One good thing about dorm rooms is they get you to wake up early. And one of the few good things about dorm rooms is that they are inexpensive, compared to private rooms– we were pleasantly surprised at the bill. And one good thing about declaring a certain hike to be your last day of hiking—it suddenly becomes very easy and, at the end, it is hard not to get nostalgic for all the previous days of aches, pains, soreness, climbs, and views from the mountain passes.

The trail leaves from right behind the Schwarzhorn and just goes up from there. Though the incline was consistent and steady, it felt like we sprinted up the mountain—we made great time, and felt very strong and steady, like we could go on hiking for the next few months. I loved thinking in my head that this would be our last big ascent for a while. And one wonderful thing about the Valais is that you do all of the hiking by foot—there was real satisfaction in looking behind us and thinking we hiked all that way down into the valley, and we were hiking out of it now—no lifts, no buses, no public transportation.

The view from the Augstbordpass, where I was the happiest person in the world, was really spectacular—the mountains felt taller than they were around the Hotel Weisshorn, and again we had this deserted isolation that I love, which can make me feel so small and insignificant, yet part of the large world at the same time. The trail down, though rocky, wasn’t extremely difficult footing. We found Harold’s favorite lunch spot further down from the pass, in this grassy nook of a valley where there wasn’t anyone around, on top of some nice flat rocks with rock garden plants growing next to us.

The final portion of the trail was one of our favorite portions of hiking—a fairly flat trail that hugged the rock face of a mountain, with great views of the Valaisian Alps. I loved the views of this uneven valley between two chains of mountains—it felt prehistoric and mythic,. The trail was like an amusement part of hiking—the views, and the coolest water fountain I’ve ever seen trickling down the rock face, and these seemingly rickety bridges jutting out from the rock face to help stabilize the path, the steep drop to the left of the trail (we had to be careful where we put our poles!). I think we appreciated the views more, knowing that it was our final day of hiking. And then I had wandered off the trail to go the bathroom, and I heard this coughing noise. It sounded human, and it startled me, so I looked around and up and saw that it was two ibexes, coughing! They were beautiful creatures, and we just stood and watched them for a bit, as they ignored us, chewed, and made their strange wonderful coughs.

You have two lifts to choose to get you down, back to civilization. We took the Jungen lift down to St. Niklaus. The Jungen lift was a little scary and odd—it had a sign posted that said it only runs at certain times, as it was only a single capsule that fit about 4 people. There was a call button you were to press if you came at other times, but the button didn’t do anything when we pressed it. We asked a nice group of 10 year old girls about the lift, and they told us (in German we could understand! They spoke nice and slow for us) that the lift indeed only runs at certain times of the day. The girls were so sweet, and ended up giving us little keychains that had been weaving. Somehow it was less scary to try out my German on a group of children, so we exchanged short sentences, and we gave them some bungee cords (we had nothing else to give them, other than some of our dirty socks, which we thought they wouldn’t like). By the time we left, they had found something to do with the bungee cords (tied them in a circle and hung their keychains on them). It made me wish that we could have met more children along the way, as they seemed friendly and patient with our poor German. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect ending to our hike.

The descent, when it finally happened, was slightly scary and a little claustrophobic and hot, the sun magnified through the plastic windows, but it sure was quicker than hiking down. St. Niklaus was a pretty depressed town—definitely take the bus to Grachen to stay, and we loved our inn, the Hotel Stutz, one of our favorite places to stay—incredibly friendly hosts, non-smoking, vegetarian friendly, beautiful room, close to the road but it wasn’t too busy. They served tofu curry for dinner (yes!), as well as special brown bread from the valley, and apricots they had grown from their garden. They also hold organize tours I think—there was a group of women in their mid-60’s in the dining room, having the best time ever, and we saw them setting off on a hike with the owner the next day. We slept for a very long time that night.