Thursday 29th July

Today was the day of the 'big hike' - the much anticipated hike up to a mountain hut. The morning was to be spent doing the 'COPE' course - a sort of team building thing outside. But the weather was attrocious. The COPE course was postponed to a later date, and the Scouts enjoyed a 'World Scout Game' inside instead. A kind of treasure hunt / board game in the main building. They really enjoyed themselves.

They then had time to get themselves ready for the hike, due to start after lunch. The weather was truely dreadful now - torrential rain. We found the guides and they assured us that it would be OK, so we agreed. Just as we set off the weather broke, and we headed off in bright sunshine. The Scouts were really grumpy, since we'd been told that we'd be taking the cable car up halfway, and then hiking up to the hut. This was not the case - the hike was the whole way. There was much moaning and groaning, but they got stuck in. After about 30 mins of walking up some pretty steep tracks the weather remembered itself, and reverted to some serious rain again. This time it decided to stick with it too. We made the ascent to 1980m in about 4 hours, in some pretty awful weather.

When we got there a group of guides had already gotten settled in. We quickly got out of our (saturated) gear and took in our surroundings. We were in an partially converted cow barn. There were still cows living there! The front part of the chalet/barn was now a kitchen, dining room and staff accommodation. To the rear was the most awful toilet possible - a hole in the ground to a compost pit. The stench was terrible. Upstairs under the eaves were three rooms for sleeping. The guides had taken the best room, leaving us with the two rear rooms. The boys room was 'well ventilated' to say the least. In each bedroom was an array of foam mattresses, each with two woollen blankets.

Tea took a long time to cook (we'd lugged it all up with us), and was sweet and sour pork and pasta. Bedtime was lates, and we made sure everyone had two layers of clothes on, plus woolly hat and gloves. Then it was off to bed - in the dark. There was no electicity up there either! We had a very cold night, but everyone stayed warm under their layers.

It is now really late on Friday, so I'll write up Friday and Saturday tomorrow, when we get back from Zermatt and the Matterhorn! And for once the weather looks good!

Doug