That howling voice in my head is back, “You suck at this!” The slope is steep, the snow so sticky, kilos of it cling to my snowshoe for a few tormenting seconds with every step. Big wet snowflakes are falling reducing visibility to thirty or forty meters, but coming down so slowly they seem to be laughing at my private struggle against Earth’s gravity.
We’re only a few hours into what will eventually prove to be a five-hour trek and Paul L., 30+ years sober, a marathon runner and the image of fitness, not to mention a pillar of emotional sobriety, blurts out the unthinkable. “I should never have come. What the hell made me think I could do this hike without training for the past year?!” Then he turns around, puts his head down, the ropes go taunt and he moves forward a few more agonizing steps.
Paul is pulling a blue plastic sled that resembles a toddler’s molded bathtub: flat and shallow, it’s piled heavy and high with maybe 40 kilos of Paul’s gear and much of our weekend retreat’s food supplies. Two more of our group of four is somewhere up ahead, their steps having indented a narrow trail to we’re following. But the cheap sledge is a couple of hand’s width wider than their footprints, increasing its dead weight drag 3-fold as it scrapes along the sides of the snow path.
Top-heavy and unbalanced, it tilts along drunkenly, threatening to tip over completely. I’m walking behind man and sledge, pushing down on one side of it then the other with my sticks to keep the tub on even keel. Even so, it still manages to tip over occasionally, forcing Paul to stop and wait while I wrench it back onto its bottom. The stops become more frequent as the slope increases and deeper snow offers even less broken trail for us to navigate.
My mind recalls accounts of mountaineers abandoning fellow climbers when exhaustion and elements combine to overcome human decency just to survive. After a particular nasty 60-meter ascent of switchbacks that mark the halfway point of the hike, the path levels out to a gentler upward slope but the snow is deeper. Paul is wondering out loud if he turned back now would he be able to make it out. My banal comments of progress and suggestions to leave the sled and return for it later are met with silence or inaudible grunts. Then Paul stops, turns to me and says with plain finality, “why don’t you go ahead and send one of the other guys back to help. No really, I want you to go ahead, it’ll be better if you do.”
As dangerous as this might seem to split up, a part of me understood his reasoning to forego witness to his painful struggle. How painful I could only imagine, because for some time now I was walking the edge of my own personal limits carrying only 13 kilos in my backpack AND following his and the sled’s fat swath through the snow. But I did as he asked and looking back after trekking a few hundred meters further, I saw his solitary figure still standing there in front of the heaped sled, the wet heavy snow continuing to fall, surrounded by silence and invisible 3000 meter peaks, and all I could do was pray for God to look after him. I pushed my self to slog on, 12 steps left – 12 steps right – pause, breath in, breath out; repeat.
The first AA Men’s Snowshoe Retreat began in 2010 at the “behest” of a sponsor to his sponsee. That sponsee readily admits to this day he loathes organizing anything, particularly complex events (and what AA event isn’t?) that involve more than a few people.
But he did what his sponsor told him to do. He’s been sober more than five years now, and this was the 3rd winter Men’s Retreat he’s hosted. The shepherd’s hut, built in 1749, that the young sponsee organized for the first men’s retreat was originally rented from the owner by his grandfather, then taken over by his father and currently by his brother. During one of the many meetings we held over the weekend, the sponsee recounted the time before he got sober with today. “When I asked my brother and father about using the hut this weekend, they hardly asked me anything – they don’t tell me to be careful with fires or carry my trash home … They just trust me.”
AA fellowship can reveal an added dimension when you’re part of a small group of sober men sharing primitive accommodations on the side of a Swiss mountain in February. Some years five different nationalities and as many languages have been present, attracting men with less than a month of sobriety as well as old-timers with more than a few years. While we come from every possible walk of life, and range in age from 23 to 62, everyone comes for that same singleness of purpose: to stay sober and help each other in their program of recovery from alcoholism.
The men who do attend I believe genuinely relish the dearth of amenities and the challenges presented by sub-zero conditions in the mountains. Those who don’t seldom return – which is probably good since their folly and naivety are recounted with smiles, laughter and “there but for the grace of God” stories around the woodstove in the following years.
Everything except water (we melt snow), firewood (it’s gathered on the mountain or brought up in the summer by 4wd) and cooking utensils has to come up the mountain on our backs (or a sledge as Paul tried). Temperatures are well below freezing. In fact during my first winter men’s retreat in 2012, the mercury went below the lowest reading on the thermometer (-30° C) at night and warmed up to minus 20 during the day. I’d guesstimate that year we were sleeping in minus 40° or colder air – since the bunk room is not heated and the log walls are bare save for hand carved graffiti dating back to before Napoleon’s occupation of Switzerland.
On the first full day of this year’s retreat, I began my morning mediation sitting outside as dawn turned the slopes an iridescent blue hue, the color’s source discreetly rising behind neighboring peaks. Looking out and around at the vast expanse of nature and the pure grandeur of it all, I experienced a physical ache in my chest. While this may sound like the side effects of the higher altitude, I assure you it wasn’t. What I felt was an inner joy, my senses registering my Higher Power going into and flowing out of my heart. For a long moment I was wrapped in that elusive feeling of being as One, effortlessly connected to God and to the sky and the mountains and the men still sleeping and the entire world of humanity. A sensation I can only describe as … bliss.
Later that day, four more of our guys from Geneva and Lausanne English-speaking AA trekked up from below bringing our count to eight recovering alcoholics. The second group arrived in under four hours start to finish; complimenting the rest of us on the beautiful clear weather and an amazingly wide packed path they had the pleasure to follow. The outdoor wood-fired oven was heated up, homemade dough rolled out and piping hot pizzas shared all around.
You have to understand, even if it nearly cripples us to Sherpa food and supplies from the trailhead’s 1090 meters to the cabin’s 1700 meters, few of us would have it any other way. Because one of the traditions the winter retreat shares with its close cousins, the fall and spring men’s retreats on La Dôle above Nyon, is to eat like righteous kings. Besides the homemade pizzas just mentioned, this year we chowed down on copious amounts of chili and rice, omelets and what else? (this being Switzerland) fondue of course!
Sunday morning arrived all too soon and after one last meeting, the dishes were cleaned, floors swept and all restored to its rightful place to await the arrival of spring. Spiritually tanked up, we strapped on snowshoes, shouldered our packs and happily set off for the walk down a now very well trodden path.
And that blue sledge? Paul finally abandoned it with less than a kilometer to go on the hike up, putting into practice his serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can and wisdom to know the difference.
Joel B., Zurich
Editor’s note: this article has been published in accordance with our ArenA Editorial Policy.