No Shirt, No Pants, No Hiking

The Associated Press is reporting that citizens of Switzerland's Appenzell canton have voted to impose a fine of 200 Swiss Francs on Alpine hikers clad in nothing more than hiking boots, socks and their base layer of skin. Yep. Apparently, the extreme sport of nude Alpine hiking has become a sufficient problem to merit nipping the practice in the bud.

AP reports that transgressors have numbered in the dozens, and have been mostly German. As someone whose mongrel mix of European heritage includes about one-fourth Kraut extraction myself, I can understand how this might cause alarm. Germans do tend to appreciate fine beer, and an overabundance of Gemutlichkeit can yield a prosperous abundance of pale fleshiness -- especially around the abdominal region (in the case of men), but in more fetching parts of the anatomy among German fraus and frauleins.

Still. given the global economy and the tourism potential, Appenzell may be missing an opportunity to get out ahead of the market and tap into this revenue stream before other, less conservative cantons (or the French, or the Italians) start to designate clothing-optional hiking trails.

Leaving aside esthetic judgements regarding whether nude hiking contributes to or detracts from the Alpine scenery, a story last month in the New York Times suggested some measure of amusement and ambivalence among the Appenzellers.

As someone who hiked quite a lot in the Swiss Alps a quarter century ago (always clothed in at least one layer more than sunscreen and the base birthday layer), I can attest to the fact that hikers -- clothed or unclothed -- are rendered insignificant by the Alps that tower all around. As someone who has the pale skin tone (if not the abundant fleshiness) of one-quarter German extraction, I can also attest first-hand to the sunburn risk of hiking in the Swiss Alps: The higher you go, the less atmosphere there is to filter the sun's radiation. I can remember at least two occasions when my face and forearms were so badly fried that the exposed skin peeled for days after I came back down to the valleys.

But if you're determined to go hike nude in the Alps, it's your skin. Happy yodeling.

Matterhorn in Context

My friend Darren Bush's recent visit to Sicily, and the extraordinary photos he has been posting to his blog at http://canoelover.blogspot.com/ are an inspiration to resume scanning my old European slides from the 1980s into digital format. This is an undertaking I began a couple years ago, but abandoned due to the overwhelming number of images I brought back. I'll get back to it as time allows. Meanwhile, here's an image of the Matterhorn from a week I spent in Zermatt in 1985. This might have been taken the day I hiked the rather precarious ridgeline to Hornlihutte, the staging facility from which those who climb the Matterhorn start. I lacked the means and nerve to hire a guide to lead me up its steeps. Instead, I spent my week in Zermatt hiking a different mountain trail every day. Rothorn was a favorite.