The alien in the castle: Giger and Gruyères

Note: The content of this post may not be appropriate for young readers.

Gruyères is basically a castle on a hill with a walled village attached. There is really not much else, besides rolling hills where cows graze, and a large cheese factory where robot nurses tend thousands of wheels of nascent Gruyere cheese as it ages to perfection.

Our couchsurfing host Slass lived directly across from this cheese factory. He was a DJ and master of the art of mixing music and beats from his stacks of vinyl records. I noticed a poster in his entryway of a Salvador Dalí painting in which long-legged elephants marched over an eyeless, contorted head and a host of other oddities in shades of blue.

The morning after we arrived, with the rain

having set in, I decided to go tour the castle—one of the most beautiful and fairytale-like I had ever seen. Quaint shops and restaurants lined the cobbled main street leading up through the walled city to the castle itself. Curiously, just a few doors down from the castle, on the right, I was surprised to find a large and imposing museum of the Swiss artist H. R. Giger, who became most famous for his Oscar-winning contributions to the 1979 Alien movie directed by Ridley Scott. A skeleton-like winged creature made of rusty metal hung over the door. Across the street was a bar of the same theme, with giant spinal columns for arches and chairs that fused creature and machine. As far from my personal taste as Giger’s art is--perhaps even because that distance--I felt curious to know what he was really about, and what message lay beneath his nightmarish “biomechanical” aesthetic.

The reception desk at the castle offered a discounted ticket to tour both the castle and the museum, so I went for it. I was taken by surprise again in the castle gift shop to find all sorts of bizarre fantasy paraphernalia roughly clustered around fairies.

This odd theme of the bizarre inhabiting the beautiful continued as I toured the castle grounds. One alcove featured a glass case containing the severed hand of a mummy, apparently plundered from Egypt during the middle ages. A large upper room was full from floor to ceiling with contemporary art inspired by the castle. Strange fairies and giants intermingled with images of the castle and surrounding landscape. On the other hand, another room was full of masterful 19th century paintings of pastoral landscapes and women in flowing dresses. In another were four massive tapestries depicting biblical scenes from the life of Samson. Balconies looked down on pristine, vibrant gardens framed by the surrounding hills and forests. At the main gate were two massive bronze shields by Patrick Woodroffe themed after Mars and Venus, both disturbing in their depictions of violence and sexuality, respectively.


All this made me even more curious about the Giger museum. Was there some connection between all the different bizarre art? What did it mean, and what could I deduce from its dark contrasts with the more traditional and religious remnants of the castle and town? The bronze shields reminded me of books and poetry written by two good friends, Michael Ward and Malcolm Guite, both C. S. Lewis scholars who helped me understand the dual natures of planetary mythology. Each planet’s influence--its unique nature--could be either for good or for evil. Today Mars is often thought to represent the brutality of war, but it also represents the stalwart nobility of chivalry. Venus, likewise, is usually associated with unbridled sexuality, and the objectified female form. But Venus is also the morning star--the pure, untainted power and beauty from which Satan fell. Venus represents motherhood, and even divine love. In his book Planet Narnia, Ward highlights Lewis’s description of Venus as a powerful, nearly terrifying virtue in That Hideous Strength: “It was charity, not as mortals imagine it, not even as it has been humanised for them since the Incarnation of the World, but the translunary virtue, fallen upon them direct from the Third Heaven, unmitigated. They were blinded, scorched, deafened.” How different this image was from cartoon-like nudes wrapped around each other and evocative sea snails.

The reception desk at the Giger museum sat under a canopy of black creatures part serpent, part skeleton, part bat. The way their wings touched created an uncanny resemblance to the Ark of the Covenant. As I walked up the stairs into the exhibit, one of the first pieces I came across was a large cement panel full of babies packed together in rows and bound with belts across their bodies. It reminded me of the scene in The Matrix that shows thousands of humans confined in artificial pods to provide energy for the machines growing them.

Other areas of the museum contained the type of Alien franchise paraphernalia I had expected to see--sculptures of the famed alien and other creatures, even a mechanical head from the movie showing the internal controls that would have moved its jaws and facial features. What I did not expect to see was the amount of sexually and satanically oriented art. Nearly every type of deviant and disturbing fusion of creature and machine was represented somewhere, in some way. Bear with me. My goal is not to stoke criticism against Giger, but to explore earnestly what can be concluded from his art.

The third floor of the museum housed Giger’s own private collection of other artists, giving an interesting peek at not what he makes, but what he is drawn to in the work of others’. The pieces there continued roughly the same theme, in a more varied aesthetic--a bronze skeleton spider, a splayed-skin book, and images of violence and reproductive aberrance.

Although I still didn’t feel I could honestly answer the question of whether Giger was criticizing or glorifying these terrors, I did feel that the ambiguity left an uncomfortable amount of room for much of his fanbase to follow them further into the darkness he portrayed, rather than out of it. Disappointment followed me out of the museum, and I began searching online for the opinions of more well-informed critics.

A fascinating piece entitled “H. R. Giger and the Zeitgeist of the Twentieth Century" came up by a psychologist and M. D. named Stanislav Grof. "It is easier for many people to see Giger's images as an expression of his personal depravation, perversion, or psychopathology,” Grof writes, “rather than recognize in his art, elements that we all carry in the depths of our psyche.” He quotes from a conversation with filmmaker Oliver Stone in which Stone says, “I do not know anybody else who has so accurately portrayed the soul of modern humanity. A few decades from now when they will talk about the twentieth century, they will think of Giger.”

Grof’s take on the art is that Giger has tapped into an important vein of psychology Grof calls the “perinatal unconscious”--essentially the embedded memories of the traumatic sensations of the biological birth process. “As the ultimate master of the nightmarish aspect of the perinatal unconscious, which is the source of individual and social psychopathology and of much of the suffering in the modern world, Giger has no match in the history of art,” Grof says.

It’s clear from Grof’s biographical anecdotes of Giger that Giger is depicting things he strongly fears and detests, not things he finds perversely attractive. He studied industrial design in Zurich and first began to paint as a form of art therapy for his own troubling night terrors.

Grof outlines convincing interpretations of Giger’s striking portrayal of confinement dark and womb-like passages, and violent sexual imagery according to the perinatal theme.

“Giger has been in touch with the perinatal domain of his unconscious since his childhood. He has always been fascinated by underground tunnels, dark corridors, cellars, and ghost rides. Many of his nightmares spawned by his memory of the birth trauma have given him a deep understanding of the symbolism of the perinatal process, particularly its difficult and challenging aspects. He knows intimately the agony of the embryo in a hostile or toxic womb, as well as the suffering of the fetus during the arduous passage through the birth canal. And he is fully aware of the fact that the source of this knowledge is his own memory of birth.”

I had to agree that this interpretation made a lot of sense of what I’d seen. It caused me to begin casting about in my own thoughts for some logical way to engage and continue the philosophical conversation. The first thing that came to mind was a passage from an ancient hymn I’ve heard recited that says of Christ “...thou didst not abhor the virgin’s womb.” It’s a rather curious passage, but is a pivotal point of doctrine from 4th-century Christendom that countered the gnostic and platonic idea that God could never take on flesh, let alone undergo the human birth process, which was considered by some utterly unclean, if not spiritually detestable. In many times and places in history, sexuality was a necessary evil to be given up later in life by the morally devout and enlightened. To this dualistic philosophy that God is spirit, and flesh is evil and temporary, the Incarnation would have felt like a dirty slap in the face. But what difference does that make to Giger’s art?

I brought this issue up with my friend David who is a counselor and scholar in the theology of aesthetics. He said he has wrestled fruitfully with the question, “What do we fear?” On the one hand, we must admit that not all of our fears are imagined. The world is full of real suffering, real sexual atrocity that drags mind and soul into bitter, seemingly inescapable torment. The horror genre fascinates us, whether we want it to or not. It depicts a dangerous world--dangerous people and creatures and places that can harm us, and there is no end to what we can imagine along those lines.

Death is one of the most powerful forces in any story, regardless of the genre. The biblical picture addresses this in an unexpected way--not by mitigating evil, but by portraying a form of good that’s even more terrifying. We hear about fearing God, which has always been a difficult concept for me since God is also our protector and provider. However, when I had nightmares as a little kid, I couldn’t have felt safe with my dad protecting me unless he were the kind of dad I knew could beat somebody up. A weakling dad isn’t much of a comfort, but neither is an evil dad, who is powerful but not good. I needed (and had) one with that stalwart chivalry from the light side of Mars. I think about Moses and Elijah both falling down in terror like dead men when confronted with the presence of God. And then, hundreds of years later, that same terrifying God became human…

On the second floor of the Giger museum, in one of the black rooms just above the doorway in the corner I noticed a kind of fresco that hadn’t been covered in black paint like the rest of the space. I had to take a flashlight and lean over a barrier to be able to make out the figure of Christ on the cross. I wondered if it could have been something Giger orchestrated intentionally; not far away was a glass table in the middle of the room supported by half a dozen figures of the crucified Christ. But there was no plaque or description acknowledging the tiny fresco’s existence among the other museum pieces, and it clearly wasn’t Giger’s hand that did it. Up in the castle, at the bottom of a spiral stairway not far from the severed mummy hand was a similar but larger fresco, and nearby a faded Greek inscription dated 1685, also narrowly spared obscurity by centuries of new paint. Translated in the castle information leaflet, it read, “The cross will flood and light the world.” No other information existed about its origin.

Should we fear what is outside of us, or within us? I wondered. There’s a fascinating irony in how Christendom answers the question. We find in ourselves if we look honestly the infection of sin that makes us our own worst enemies. Like Frankenstein--another piece of Swiss cultural heritage--we humans are perhaps the worst monsters there are. The name “Frankenstein” never referred to the grotesque monster, but to the doctor who created him in a lab. The book Frankenstein was a modern retelling of the myth of Prometheus, notably also the title of the latest installment of the Alien franchise.

We do have reason to fear the evil within us. But there is something else, too, worth fearing. Scripture says, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” This isn’t Satan, believe it or not, it’s God! We’re told we have great reason to fear him like Moses and Elijah, but right away he tells us not to be afraid. The very next sentence reads, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

Somehow baby Jesus is the very same terrifying pillar of fire and Christ of the Apocalypse, and the only reason, the only reason, we need not fear is because He loves us dearly. We don’t think much about how dangerous He actually is--Aslan the lion who is “not safe, but good.” The irony, I thought, is that the most terrifying being in the universe was not something “out there” to fear, but someone who came to live inside a young virgin, and later inside many billions of others, to be a force to conquer evil from the inside out.

In Prometheus the movie, an alien parasite infects and grows inside the womb of a woman who saves her life by performing an emergency C-section on herself. She ends up being the sole survivor. It’s almost like the Christian redemption narrative was crafted as a response to this very notion of evil hanging about outside trying to get at us, especially the form Giger envisions. The most terrifying thing in the world, it turns out, is the good come to inhabit us, and the very reason we need not fear it because it is also “searing, deafening” love. It’s the light side of both Mars and Venus--the good and powerful warrior, the loving mother, the pure womb and the flesh Christ redeemed from the inside out by becoming flesh.

Looking at the castle’s towers and forests and flowers, I didn’t want to make an aesthetic judgment of pretty versus ugly. It’s probably the cute aesthetic of cherubs and precious moments many Christians adopt that rightly repels those of more sophisticated and discerning taste. Good must be something stronger than evil, but somehow that’s so much harder to imagine, at least to imagine well. Grof quotes artist and friend of Giger, Ernst Fuchs: “[When we experience Giger’s art]…despair and craving for manifestation of new heaven and new earth have begun to fight for our soul. Yes, even the hope that we will once again see the celestial blue of the sky becomes a complementary wishful image, as if in this negative had to be hidden a positive. I have long suspected the existence of this element and believe that I have discovered traces of it in Giger’s art.”

Grof continues, “In general, however, the transcendental potential of the perinatal process has so far received little of Giger's attention. It would be interesting to speculate about the possible reasons for it. The great American mythologist Joseph Campbell once commented that the images of hell in world mythology are by far more intriguing and interesting than those of heaven because, unlike happiness and bliss, suffering can take so many different forms. Maybe Giger feels that the transcendental dimension has been more than adequately represented in western art, while the deep abyss of the dark side has been avoided. It is also possible that Giger’s own healing process has not yet proceeded far enough to embrace the transcendental dimension with the same compelling force with which it has engaged the Shadow.”

Back at the cheese factory I watched the robots pull giant wheels of Gruyere from their slots and bathe them in saltwater to help them cure. Once you delve into the shadow world, it’s easy to see it everywhere and make everything creepy. But that didn’t last long for me. The mountains were too great, too spectacular and overpowering, and I could feel the toxic fear slowly diluting and percolating out of my system.

The next morning Whitney and I split off our separate ways. I had a few days to work back toward Geneva, and she had a few more to kill in Switzerland before heading to Germany for Oktoberfest. I spent an hour or so walking before getting to roads busy enough to hitchhike. “Bonjour!” an old man shouted from behind his wooden fountain and I hoofed along the road from Gruyères. “There goes the baker with his tray-like-al-ways…” I heard in my head. It was so Beauty and the Beast. The problem is getting a song like that in your head when you’re walking for a long time. It never goes away.

Finally, a woman picked me up on the road west of Bulle. She spoke hardly a word of English, but I gathered that she had seen me walking four or five miles back, in Gruyères. A guy with a guitar and leather jacket whisked me on to Lausanne in no time, from which I took a train to Nyon. My friends the Luedtkes had volunteered to host me for a few days till I had to fly out. I had to make a business call that afternoon, and it gave me particular satisfaction to walk into a ritzy coffee shop, drop my paraglider, and pull out a solar charger to power up my phone for the call. I didn’t feel bad drawing looks from the suits around me, because I paid $5 for my coffee just like them.



Paul picked me up from the swank coffee place and showed me his sailboat down at the marina, which we probably would have taken out if the wind had been good the next few days. Instead, we hiked up in the hills behind Nyon to where I could see all the snowy peaks of Mont Blanc across the lake, over in France. Paul had decided he wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail, so we started talking tents and packs and ultralight campcraft like two nerds at science camp. He’d just bought a tent you set up with trekking poles, so we tried it out in his back yard and weighed his gear. Becky took me to the Knie circus performance that was going on. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was an honest-to-goodness, blow-your-mind kind of performance with elephants, camels, and some stunts even I could hardly watch. One man climbed up a rope to the top of the tent, probably 60 feet over the ground and proceeded to swing around by his feet with no net below him whatsoever. One mistake and we would have witnessed death. Six boys stacked themselves three-high on two unicycles and juggled between each other while riding.One more amazing thing I never could have planned, I thought.

The last day before my flight home, Paul was preaching at a church on the east side of the lake, which I discovered was very close to L’Abri, the study center started in 1955 by Francis and Edith Schaeffer. I’ve wanted to see L’Abri ever since my time at Trinity Forum Academy, which was the brainchild of several people who hitchhiked to L’Abri in the 60s only to have the course of their lives changed forever. It seemed fitting that I complete the circle. Paul agreed to swing by with me.



The only hitch was that we heard a car race was taking place that afternoon on the very road through the study center, so we had to get in and out before the race started. Each curve of the road was jammed with hay bales. When we pulled into the center and began walking around, a huge procession of old exotic cars zinged, popped, and roared down the road. One more amazing thing…

The main building was a big, beautiful four-story chalet donated to the cause half a century ago. As soon as I opened the door and walked in, someone shouted “Graham!” It was Mckenzie, a friend from Oregon I’d last seen when I was sailing with my buddy Josiah on the Lady Washington. Familiar faces in faraway places is about the most fun surprise you can have when traveling, and it seems to happen to me a lot--if not faces, at least close connections. Mckenzie gave us a tour, and I met some very fine young people delving into the big questions of life, the universe, and everything.

We raced down the hill just in time to get out and tried not to get any traffic tickets on the way back. My journey home took exactly 24 hours door-to-door. I walked in the door to have my two nephews shout "Welcome home Uncle Graham!" and come running to wrap themselves around my legs. If planes flew any faster I think we’d get thrown into a dizzying bewilderment at the contrast of places and people across this wonderful world. Yet I like the contrast when its just enough to keep that wonder kindled. I like the week or two when I still have two currencies in my pocket, and the month or two when I can still see why the mountains around my valley are just right, not too tall or jagged, but not too little either. I enjoy being fluent when I speak, knowing a good price without mental calculation, smelling familiar smells I’ve known all my life. Most of all I enjoy being known, and what’s infinitely greater, being loved by those who really know me. Before the year passes, the little problems and differences I perceive in my little town will appear to grow bigger and wider, and what’s “home” will begin to feel foreign at times. We all deal with it in different ways, but for me that’s when my feet will start to itch. Faraway lands will call with wonder. I used to think it’s because they had something I didn’t have here at home, but after so many travels I see that that’s not really it. More than adventure, I probably go away to make home home again, and remind me what closeness and commonality I have with even my more distant friends.

George Eliot wrote, "A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give...that early home a familiar, unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood."



This really has nothing to do with scary aliens. I suppose, though, that the common denominator is a good God, which is the theme of the hymn I mentioned. It’s called “Te Deum”:

We praise thee, O God
we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship thee the Father everlasting.
To thee all Angels cry aloud the Heavens, and all the Powers therein.
To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth;
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of thy glory.
The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee.
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee.
The noble army of Martyrs praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee;
The Father of an infinite Majesty;
Thine honourable, true and only Son;
Also the Holy Ghost the Comforter.
Thou art the King of Glory O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man
Thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death
Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father.
We believe that thou shalt come to be our Judge.
We therefore pray thee, help thy servants
whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with thy Saints in glory everlasting.

The chocolate pilgrimage

It rained the day we left our beautiful valley and friends at the chalet. The night before, Whitney had climbed up onto the deck of a barn to escape the rain under the eaves. Down in the valley, I had scrunched in with my paraglider under my minimalist rainfly while the torrent let loose. In the morning, Jessie made us coffee, and when we left she gave us a big hug. "You seemed quite happy here," she said, "but next time just stay with me in Mürren." Simon and Andre came out of the kitchen to bid us farewell, and they thanked us for hanging out with them.
 
We took a high trail along the mountain and down to the town of Lauterbrunnen, since there was no other way to get down into the valley again besides with a cable car or paraglider, the latter being impossible due to the thick fog that morning. I picked blueberries and raspberries along the way, which had all been freshly washed by the rain. Friendly cows loitering along the path sniffed and nuzzled us as we passed.

Not long after we started down the steep switchbacks to Lauterbrunnen it really started to pour. I helped Whitney put my rain jacket over her pack to keep her sleeping bag from getting soaked. The cool rain on my shoulders and arms felt nice for a while, but I was drenched when we reached the main road at the bottom of the valley. Ironically, that was the first time we really had trouble hitching a ride.

We waited and waited with our thumbs out, thinking our pitiful state would soften hearts, but cars whooshed on by through the rain for an hour or so. Gstaad, our next destination, was more than an hour and a half driving time away, and we had a couchsurfing host expecting us that afternoon. I’ve noticed that waiting for a ride hitchhiking isn’t so bad if you can walk, because you feel at least like you’re making some progress, like moving from one fishing hole to another. But with all the rain we were stuck in a town of elderly people driving expensive cars who had no time for our riffraff.

I took a lunch break, but Whitney decided to wait just down the road still trying. Finally, a young guy in a little car pulled over for her, and assented when she asked if I could come too. His windows fogged up almost immediately from our wet clothes. Even though he could only give us a short ride back up to Interlaken, it was a much-needed boost of spirits.

Another man picked us up almost immediately from the gas station where we'd been dropped off and told us he would take us to a better place in Interlaken to catch rides--a grungy flea market on the road to Spiez where we waited a long time again. Eventually a nice man in a van with baby car seats took us to Spiez. Whitney apologized in German that we smelled like wet animals, and he laughed. I suppose we usually smelled like dry animals. The road from Spiez to Gstaad was long, small, and full of tiny towns where cars would probably be stopping. With the rain continuing and most of the day gone, we decided to bite the bullet and fork out the 26 francs for a train ticket the rest of the way. Sitting in the warm train bound punctually and immutably for our destination felt like hiring a limousine.

Twilight fell over Gstaad, a town pleasantly nestled in rolling hills, unlike Mürren which leaned precariously against the edge of a spectacular cliff. After seeing the small airport crammed with private jets and the many ski lifts around, I began to think of it as a Swiss version of Jackson Hole. Marco, our host, waved at us from across the train station. He was somewhere in his 40s, with curly hair and glasses and a kind face. By his own admission, he was an introvert and had grown up very shy, but he loved hosting the travelers who poured through his house up to several times a week. When he was a little boy, he wouldn’t even accept candy from his grandparents, because he was too shy to have to say thank you. But he was a wonderful host, and full of surprises.

He set the next day aside to take us on one of his favorite local hikes. When we woke up to rain, I told him I expected better of Switzerland and was inclined to file a complaint. He quickly retorted that the weather came from France. However, it soon let up, and we headed for the hills.

On the way to our hike, we stopped to visit some of Marco’s friends who have a farmhouse up on themountain where they keep cows and pigs and make cheese. We had the good fortune to arrive on the day they were moving the cows down from the high pastures. An older but very strong-looking woman named Christine gave us a quick tour of their cheese-making facilities while her son and daughter-in-law brought in the cows and hung ornately decorated bells the size of small trash cans on the cows’ necks. Christine’s husband and son put on collared shirts and tucked them into their trousers as if they were getting ready to attend the opera. They call this bringing down of the cows the “desalpe,” an age-old tradition that is a really big deal.

Christine, who was a second-generation farmer, saidthat for a while they weren’t sure whether any of their children would get involved and keep the family farm going. But her son and his wife finally decided they would take the torch. Her son, all dressed up for the desalpe, stood on the other side of the trailer which held the calves who were too young to make the journey down. Under the trailer I could see the feet of his wife approach his and lean up on their toes where the two came together. It must be a satisfying life, I thought.

A few moments later an explosion of bells rang out, and an explosion of cows flooded out of the barn. I did my best to film them while at the same time dashing in front of strays to steer them back to the group. It sounded like a wedding and looked like a slow stampede. When the cacophony faded, we waved goodbye to Christine and continued our hike.

Now I’m no wimp when it comes to the outdoors, but what Marco called a hike, I would call a climb. The mountain he led us to was so steep its name means “The Carrot”.

“You tell me if you are not feeling comfortable on the way up,” he said, “Or on the way down.” He said other friends had asked him about the hike and whether it was dangerous. “No, it’s not dangerous,” he said. “But if you fall, you die.” Our climbing route was a type of via ferrata, which means “iron route,” which means that cables and bars have been drilled into the rock to allow passage along otherwise impassible cliffs. Usually people rent a via ferrata kit, which includes a helmet, a harness, and two carabiners so that at least one is attached at all times. Sans kit, I kept one sweaty hand on the cable as much as possible. I let Marco go first to show Whitney the way, and Whitney second so I could watch whatever rocks they might bump come whizzing down past my head and get the full Tolkien experience. (To their credit as experienced mountain climbers, neither ended up dislodging any rocks.)

A stately Ibex stared down at us from the tip top of the carrot, probably laughing at our slow and awkward pace over what he could do just fine without cables. 

My effort was rewarded near the top with a whole patch of snow-white edelweiss—the first I’d seen in the wild. At the top of the carrot was a metal cross, and attached to the cross was a box with a mountain register with one blank page left. We all signed our names, and I included my favorite lines of poetry, “...To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars, until I die.”

Clouds swirled around, alternately obscuring and revealing the cliff walls all around us that fell away to semi-cliffs, and then to villages thousands of feet below. Far away, we could even see Eiger and Jungrau freshly dusted with snow from the night before.

On the way back, we stopped to chat with a very friendly cow. She seemed particularly attracted to Marco. He stroked her nose tenderly, but said, “Sorry, I prefer girls without horns.” This, I think was an unfair judgment upon the cow whose horns had nothing to do with diabolical character, but I have to agree with Marco. Thank God for girls without horns.

 
It was good we made it back down alive, because if that view wasn’t to die for, dinner that night was. Marco pulled out a huge block of raclette cheese and fired up the heater that would melt it onto our hot potatoes and pickles and veggies. We each had a beer that his Polish guests from earlier that week had given him as a gift. Oh what a change from the carrots and bread I’d been eating day after day.  

The next couple days with Marco were delightful. We made pancakes with Ovomaltine “Crunchy Cream” on them, and tried the Swiss soda Rivella, 35% of which consists of the clear milk serum left over from cheese-making. I bought a charcoal pencil from a bookstore in town and tried to sketch some scenes from the trip so far. Another Swiss tradition, it seems, is for cats to sit out in the middle of fields, rain or shine, and look for mice. There are so many cats doing this all the time that Whitney and I started a game of calling out “cat-in-a-field!” each time we spotted one. Whoever won at the end of the day, we each had a satisfyingly large tally.

When it came time to leave, Marco printed out a sign for us in about 300-point font that said “Bulle,” our next destination. Somehow we inspired him to start a guestbook, which we got to be the very first to sign. For all its private jets, the people of Gstaad were downright overwhelming when it came to hitchhiking. Whitney and I stood at the local roundabout with our 300-point “Bulle” and watched as driver after driver smiled, waved, or threw up both hands in dramatic apology for not being able to give us a lift. One man screeched to a halt in the middle of the roundabout, rolled down is window, and shouted, “I’m sorry, but I’m only going another hundred meters in this direction, so if I were to pick you up, it wouldn’t do you very much good!” We absolved him frantically, hoping nobody would slam into the back of his car before he got on his way again.

 
Soon a beater Citroën pulled over, and a young guy in a sweatshirt said in broken English through a cigarette that it wasn’t even his car, but to hop in. What, did you steal it? I thought to myself, but hopped in nonetheless. Adrian (“ah-dri-AHN”) was from Romania and was our most friendly ride yet. He was borrowing the car from a friend to go get a passport photo taken in Château-d'Oex, but decided to drive an extra 40 miles out of his way just to drop us off where we were trying to go. He had to put in more gas for the drive, but wouldn’t accept any money for it. Whitney told me later how satisfying it was to hear what his nationality was. Apparently some of her friends had told her not to hitchhike in Switzerland because people would think she was Romanian and not pick her up. 

Bulle was not actually our destination, but Charmey, and that was only a point of departure, for we were about to begin a pilgrimage of sorts. From Charmey, a trail led down along the Lac de Montsalvens and followed the subsequent for about eight miles river through a deep, winding gorge to the town of Broc, the birthplace of Swiss chocolate. There, we had reason to believe, an enchanted factory churned out the heavenly confection in unlimited quantities for the tasting pleasure of those wanderers lucky enough to reach its gates. My pack felt lighter than ever as we crossed the lake on a bouncy suspension bridge and descended into the deep river gorge full of ferns and dark tunnels. I ate as little lunch as possible to save room for what might be my once-in-a –lifetime chance to eat as much chocolate as I could possibly eat.

Hour after hour slipped by, and the miles stretched on, but the canyon walls eventually fell away, and we emerged at the edge of a modest town of old brick buildings and cow pastures. Then we smelled it—the unmistakable, irresistible aroma of chocolate. At first I couldn’t believe my nose. The idea seemed too perfect. A whole village that smells like chocolate, even from two miles away? But it was true. My next thought was that we ought to take care, lest we find ourselves beckoned into a delicious-looking gingerbread house by a pimply witch never to be seen again. That thought got gradually drowned out by heavenly voices singing the Hallelujah Chorus as we neared the Maison Cailler with its grand fountain, milk-colored buildings, and truffle-shaped gift shop. Successful pilgrims sat outside sipping hot cocoa with oompa loompas dancing in their eyes.

What if they won’t let me store my paraglider somewhere? I thought. What if I need closed-toed shoes?? But the lady behind the desk handed me my ticket and said I could leave my bag in the cinema. Huge display cases housed statues taller than me made entirely of chocolate. Posters on the walls told the story of Cailler, Peter, and Nestlé, the great-grandfathers of milk chocolate and how they turned a curious novelty from South America into a worldwide fact of life. The tour was a multimedia extravaganza on par with a Disneyland ride, walking from the jungle with Quetzalcoatl to the mansions of European aristocracy following the magical trail of cacao as it evolved into its present form.

Finally we came to the actual conveyor belt where real chocolate streaked by in slick, sterile tubes to be packaged for consumption. A man in white stood at the end with a bowl of tiny wrapped chocolates for us to try. Whitney and I exchanged an unspoken wave of disappointment. “I wish I could have a whole bunch,” she said as we each politely took one. The man smiled and nodded his head, clearly not an English speaker. The next hall had a sign asking what we thought the perfect time to enjoy chocolate was, with paper and pens to write our responses and post them on the walls. I felt like Ralphie in “A Christmas Story”. A football? Some tinker toy?! Noooo, a Red Rider BB gun!! I won’t shoot my eye out, I won’t! We had come so far, only to find out it wasn’t true. The endless chocolate wasn’t there. The dream was shattered.

I walked toward the exit of the exhibit in bitter despondence. Everything changed when I opened the door.

Suddenly I found myself in the holy of holies, the mythical tasting room. There before us in the middle of the room was a long table. All around the edges were trays full of chocolate—23 kinds to be exact.

“Just so you know,” Whitney said in a hushed tone, “I might be here for a while.”

“That makes two of us,” I replied.

Tour groups came and went. Whitney and I positioned ourselves strategically and inconspicuously at the back of the room, from which we could reach forward through the crowd and glean from the bountiful harvest largely unnoticed. I kept my eye on the woman stocking the trays to see whether she suspected our designs, but after 20 or 30 minutes she left and we were free to feast unrestrained.

There was a more persistent theme of hazelnut than I would have preferred in the perfect ideal of ideals, but
the chocolate was rich and creamy and ranged from simple lights and darks to fruit- and coffee-filled works of art from the “Noir Ambassador” series. I enjoyed experimenting with creative combinations of different chocolates and often circled back to the simpler chocolates higher up the table for a palate cleanser now and then. I tried each kind at least once, and quite a few three or four times. When I put the last chocolate in my mouth, I knew it was the last one. Not another would fit in my tummy. I wasn’t sick of chocolate, just incapable of one piece more beyond that. We drew a deep, satisfied breath and walked out past a white chocolate model of the factory to the gift shop. I retrieved my paraglider from the cinema and bought a postcard as a souvenir.

Though we had reached the heavenly gates and tasted the food of paradise, our pilgrimage was not over. As the day waned, bright sunbeams pierced the clouds and fell on a majestic castle on a hill some miles down the road. We left the chocolate factory and plodded slowly toward Gruyères, the land of cheese.

Adventuring with Tolkien

Stepping outside the paraglider shop into the street in Zermatt took my breath away for just a moment. The wise wizard Gandolf from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit says, "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." 

The point had come when the only way forward was to rely on the unexpected. Our goal was to hitchhike in the general direction of the Lauterbrunnen valley, but neither of us had ever really hitchhiked before, nor did we know how Swiss viewed the practice or whether we'd get any response at all.

The night before we left, I stood in the window with a glass of wine from our generous hosts and drank in my last look of the Matterhorn all powerful and mysterious against the darkening sky. I noticed a magazine on the windowsill, and, thumbing through it, came across an article about J.R.R. Tolkien's journey across Switzerland as a 19-year-old before going up to Oxford.

"The Hobbit's (Bilbo's) journey from Rivendell to the other side of the Misty Mountains," Tolkien wrote, "...is based on my adventures in 1911." 

To my surprise, Tolkien hiked with a heavy pack from Interlaken to Zermatt, including the Lauterbrunnen valley, which he said inspired his images of Rivendell. He nearly died once when a large rock fell from above him on a mountain crossing and narrowly missed his head on its way down. Suddenly I was following, literally, in the century-old footsteps of a master storyteller, not just enjoying a vacation and looking for inspiration. 

September 2

The road down from Zermatt was one lane most of the way, and we tried to stay out of the way of passing cars who would have nowhere to pull over even if they wanted to pick us up. The forest was thick on either side, so we figured we always had a place to stay if we had zero luck hitching. But not 20 minutes went by from the time we put out thumbs when a big freight truck (by Swiss standards) stopped in the middle of the road. 

We must not have been expecting any luck, because we were each astonished and hardly knew what to do. I heaved our packs up into the back of the truck, and we climbed into the cab with a guy in his mid-20s who spoke hardly a word of English. Whitney let out an impressive stream of German, for which I was as thankful as for the ride. Sven was the name of our hero, and he was going all the way to Gampel where there was a tunnel through the mountains that would save us from having to circle way around them to the east. 

Catching that ride was like catching a wave for the first time. The miles of the road we'd been trudging were suddenly flying by at lightning speed, with no effort of our own. Sven didn't normally drive that route, but he'd been called in by the company to do it that day. He grew up in the area and rode an 800cc Kawasaki dirt bike.

Suddenly we were in Gampel, elated at our luck but staring up at a series of steep switchbacks toward the tunnel. A giant croissant grinned at us from the middle of the parking lot, reaching out his cartoony hand to give Whitney a high-five. Bilbo never had it this good, I thought. We headed up the steep road.

Several cars gave us thumbs up, causing me to question the universality of the hitchhiking sign. But then a young woman pulled over ahead of us and laughingly told us not to worry as we ran awkwardly toward her under our loads. She had backpacked all around New Zealand and knew the value of the kindness of strangers. In fact she was headed a different direction but went out of her way to deliver us to the tunnel through the mountains. We thanked her profusely, and Whitney gave her a chocolate bar.

The light was fading, and we believed there would be good camping near Kandersteg on the other side, so we forked out 10 francs each for passenger tickets on the train rather than waiting longer for a car, which would have to drive onto the train anyway.

Above Kandersteg was Oeschinen Lake, famed to be one of the most beautiful in the world. It was several miles out of town surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs, but we pressed on in the twilight. We could see the cliffs aflame with sunset above where the lake must be nestled. Not far from the lake we found a big retaining wall rising above the trail that created a large flat area concealed from the path. We stashed our things there and ran to catch whatever glimpse of the lake we could in the near-darkness. 

A large dragon slumbered on the side of the path. I held the coins in my pocket still as we tiptoed by so as not to wake him. They can hear and smell treasure and will stop at nothing to get it. To the untrained eye, he looked like a big backhoe in the darkness, but I knew better.

The snow on the canyon ridges still glowed, and the lake was a soft mirror under the gathering stars. Cowbells clinked behind us. All we could do was sit for a long time to let the beauty wash over our senses.

From my camping spot atop the wall I could see the twinkling lights of Kandersteg down below. Over on the other side Whitney sat in her sleeping bag and fiddled with her camera and tripod to get some night shots. Our first day of hitchhiking was an overwhelming success.

September 3

The next morning we took a trail through the canyon cliffs around the lake, which was brilliant blue by day. A rowboat on its surface seemed suspended in the infinite depth of the sky. Everywhere cows and goats chimed in to the mountain chorus of bells it seems one can hear from nearly anywhere in the country. We couldn't leave without jumping into the glacial blue and letting its chilling power soothe our limbs and bones.

Getting out of Kandersteg once again tested our faith that anyone would stop for us. The four-lane highway snaked down a steep mountain north of town, and we had to walk a while on a fenced path before we could even access it by foot. Perched on a tiny underpass turnout, I started scanning satellite photos for a likely camping spot. Whitney kept out a hopeful but not expectant thumb.

A few minutes later a car braked hard into our little turnoff. It was a young mother with her baby in a carseat in the back. We were amazed she would stop for us, but we weren't about to complain. I crept slowly into the back seat with my paraglider pack on my lap, careful not to bump the carseat. Her baby's name was Timo, and he was three months old. 

On the way down the mountain, I noticed a lot of paragliders soaring whatever evening thermals were left in the valley. I wished I could join them, but journeying on was our first priority. 

The woman let us out in Frutigen, a rather quiet and pretty town. The day was nearly spent, but camping spots looked hard to find with all the farmland and houses around us. I was wondering whether we would have been better off back up the mountain. But just as we were walking back to the highway contemplating another hitch, I noticed the paragliders we'd seen earlier circling down to land next to an old WWII-era hangar. 

"Why don't we just chat with the pilots and see what's up?" I suggested. We approached the landing zone and introduced ourselves to the first pilot we saw, whose name was Andrew. He was a friendly looking heavy-set man in bright orange work pants. Whitney started in German, but he courteously switched to pretty good English. After hearing what we were up to, he said there was camping in town, but that we could camp out in his yard if we liked. He said there was fresh water for us, and if I wanted to fly he'd introduce me to "Schmatz" the local instructor. We happily accepted, and I helped him fold up his glider.

Andrew's home was a five-minute walk from the landing zone, and it overlooked a beautiful courtyard and garden with a traditional Swiss log-fountain trickling 24/7 with cold, pure drinking water. His wife Vera came down and introduced herself. She too was a paraglider pilot. She and Andrew had met through the local club, and she was expecting twins in November. She said if we wanted showers or anything to just ring the doorbell and come on upstairs. 

Unloading our gear, Whitney and I exchanged a high five, surprised again by the kindness and hospitality to which we'd been led. Another flaming sunset over the Alps, another night under the Milky Way.

September 4

I woke up to another beautiful sunrise and heard Vera's melodic voice above me on the balcony. She
leaned over her geraniums and asked if I we wanted tea or coffee, and if we liked cream and sugar. "Seriously!?" I thought to myself, but answered "Yes, please." She delivered two large cups of coffee and a cup of steaming hot milk, laying the tray on the fountain.

Feeling very refreshed, I headed to the hangar for a 9:45 rendezvous with Schmatz to fly over in the next valley with some of his students. Andrew had to leave early to work on the railroad, which explained the bright orange work pants. We all loaded in Schmatz's van and drove, then took a bus, then a gondola up to the top of a tall mountain that served as a ski hill in the winter. I had a rather short flight down over the village, but I got to soar with a couple hawks, and I certainly couldn't complain. Another day flying in the Alps.

Whitney was getting a lot of work done on her blog back in Frutigen, so we decided to stay till the next morning. That would let me get in an evening flight, which was way up at the valley rim where I'd seen the gliders the night before. I soared low over high alpine farms. The cowbells echoed loud and clear below me through the silky-smooth air. Tolkien never got to fly like that during his journey, but I'm sure that he imagined what it would be like as he looked up at the towering mountain peaks. Bilbo and his friends got to.

After Whitney and I got back to Andrew and Vera's, we each took a shower. She went first, and told me it was "fun". Andrew laughed, but neither would tell me why. When I turned on the shower, the shower head lit up all different colors, and flashed in different patterns for the duration. Andrew said they sell those shower heads at the post office for about 40 francs. He likes to turn off the lights in the room and enjoy all the color.

We talked with him about hitchhiking and travel while red sunlight streaked up the peaks like the last lick of an ice cream cone. Whitney and I decided to go check out the Tellenburg castle nearby even though it was already dark. It was all lit up from outside, and we found it open for unrestrained wandering. We climbed up through the inside and enjoyed a nighttime view of the valley I just can't describe. It was warm, and the cicadas sang in the giant oaks that hung over the ruins. I imagined what the valley looked like a hundred years ago, or a thousand, and I stared up the valley where we'd be heading the next morning. Over and over again, I found myself thinking, "If we hadn't X, we would never have gotten to Y." In retrospect, we always seemed a hair's breadth from missing some amazing opportunity, like meeting Andrew and Vera. But the amazing opportunities never stopped as long as we entrusted ourselves to that "orchestrated chance," embracing the road and the wind and the people we met along the way.

September 5

Vera greeted us the next morning again with coffee and steaming hot milk. We had a nice breakfast in the yard and filled up our water bottles with the cold, fresh water from the fountain. Looking up at the castle gave me that special feeling of ownership and belonging. I had a story to tell from Frutigen, and I had friends there who would welcome me any time.

We said goodbye to Vera, who wouldn't even accept our chocolate bars as thanks for the accommodations and hospitality. Back at the highway near the hangar we proceeded to hitchhike at the on-ramp. Two minutes and 37 seconds after we stuck out our thumbs a rental car with a young couple in it pulled over and offered us a ride all the way past Interlaken to the road that goes down the Lauterbrunnen valley. They were from Bavaria, and the guy was a pro cross-country skier.

After we got out, we began crossing the road to be in the right lane again. Whitney was just taking a sip from her water bottle, and I just put out my thumb as we stepped onto the curb when a huge freight truck came barreling toward us with its blinker on and stopped just feet from where we were standing, so that we actually went scrambling trying to get out of the way. I had to walk away from the front of the truck to see up into the cab so I could confirm he actually pulled over to pick us up. He nodded his head.

Whitney climbed the three ladder-like stairs up into the cab, which was like a roomy plane cockpit on top of a tower. The driver was a friendly-looking guy probably in his early 30s. We helped each other hoist our luggage in behind the seats, over which hung a huge Canadian flag (I don't know why--the driver was Swiss). His name was Philip. He told us about his favorite music and showed us how easy the truck was to drive with its auto-manual shifting on the column. He was delivering

lumber to Lauterbrunnen, where he let us off. It was less than an hour from when we'd stuck out our thumbs in Frutigen, and we were already at our destination hitching-wise. I was still having a hard time believing it.

It was fitting that we followed a river into the adolescent Tolkien's "Rivendell." The river runs through the bottom of the valley, and as we hiked further up and further in, waterfalls and awesome cliffs towered higher and higher. Paragliders and speedgliders dove in acrobatic spirals from the sheer cliffs above us.

We stopped at a shady place by the river and opened our little food bags to have a hobbit-like lunch before finding some way up the side. The gondola was much cheaper than we'd expected, so we took a ride from Stechelberg up to Mürren, a little village that hangs precariously on the cliff's edge. Since we were looking for a place to camp, we kept climbing the steep valley slope above Mürren, thinking maybe the trees would suffice. However, sleeping in any of the trees we saw, as Whitney pointed out, would be sleeping standing up, which would not be sleeping at all. We hiked on and on, growing more exhausted and less hopeful. Finally, we thought we'd take our chances asking farmers or chalets about camping nearby. Since the Lauterbrunnen Valley is one of the most touristy places in Switzerland, I wasn't expecting people to look too positively on our plans. We came to one restaurant/hotel, where the waiter told us kindly that camping wasn't allowed there, so we kept walking.

Off across the bowl we had climbed into was another large building that looked like it might be
abandoned. I wasn't planning on breaking and entering, we were just looking for people to ask about camping. As we rounded the corner, we met a friendly girl about our age sitting on the patio who greeted us in very good English. Again, we asked about camping, and she poked her head into the kitchen to ask Andre the cook. He said there was no problem, and we could do whatever we wanted. Jessie, the girl, also offered to let us leave our stuff there during the day if we wanted to hike. She seemed impressed that we'd lugged it all the way up from Mürren, and she tried to lift my paraglider just to see how heavy it was.

We found a nice, flat spot behind the chalet and collapsed on the grass, as happy as could be. The rest of Schilthorn stretched up above us, and across the valley Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau peeked periodically out of the clouds. After setting up camp, we returned to the chalet to get to know our benefactors. I ordered a hot ginger and rum beverage and watched a fox slink up the hillside just feet away. I awoke sometime in the middle of the night to see all three famous peaks in cloudless glory against the stars. It felt like a dream.

September 6

We dropped off our packs at the chalet and headed up the
mountain fairly early. It was cloudy, but the clouds receded above us for most of the hike. Once we were in them, the climb felt mysterious and exciting. The trail was well-marked, but we could never tell what was coming next. After climbing over one ridge, we came upon two wild mountain goats. I just had time to snap a picture before they withdrew into the vast whiteness.

Just before reaching the top, there was a steep, narrow ridge we had to cross. It almost felt like walking on clouds. "Mordor!" I cried. But we were so happy to get inside Piz Gloria, t
he lodge atop Schilthorn, which was featured in the 1969 Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." The gondola trip alone would have been 98 francs. There was a whole Bond museum on the bottom floor, where Whitney piloted a helicopter and I a bobsled with deft special-agent prowess.

Back at our own chalet, we decided to splurge and have fondu for dinner, which Whitney had never had. I'd heard Jessie humming in the kitchen and could tell she was a real singer. The chalet had a Washburn guitar lying around just for guests to play, so the three of us took it outside after dinner and played songs for each other. Jessie's songs were so good Whitney asked if we could record them the next day and feature them on her blog. 

September 7

It must be sounding repetitive by now, but we've been blown away time and again by the kindness and interesting stories of those we keep meeting. I had an awesome conversation this morning with Jessie about life and philosophy and God. It will be sad to leave. But we get to keep the friends we make. I'd love to come back someday and work here. Mixed in with the books on local flora and geography are yearbooks the staff make of their memories each year. It's a warm place, in every sense.