Grosses Ochsenhorn

Published on 2025-6-14 by Michael Stanton

I had a funny conversation at McDonalds at 5:58 in the morning. I ordered 2 egg and cheese McMuffins, and was told "Sorry, we only serve normal food at this time. Please choose from our normal food menu." I asked when they started serving breakfast and was told 6:00. "Do you understand?" came the cheery voice.

I waited about 30 seconds until the clock clicked over to 6:00. Then I said "Could I order 2 egg and cheese McMuffins?" After a brief pause, the cheery female voice said: "yes, will that be all?"

It was funny how robotic the whole thing was. There was none of that nice human interaction and humor that is the mark of...humanity. Nor did it come after I ordered. No, it seemed that the woman preferred to follow the instruction on the screen and to make no note of the fact that we were sitting at a boundary point where the screen changes what it says.

I really think we must prefer this. We don't really like humanity any more, and we can take refuge in becoming mechanical.

I arrived at the trailhead, up a steep road. The automated parking attendant said you could use a credit card, a bank debit card, or you could insert 5 euros in coins. I tried the first two, even my fancy "apple pay". For these, the transaction appeared to work, then suddenly cancelled. So I'd have to pay with coins. I didn't want to drive back down the road, and I only had 3 euros in coins. There was a restaurant, but it wouldn't open for another 5 hours. So I left a 5 euro bill on my windshield.

Of course, you know what happened. On return, the 5 euros was there, and a ticket for failing to pay the automated machine. I just had a sense that I'm falling out of this world. Perhaps we die when we can no longer be understood by the world.

But anyway, this is a trip report. So I hiked up through the forest above the church. It was very steep, and as sunlight began glinting through the thinning trees, it was already hot. I passed an older man, but he was soon nearby again. I rested a few minutes at a nice bivouac hut just to get some shade. As he arrived we chatted about water. I said I hoped there might be some, because I heard sheep nearby bleating. He laughed and said they were making due by licking the remaining snowfields. Ha ha! He was exactly right. So I found a human!

Higher, I filled my water bottle with snow from a snowfield I had to cross. At the pass, I headed straight up on a faint trail with the summit 500 meters above me. Pretty soon I was using my hands and climbing up and over steps on the ridge. I saw the man below. It was clear that the trail used to have paint marks, but they had been vigorously brushed away. I wondered what meeting occurred in some dusty administrative building over the last few years resulted in that decision. I'd been here before with Barbara in 2016, and the marks were present then.

The ridge way meets the maintained trail about 250 meters up, and I joined that, scrambling the enjoyable way to the summit. At least it wasn't so hot up here, thanks to a bit of wind. The views weren't great because of haze. I sat at a nice spot a bit below the summit and ate my lunch, reading this fascinating book called "The Invisible College," by Jacques Vallan, who was the inspiration for the french scientist in the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." A wonderful book.

The older man came to me, shook my hand and we said Berg Heil. Naturally, I liked him immensely. On the way down I was able to get water from a dying snowfield in a shallow gully. I would have been hurting without that water! As it was, I was having a hard time swallowing, so parched, in the now-humid forest on the way down. I saw a video later of some guys who traversed 3 summits, I'll have to do that next time, but definitely not on such a hot day!

It took me just under 4 hours up, climbing 1700 meters in just 5 kilometers. The way down wasn't much quicker above the forest, because you can't move very fast on this sharp limestone with odd shapes and holes here and there. A good day, despite the ticket.