colourful world, totally unconcerned by my presence.

            Shortly after lunch, however, we encountered the true heart of Eden: the Lac d’Anterne. It is no hyperbole at all to say this is the most beautiful place on the planet. In fact, it’s so beautiful I’m going to break a habit and post the only photo there’ll ever be on this site.

            We were so taken by it that we agreed at once to camp on the lakeside overnight. That’s the beauty of the Alps: you can camp almost anywhere! Once we’d set up we sat on the perfect grass by the perfect lake and relaxed, happy. There was one other tent all the way across on the other side of the lake. It was so far away that we couldn’t really see it well, and this was good. Shortly enough the day waned and with it the day-walkers departed.

            We washed our clothes in the crystal clear waters and hung them up to dry in the warm evening sun. Ed actually dived in at one point, but leapt out again pretty smartly, despite the summertime temperatures we were very high, and there was snow on the mountains above the lake.

            He sat down on the edge of the lake and looked across, watching the world as he dried off. I joined him and we stayed right there for hours, contemplating the merits of living there forever.

They Should Stop Being French. It's Off-Putting.

          Aaah, back in town. I’m in Samoëns tonight, a town built around a lime tree, after a pleasant walk this morning through more alder trees and along more ‘stony tracks’. We even passed an amusing rock with an arrow pointing to ‘Nice’ on it, only another 400 odd miles!

            There’s plenty of time to think while you’re walking. I lost myself this morning in reveries about Annabell and how it might all work out. I interspersed these with occasional mental projections of a life with Sharona, a strange, slightly guilty feeling overshadowed those. At once I realised I’d been walking along with Ed for hours without a word. We’ve settled into a new rhythm of life already, and I think I like it. Nothing is rushed.

            In an effort to spice up the walk a little bit we decided to get a new adventure from one of the locals in town tonight. We went out for a restaurant meal to treat ourselves; we deserved it after so many meals of rice. I tried to ask the waiter for his favourite song in French, but I’m still getting back into the swing of it properly, I was relying on Sharona a bit before.

            “Qu’est-ce-que ta meilleux chanson?” I tried, my apologies for this no doubt appalling French.

            “Ah, it eez ze King, yes?” he replied, in French. “Elvis, Le Roi!”

            “Ah, oui, mais quelle chanson, monsieur?”

            “Mais, s’il vous plait, any of zem!”

            “Oui, mais, si vous… er… I can’t get Spanish out of my head, er… debeo? Devoir? Er… Si vous… devez choisir?”

            He looked at me blankly.

            “Er… un chois…ir?”

            “Ah! Une chanson seulement d’Elvis,” he might’ve said, I’m not sure. “D’accord, peut-etre returner to sendeur?” He began singing the song to us rather badly.

            “Right,” said Ed, while the waiter continued singing, “new rule: no more asking French people for their favourite song.”

            The waiter suddenly stopped singing and looked at Ed. “Qu’est-ce-que monsieur?”

            “Never mind my green cousine, it’s over your head.”

            “Is zis so?” he said, narrowing his eyes and raising one eyebrow. Ed narrowed his eyes too leading to a comic Western stare down. “I see ‘ow it eez ici. I leave you rouge beoufs alone.” He turned on his heel and stalked off.

            “What did you do that for, Ed?”

            “What? He’s French, he doesn’t count.”

            “What do you mean, Ed? Doesn’t count as what?”

            “Well, they ought to learn English really, and stop being French, it’s off-putting.”

            “I see. Ed, do you know where we are right now?”

            “Whatever, dude, or should I say ‘mon homme’?”

Smart Choice

          Today was really tough. Up and down and up and down we went. Martin Collins, the author of our book, appeared unconcerned by the severely taxing nature of the route, simply referring to ‘stony paths’ and ‘uphill sections’ as though they were mere components of the average day. We began to wonder at the purpose of such pain.

            For lunch we stopped at a restaurant on top of the Col de Bassachaux which Martin described as being the proud purveyor of excellent omelettes and frites. This was partially true, though at that price one would expect it. Apparently there was a gorgeous view outside but all we could see today was fog. We spend an excessively long time at lunch, in tacit agreement that the longer we put off further torture for the day the better. Neither of us could quite bring ourselves to suggest moving on.

            “When we decided to walk 500 miles,” Ed said, “why the hell did we pick one of the world’s largest mountain ranges to do it in?”

            Eventually though we did set off and concluded our day by strolling over the Swiss border and back into La France. There was no border patrol at all, I always imagined the Swiss to be tougher on that sort of thing…

A Promise of Beauty

          This morning we woke up to cheery encouraging beams of sunlight striking through the walls of the barn. We got up eagerly and opened the door of the barn to reveal the peaks of the crater bathed in pink light.

            We wondered what time it might be and had no idea. There was nobody to be seen in any direction and indeed we hadn’t met a soul since leaving the lower lying village yesterday.

            We ate a breakfast of cereal and re-hydrated milk before setting out. There was no tent to pack and neither of us could find enough water to bathe or shave in. I felt surprisingly healthy at that point, full of fresh air and enthusiasm, and not even stiff despite yesterday’s exertions. We set off at a decent optimistic pace.

            Shortly we conquered the next ridge along and were rewarded with sight of the most beautiful green valley with quaint Swiss cows jingling their bells, a sound that echoed about continuously as we traversed the scene.

            Down in the valley we passed a large group of school children on an excursion and after some encouragement Ed persuaded me to ask the time in French. We each guessed at the time before I asked (since we didn’t bring a clock in the end – Ed won that battle) and we were both surprising to discover it was far earlier than either of us anticipated.

            Ascending out of the valley we reached another ridge, the Pas de la Bosse and had a peaceful lunch, looking back over the gaian valley we had conquered. We’d walked 12 miles.

            After lunch we walked along the ridge and around the next valley we caught sight of the Dents Blanche, or ‘white teeth’. They were truly gorgeous snow capped mountains emerging from deep green slopes: the promise of a beautiful walk to come.

            This evening we found ourselves trekking slowly along a dusty road contouring around a slope when Ed spotted a favourable looking dairy field to our side. We were justifiably tired and agreed to set up our tent in the field, even though technically we’re not supposed to camp on agricultural land. Our tent is green and was camouflaged perfectly amongst the lush green grass of the Swiss Alps.

            All was well and a satisfying day came to an end with blissful, deserved sleep.

Inoffensive

          Early this morning I woke up with the sun shining straight through the canvas into my eyes with enough strength to prevent proper sleep. I tried to hide under my pillow but realised I didn’t have one, only various clothes now scattered about my head. I noticed eventually that Ed was awake too, but in denial of the fact. He was pretending to be asleep. I had a rock directly under my back and shifted awkwardly around it. The good news, at least, is that I've realised I can post from my mobile, and there's actually signal out here, so here goes!

            “Oh fuck it,” said Ed, suddenly and loudly. “Let’s get moving, we’ve got mountains to conquer.”

 

*

 

            The first ascent was truly epic. We came across the lake very early, enjoying the bright clear sun and the fresh breeze. As soon as we disembarked on the southern side we located the first GR5 marker: a red and white stripe on a rock. With excitement we looked further up the road and saw the second, and so the next adventure began. To reach the first waypoint, at the top of the mountain adjacent to Lac Lemon, we had to ascend 1,500 metres, around a whole vertical mile. To demonstrate just how ridiculous this is I’ll point out that the highest ‘mountain’ in England is only 1,000 metres tall.

            Three quarters of the way up Ed had a mini-stroke. There’s no other description for it.

            We’d been going for about three hours at a quick, optimistic pace. The gradient was extremely severe and I can’t deny that I was becoming incredibly weary. We hadn’t trained for the walk and it was really taking its toll. I suggested we take a break after a while, or at least slow down, and Ed laughed at me. He was very red in the face though…

Eventually, when he was walking ahead of me, he suddenly stumbled to the side and fell backwards on his pack. He started gasping.

            “Tom… I… can’t feel… my fingers.”

            I looked at him with horror. He started shaking his hands vigorously and then pressed them against his chest.

            “My heart! It’s… thumping so hard… nearly… out of my chest!”

            Then, all at once, he jerked to the side and threw up amongst the rocks and grass.

            He paused, for a moment, gasping again, and then all at once stood up.

            “I’m fine now,” he declared, looking anything but.

            “I don’t think so, Ed. You need a doctor, and fast. Let’s go back down, or you can wait here and I’ll go.”

            “Tom,” he said, staggering over to me and placing a hand on my shoulder, “we’ve come this far and I won’t betray everything you’ve worked for by failing us now. We’ve come too far.” He looked me in the eyes with all the intensity of an artic explorer.

            “Okay,” I said slowly, “but we’re turning back at the first sign of trouble.”

            We waited for ten minutes or so, as Ed recovered, and then continued along. After a further struggle we finally made it to the peak. This was only the end of the initial climb, however, there was much more still to go over this brief horizon.

            It was an odd spot, almost a cratered peak, like that of a volcano, and in the hollow someone had built a very small farming area with a few barns and little cottages. Oddly though, it was completely abandoned.

            “Let’s stop here!” Ed suggested eagerly. And so we had a break. Ed had brought along a Frisbee and we threw it to one another across the cratered area, occasionally resulting in crazed dangerous rescue missions when it went astray. Time passed and eventually we stopped for a break and looked down the long valley we had conquered back to the lake. Technically we still had a distance to cover if we were to stick to the planned schedule but Ed argued that we should stay in the crater for the night. I reluctantly agreed, if only for fear of straining his heart any further.

           

*

 

            “Hey, Tom, over here!” shouted Ed. I’d begun to unpack a few things to set up for the night and Ed had wandered off to explore. I went around a rock and found him on a sort of ledge overlooking the valley. The sun had begun to set now and he had draped himself over a giant cross. He was silhouetted against a dark orange sky over a dusken valley.

            “That’s not funny Ed.”

            He dismounted and walked over to me.

            “What’s your problem?”

            “Well, it’s a bit offensive.”

            “Tom, you don’t believe in God.”

            “No, but still.”

            “Still what? What’s going to happen?”

            “It offends people who do believe.”

            “Aside from the fact that that’s a good thing, look around you Tom, there’s no one out here, we’re all alone.”

            “Just don’t do it.”

            If ever there was a stupid thing to say. Ed immediately turned back to the cross and once again hung himself over it, head lolling to the side.

            “Have the courage of your convictions Tom, make a choice. If you believe then strike me down, but if you don’t then stop being a prick.”

            “I’d rather have the humility of one who’s in no position to know any certain truths.”

            “No, that’s right, you never do know anything for certain do you? You need to stop dithering and make some choices in life. Be a man. Or would you rather just be inoffensive all your life?”

            “Let’s go set up the tent, Ed.”

            “Fuck that,” said Ed, content to take my change of subject, “let’s sleep in there!” he was pointing to one of the barns.

            “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. What if a farmer or someone comes?”

            But Ed was not to be persuaded and sure enough we stayed the night in the barn. After a brief meal we climbed into our sleeping bags on the dusty floor of the barn, closed the door and tried to sleep. Light still came into the barn through cracks between the wooden planks that made the walls. The light dimmed slowly but surely, reducing the barn to grey, and just as surely I was filled with a terrible dread, like vertigo.

I have to be out here for another six or seven weeks to pull this thing off. Can I handle Ed for that long? What will become of my job? What will become of Sharona and Annabell? The singers of ‘I Would Walk 500 Miles’ were trying to prove their love to one woman, who am I trying to prove it to? Am I proving anything at all?