I don't even know why I'm feeling like telling you this story, but here we go...
As part of my geology degree I had the choice of either do some kind of a lab based study or a four week mapping project. Another study just seemed kind of too easy and I decided to do the mapping thing. Bivio, Switzerland, here we come...We was me and my dear friend Christopher, four weeks in the Alps, just the two of us.
I really like him (if you read this, Dicker, I love you to death (I hope this brings some tears to your eyes :-)) but we're talking two students in their fourth year, really knowing nothing about rocks at all and for exactly that reason each person is ALWAYS right! I had a feeling, I would run into trouble...
The plan was to camp somewhere in the area we were supposed to map and so we asked a farmer in the area if we could pitch our tents somewhere on his land for the next four weeks. They thought we were crazy, but told us as long as we keep it clean we were cool to do that. So we did...
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| It was laundry day and we laid our clothes on the rocks to dry |
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| Kitchen - in my tent |
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| Camp Site (Photo credit C. Demel) |
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| Shower - pretty ahhh refreshing |
Well, at the start my friend had some concerns about the whole camping thing and me, being the unsupportive bitch I can be, had no understanding for that, whatsoever. His major concern was the morning routine which involved a shovel and some bushes instead of porcelain and a newspaper. Despite the lack of my moral support, I have to say he did great and even planned those little holes and arranged them in a nice pattern so he wouldn't run out of space over the course of four weeks like you would expect from a good old German. Not me though, I'm more of a free spirit, no pattern for little holes. Anyways, the camping part turned out to be really nice for the both of us, having the best view in the world for the morning routine.
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| I got nothing to say to that, well, maybe I do: I'd love to go there again some time |
So, we settled in for a bit and then went to meet our professor, who was in the area with students on a field trip and was supposed to give us an introduction to the area.
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| First day - introduction into the geology of the area |
The weather for the introduction was okay, I guess, but for some reason (maybe because it was wet, cold, and quite honestly, miserable) it was not quite as thorough as we had hoped for.
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| Alpensalamander - they liked the weather, nice and moist |
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| Old mining location |
Just before our prof left, we asked him if he possibly could spare some old newspaper he uses for wrapping his rock samples, because our boots were socked after our first half day. He left us some and off he went. Hmm, it's been a while (five years, I think) but I still remember that feeling of being left behind with a task I didn't feel I had the tools for succeeding in it. Yeah, whatever...and so the struggles began.
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| Rocks,... |
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| ...structures,... |
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| ...and Mountains |
We fought about rocks, and rock types, and what we would call it, I don't know how often. The tricky part was that there was no one there, telling us what the "truth" was (if there is something absolute like the "truth" in Geology) and let's be honest here, we were raised in school and later in university that someone tells you (teacher/professor) what is right and what is wrong. Now we had to battle real life and there was not even a third person who could side with the one or the other person and end a dispute. Hahahaha, that makes for long fights! And gee, don't think in the end we still fought about rocks, oh no, it went more in the general and personal direction. Something like: "Yeah, you always thought you know a whole lot more than I do, but really you know fuck all!" "Why are you so bitchy all the time, come back down to Earth and get you're shit together!" I don't know if we said that exactly, but it goes the right way, I would say.
But, with every day we got better and even though there was no one there to teach us and we were both on the same unknowing level, we learned just by looking at the rocks again and again. We figured stuff out just by thinking, talking, and yes even fighting about it and it felt great!
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| Teaching the cows the little we knew about rocks |
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| Climbing the highest mountain top in our mapping area (Photo credit C. Demel) |
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| We had only one thunderstorm in our four weeks, but that is fricken scary up there, especially when you know that it is not that rare that cows are being struck by lightning (and die). |
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| Cow-selfy (Photo credit C. Demel) |
It was physically and mentally tough, but we had a lot of fun! During our stay, we also had supportive people around who watched out for us. The farmer and his wife who let us stay on their land did our laundry once. And the Senn (Shepard) who took care of the cows up in the mountains invited us for dinner one night. He cooked for us while we both had a chance to use his gas-heated shower. Yep, that felt like Christmas!!! Even more though, I appreciated the moral support he gave us. He was the only person who said he thought it was a great accomplishment on our sides that the two of us were doing this project together for four weeks and that battling through conflicts was a natural thing. It was a relief to hear that, I can tell you that. Because even though when I'm stuck in a situation and can't back off from my position whatsoever, I don't feel good after. Honestly, I usually feel like a great failure which makes me even more insecure and even more stuck in the next situation. A downhill spiral... So it was good to hear, that we were actually not doing all that bad and we should see it as a success since we always found back together and continued to work as a team.
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| Photo credit C. Demel |
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| The closest little village to our camp site - so pretty! |
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| Follow the geologist... |
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| Those cows really liked us! I think this is just before they moved in on me and started chewing on my backpack straps. Pretty gross when you have to put it on after...(Photo credit C. Demel) |
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| The Senn, feeding the cows with salt so they would leave us alone for a bit. Very funny, he sometimes showed up up in the mountains behind a rock, scared the shit out of Christopher once, he even screamed. I laughed so hard I almost cried! |
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