Arrival
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| Kandersteg International Scout Center |
After leaving England I arrived at
Kandersteg International Scout Center at 5:30pm on June 10th. I had wanted to get there in time for my birthday on the 11th. It had been almost two years since I was at the Center but not surprisingly it was exactly the same old place. I saw Kato S and Dave F in the staff room first, then said hi to Ron E and Rob G, and then saw Susi G and Lomi. I left my stuff in the staff room and ran over to see Anne W and Jan B - it was fantastic to see them. We had a long chat, then I headed back to the chalet. I met with Ron E (back as program director) and outlined my goals for the summer. I started work immediately that night - watching the Chalet during Spring Staff night out (dinner at the
Doldenhorn courtesy of the Commissioner from Ireland). I received a call from Steve saying happy birthday, then off to bed.
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| Birthday Drinks with Susy, Anne, and Jan |
The next day was my actual birthday - I had the day off so ran around the village, caught up on letters, hiked to the Upper Hut and Gallihorn in the afternoon, and made it home just in time for dinner complete with birthday cake for desert. We adjourned to the
Adler for dinner where Jan gave me a card from my parents for a parachute flight from Allmenalp - and some of the leftover money helped pay for a round of drinks for everyone. The next day was spent cleaning the Upper Hut with Warren P, and Lomi - as well as setting up the solar panel, installing lights, and getting the radio going. We headed back to the village via mountain bike - quite the ride!
Orientation
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| Staff Training |
While I had arrived early, the rest of the summer staff arrived shortly, then we had the official kickoff of the summer staff - introductions, goals, icebreakers (like human knot and bashing each other with a newspaper). We also had to get our health checks (make sure we are not contaminating the alps?). We also learned all about the job - laundry duty, discovery trail, and learned the fire alarm. We had sport night that evening, followed with dipping Ron in BP Fountain as we were unhappy with his umpiring! The next day was discovery day around the village. My team was Kirsten B, Cath O, Dave F, and Skippy R. This was followed by dinner and overnight in Campsite 39 - with a side trip to the Crystal to celebrate Anne W and Sue's birthdays.
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| Oeschininsee |
The final part of the staff orientation prior to "graduation" was the staff hike. We should have started with a dawn hike but skipped it as the weather looked a bit iffy - though it ended up being an amazing day. It was a slow walk to the Upper Hut where we did a climbing workshop culminating in climbing milk rock - very hard for me. A song fest in the Upper Hut wrapped up the evening before bed. The following day we climbed the Gellihorn (not for dawn - too lazy for that) and then walked over to Arvenseeli (the lakes) for lunch where we swam before the long trudge to Selden.
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| Staff Hiking |
We camped the night in Selden where Mike from summer '88 met us for dinner - and brought me a hat that held coke cans along with a Coke. So, I broke my 9 month dry spell and had a coke - delicious! The next morning we got up at 4:30am for a 6am departure to the Lotchenpass. We held some ice axe practice on the glacier where I hurt my knee racing David down the slopes. We all made it back to KISC by about 6pm where Lomi had Rosti prepared for dinner in the Tower. The orientation was a great way to get to know some of the amazing people I would work with over the summer, including Mike T, Dave F, Kato S, Rob J, Wendy V, Victoriano O, Yoshiko I, Richard B, Nicolette M, Fausto G, Warren P, David P, Skippy R, Mia L, John M, Helena B, Kersten B, Sue T, Neil A, Anne W, Roope R, Jan B, Susi G, Kathryn O, Warren P, John M. Fran M, Ron E, and Mark L.
The Summer: Work
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| Staff Fun |
So the summer did include work, if you can call it that. My official role was quartermaster (along with Skippy). We both spent an enormous amount of time cleaning and organizing the program hut - tossing a lot of crummy or obsolete material.
Assisting with in-camp activities is a big part of the job: BBQs, Campfires (which I got to blow up like we did at Worth Ranch), giving tours of the Center to day-guests, pioneering bridges, abseiling, and any miscellaneous activity that needed planned. The other part of the role was guiding hikes: to the Blumlisalp, umpteen cheesery hikes to visit Rudy the farmer, and one Lotchenpass hike with an Irish group and John where the cloud/fog was so thick we ended up going in a complete circle and ending back at the beginning. The fog did clear and we made it to the Lotchenpass Hut, but I never heard the end of this one!
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| Jan on August 1st, Swiss National Day |
The big summer event at KISC is Swiss National Day - August 1st - the busiest week of the year at the Center. My responsibility was Carnival on the parade ground. We set up a huge tower in the middle with a PA system so loud it go complaints from the village. We started the day with aerobics led by Kato, then a huge breakfast that everyone joined at the same time. We then had the wide-game - I participated in the ground sheet one - where 20 people get on a ground sheet and then keep folding in half until not everyone could fit. Other games included pass the orange, push a plate of shaving creme with your nose, walk up a slippery uphill groundsheet, and water balloons.
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| Christmas in July |
The carnival was after lunch, culminating with a launch of a heap of balloons. After cleaning the sports field we had a quick dinner in the Chalet before joining the procession to village, arriving at the bonfire in the main field and did a heap of yells. The staff wrapped up the evening at the
Bernerhof for ice cream before crawling into bed wrecked.
Another big event for the summer was the first KISC Alpine Challenge with 3 days of events. The first day was navigating the Uchinintal to collect 27 markers. The second day was "incidents" such as map making, stretcher carrying, blindfolded confidence course, tying a clove hitch around a tree, and a first aid/climbing one. I helped with this - Dave was hanging on a cliff with a "broken arm" Jan at the bottom with a "head injury". Jan "died" at least 3 times - thank god nothing was real! The final day was brainteasers at Oeschininsee - like sending messages, getting a key out of a tube, and weighing 5 rocks. The last event was a race: run to the water's edge, row to the far side of the lake and back, then run to the finish. I competed in this one with the staff team but we were not winners....
The Summer: Fun
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| Steve Hiking |
As if the "work" part of the summer was not fun enough, I was able to set aside time for non center-related activities. While too mnay to enumerate, there were some fun highlights. One night at the Alpenrose Dave, Warren, Mike, Sue, and I developed the "Kanderstegger Hoteltest". This was a takeoff of the "Huttentest" where you visit all 8 Swiss Mountain Club huts in the area in the least amount of time. Our version was to visit all major pubs in town to have a beer - and see who could do it is the shortest time. We developed a semi-professional booklet for this - not sure what the actual record is now! Another fun activity was surfing the Kander by tying an old board to the bridge and trying to stand on it. We were able to go from side to side, but god is that water cold! Mia and I did a day hike over the pass to Adelboden to see the Girl Scout Chalet - about time after we have so many tours to the Guides visiting the Chalet. We also had our fair share of water fights - many (most?) instigated by me. I met my Waterloo one morning when walking out of the chalet to recycle some cardboard.
I was grabbed by most of the staff, tied to the flagpole, and drenched with buckets of Kander water, soaked by the fire hose, and covered with more shaving cream than I knew existed. It took a 30 minute shower to warm up! The unofficial song for the summer must have been Meatloaf's
Paradise by the Dashboard Light and a group of us (generally Anne, Sue, Kato, David, Fausto, Skippy, and I) could be found weekly doing our rendition as an air band. We even blew out a speaker playing this too loud.
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| Selden Valley |
Since Steve spent about a month of his summer at KISC; he, Dave, Jan, and I reprized the epic end of summer staff hike'88. We took the train and bus to Greisalp and walked to the Gespalthorn hutte, spent the night, and then walked the Gespalt glacier to the Mutthorn hutte - taking 3 hours this time instead of the 14 hours it took 4 years prior. We bivouacked in the little hut on the Petersgrat and the next morning climbed the Chinglehorn. It was a beautiful climb through a deep gulley (snow and ice) where we had to front-point the crampons the whole way up - a great feeling of accomplishment for me.
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| Oeschinsee From the Freundenschneur |
There were a quite a few old friends passing through the Center over the summer. Ryby visited with a buddy for a couple of weeks and we all had a few fun nights out - including the one where Ryby held court at the Crystal, telling everyone a "made up" story about me. I could not stop laughing. Heidi from summer '88 came a couple of times. Mike (along with Connie) came by for "Christmas" to play Santa - it was one of a few trips we saw him. Of course Steve was there, and Nick from Oz stopped by as well. Russ also visited a couple of times from Germany. My parents came with Graham and Margaret. Kathy, who I met earlier on the trip at Moyra/Bill's house, was traveling around Europe and stopped by the Center for a couple of days - we hiked the Freundenschnur, the path behind/above Oeschininsee.
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| Kirsten, Mia, and Helena |
While the summer was full of quotes and "ones for the book", a few that stand out are Richard's "it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission:, the posting in the staffroom: "Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German, and it is all organized by the Italians". Others include "my mind is OK but I can't control my body" and "no human being believes that any other human being has the right to be in bed while he himself is up", "the lights are on but no-one is home", and "ta-da".
Wrap Up
The end of summer staff hike this year was a walk to the Lammernhutte via Gemipass to the Wildstruble, but weather got the better of us so we skipped the Wildstruble and instead just slept until 10am and walked back to the Upper Hut via the Talisgalcier. We spent the 3rd day climbing around the Upper Hut area - I tried lightening route but fell more times than I should mention.
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| Kandersteg from Almenalp |
We cleaned up the program hut at the end of the summer, determined to leave it in good shape for the next crew. At the same time, the Dutch Working Party was at the Center - their project this time was to demolish the old tower bunkhouse that was to be re-built new. Some of this group was the same as '88 - including Harold, the group leader. I made tacos for the Dutch party as well as the staff for my last night - way too much food, but good nonetheless. A night out in the Adler wrapped up the evening. Yoshico and I were to depart the next day, but since my passport and visa had not yet arrived in the mail we postponed for a day. The (real) last night saw us at the Crystal and the High Noon where we met a heap of people. It ended up being a fun, wild night back at the staff flat with Andy from the Steinbock, Dave, Anne, and 4 others who we met along the way. I was woken the next morning by a phone call from Yoshico trying to find me for the train out - so it was a massive dash out to catch the train for the next leg of my adventure.
Continued on Next Blog
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