Swiss Alps Stories

The Most Photographed Mountain

I did not know that that the Matterhorn was the most photographed mountain. I had forgotten that the bottled water 'evian' had an artistic rendition of this peak for its identifying label. I hadn't thought about how many men have died attempting to summit this granite fourteen thousand foot tall mountain.

I was drawn to it's intriguing pyramid shape, proximity to Spain and that it stands alone. I needed an absolute change of time and space after two and a half months of intense focused energy expenditure in my studio. I required a different mindset after weeks of hardly sleeping as my mind urged the body on to create create create.

A curious thing happened on the trail above Täsch where the van was parked, from the moment the Matterhorn entered my view, I could not stop my eyes from being drawn to it again and again. To use a modern colloquialism, it has "main character vibes". It's undeniably a powerful presence. I felt enthralled, caught in a tractor beam, which once above seven thousand feet, pulled at me relentlessly.

When the tent was pitched that first night, my feet were pointed at the mountain in it, When I unzipped my tent flap, my view was instantly redirected at it. Even when hidden behind clouds and fog, I felt it calling to me. I can understand why so many felt compelled to climb it or die trying.

Each step and waypoint along my loop hiking route, for more than two thirds of the hike, took me one step closer to it. I took hundreds of photographs from various elevations at four different alpine lakes, at different angles, at different times of the day and night, with and without cloud cover. How could I not when I had been blessed with a veritable cornucopia of weather patterns that would change and add to its character and mood?

More than a third of my adventure was spent above ten thousand feet, over three thousand meters. I swam in glaciar-fed lakes and drank from their icy streams feeding in and out of them. I sweated, cooked, ate food, slept, napped, basking in its energy and presence.

It was not until I was on the last leg of the hike, past Riffelsee, heading towards Zermatt, walking the trail back to the Täsch Matterhorn terminal that I felt my fatigue. That I felt the distance I had traversed. That I felt the strain in aching calves and knees of the incredible elevation gains and losses I had experienced. With the mountain behind me, my feet began aching with each step that took me away from it. I felt the enchantment it had cast on me beginning to unravel and fade.

Several more days would pass before I was completely out of its thrall. But, even now, writing this, a vision of it that day at dawn near Riffelsee comes to me. It's craggy, blocky, pyramid peak, the tip of the mountain colored pink from the early morning rays first light on it, and the grayish blue below still in shadow not yet been touched by the sun, looms large in my mind's eye. And I am transported back to so many moments that I was communing and sharing unspoken communication, pure emotion and energy, with this entity. This candid photo, taken unbeknownst to me, is one of them.

Is longer than you think.

Standing on a ledge during sunrise, looking out at it... it was surreal. It's difficult to comprehend how far away Glacier Gornergrat is, its size or scale, from this spot. There are no trees here to begin to get some sense of that. Just icy lakes and the distant roar of the waterfalls across the way spilling in and out of them.

In terms of time, it exists in another dimension that we can only perceive because others no longer with us have given us their accounts in records and writing of its age, movements and remnants of human-made structures. It has repeatedly grown and shrunk, destroying all but the rocks in its path indiscriminately in that process, and will continue to do so long after you and I cease to walk this earth.

The chalky pale blue river that flows from its glacial canyon is the Gornerbach and feeds into the Gornera, which flows down the valley through Zermatt, Täsch, Randa, St. Niklaus to Visp, where it feeds into the Rhône. The Rhône feeds into the crescent-shaped Lac Leman and exits the southwest tip through Geneva into France. Its course continues through Lyon, at which point it heads directly south through Arles into the Golfu du Lion. I didn't know it at the time, but I had followed this river from sea to source, like a salmon returning to the shallow waters of its spawning grounds after years abroad in salty waters.

The Third Longest Glacier...

Ten Seconds of Two Minutes

The original plan had been to go stargazing to catch sight of those past peak Perseid meteors streaking through the sky. That plan quickly changed once the Matterhorn cast its spell on me. At the end of the second day, a thick fog had rolled in and rain fell. I wondered if this would be the conditions for the entire loop.

The morning of the second day, I was awakened to a thick mist and cloudwalked for several hours to the lounge on Blauherd. After resting there for an hour, the trek continued onward and upwards to Rothern at ten thousand one hundred and eighty feet, or three thousand one hundred and three meters. Past there, the route chosen led to Fluhalp, approximately a thirty minute walk from Lake Stellisee. It was late afternoon when I said 'hello' to the seven others sitting in the thin mist surrounded by thicker clouds blocking the views all around us at the lakeside. I missed a photo opportunity, a maybe three second window that opened and closed, of the tip of the Matterhorn that early evening.

The group of seven was actually two groups, one of three and one of four. Everyone was a bit uneasy. It was clear to all of us that we were all there for the same purpose. To stay and see the Matterhorn from this popular spot, and hopefully capture a photo of it clearly reflected in the waters in the next day's early morning light.

At this point, I just wanted to get one good photo of it. I was so young and naive then, not realizing yet how many times I would tap that screen in the days to come. In the night to come. Yes, in the middle of the night, I suddenly woke up for no reason. I opened the tent flap and saw stars in the sky above and with my half asleep brain I suddenly realized there was a moment of night time clear.

I threw everything warm on.

I rushed out and groggily stumbled in the dark down to the edge of the lake, to right next to one of the four tents pitched there. I was two feet from one. It was so close to what I could see was the best spot to set up my camera phone, and (hopefully) get a night time mirror reflection photo of the Matterhorn in the dark still waters of Stellisee.

Each shot took about fifteen or so seconds to set up and shoot. One second to set a five second timer and four seconds of open aperture to take the photo. I would quickly look at the shot, adjust the angle or position, and repeat the process.

I did not have a tripod.

I thought about waking up the people gently snoring in the tents next to me. I knew they were as keen as I for photos and the ones I was getting were magic. I didn't wake them. I let them slumber in peace. They will never know that I was two feet from one of them, separated only by two layers of thin nylon walls, in ecstasy and filled with glee.

I managed to take eight photos before the misty clouds once again obscured the view of the Matterhorn. I was ecstatic. Triumphant. I didn't care that I was unable to get much of a reflection in those dark waters. There was a little reflected in some of the photos and that was enough. I loved that the misty moist air and low light had created its own filter. My photos looked like paintings. This one above was the first one.

In those two minutes, that night, the spell the mountain had began weaving two days ago was complete and cast. I had not captured it...

It had captured me.

Nearly Perfect

Correctly and accurately in Wikipedia, the traditional Japanese aesthetic, wabi-sabi (侘び寂び) is defined and described. The concept of wabi-sabi is a world view that is centered on accepting transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is at times described as one of appreciating beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" in nature.

When I think back to all the stories and myths of spellcasting and enchantments, they are always done for a reason and with a purpose by its caster. Nature has done its magic on me three times in my lifetime so far. The first was when I was in elementary school. The second time was around thirteen years ago. This was my third experience.

On the last morning of the final day of the multi-day loop hike journey, before beginning the descent in earnest, I was gifted a nearly perfect mirror reflection of the Matterhorn in Riffelsee. Before I took this photography, I had taken hundreds of photos along the way, chasing the perfect conditions to achieve it. No cloud cover, bright and sunny, still lake waters. At this point, I had accepted that I would not have those conditions and would not get that photo. Some would say that I had simply decided it was no longer important. I would say that I had given up. Then this photo happened.

Not perfectly symmetrical.Nnot what I consider the best face of the matterhorn. Not the most interesting light. But there is no denying it is very good mirrored reflection shot that met all of my desired perfect-seeming conditions and criteria.

I am reminded of a famous quote of Oscar Wilde's, "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it," and I think this idea was woven into the spell that the Matterhorn had cast upon me. I am not disappointed in this shot. I am elated I was able to achieve it, but it is not the photo of the Matterhorn that I love the most. So many of the other ones communicate more, and have you feel more. There is no mystery to this face of the mountain with the sun fully upon it. What saves it from being competely perfectly dull is the part of the mountain still in shadow that does not get reflected in the lake. It is where Hörnlihütte is located on the north-eastern ridge, a mountain hut that those planning to tackle the Matterhorn stage their attempts at. Shrouded in mystery, like the fates of those who desire to do the climb, it is where those who live to tell the tale are first celebrated upon their return, or mourned for joining the over five hundred souls that did not successfully do so.

This Matterhorn mirror reflection photo was only one relatively brief moment on my journey and I can't help but draw a parallel to my two and half months of creative output that has resulted in some new sculptures. Both remind me and reinforce what I believe art to be - a process, a journey, a discovering of self. Much like any process, that moment of achieving the final result, is but one brief blip of a moment on it. And it is fleeting. For as soon as you achieve it, the moment is also passing. The feelings and thoughts, oneself, are already evolving beyond. The objects themselves, the illusion of permanent, an illusion of success, are also changed and changing, and subject to others' interpretations. Already another living being has physically interacted with one of my sculptures, making it its own home, giving life and staking a claim to its newly discovered world. A pioneer. A tiny spider using it as a mundane and practical support to spin and support its lifestyle.

Chasing perfection is a dream that like chasing the Matterhorn can crush and kill those who fall under its spell. Before I took my nearly perfect photo, the spell cast by the mountain had me filled with a powerful overwhelming urge to trek to Hörnlihütte. If I could not capture the mountain in one perfect mirror-reflection photo, I would at least tread and exist upon it. I even began talking about climbing it, not to the summit, but to one of the points below, because why not I was there. I had even mapped out the route, the number of days, how much food would be needed. I was being seduced by not getting what I thought I wanted, and beginning to chase a probably deadly dream that was not my own. Then I took that photo, and another of a stone heart that was nearby, and those somehow broke the spell that the mountain had cast upon me.

In the midst of having some stress-filled doubts about the success of my upcoming exhibition in as far as attendance numbers and on social media, I found myself looking at that stone heart photo again yesterday. Its counterspell must be some powerful magic because it was still working it on me. I was reminded that success is not numbers, sales, or social media engagement. Success had already happened with that tiny spider, the friend who unexpectedly dropped by and ended up getting a sneak preview of everything, the people who already have a confirmed reservation to come see them. Success happened long ago on the night I completed one of the sculptures, and it caused me to break down and cry.

We often measure our success by other people's standards, their feats of accomplishment, their opinions, without realizing or recognizing that our own are the true measure of it and the only ones that actually matter. By thinking that we must prove our value and the worth of our existence to others we give away our power to them, and in doing so we become enslaved. I have been that slave before, people-pleasing, a doormat, willing to compromise my own values and beliefs for other's, chasing someone else's idea of what is ideal and of imaginary unobtainable perfection.

Perfection is a stone heart - cruel, unkind, cold, impenetrable and unrepetant - and it makes those who chase it stony-hearted people. I do not want to be one of them. It's much better to wabi-sabi, embrace the transient and imperfect, to continue endeavoring to persevere in that practice chasing that Japanese aesthetic. I do not believe in gods or spirits but I also cannot disbelieve in them either. I feel like the Matterhorn and life has tested me, much like how Galadriel was tested by the One Ring, and like she, I was able to overcome foreign powers and remain myself. What happens with this exhibition, what will be will be, and it will be a success when it happens, no matter how many people attend.

I don't know if anyone else has encountered this kind of trial and lesson in life but if so, I would like to hear about it. You may send yours via the contact form.

Open Studio

Autumnal Equinox

21 & 22 September 2024

11:00 - 15:00

The address of this private location in Madrid Spain and will be delivered to you by email. Of course, you will need a reservation to come visit me.

For two days in 2024, I will open my studio to share a new body of work on the weekend of the Autumnal Equinox. I'll be showing a series of sculptures, static and kinetic.

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A friend has been telling me for ages to write a book, a memoir, of all my wild past-life experiences. Maybe I'll write a book about my life when I'm older, maybe around 80 (if I am blessed to live that long). I've decided to keep this diary instead.

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