An Alpine Adventure

The Swiss Alps as seen from Austria.

It was a ski vacation to Austria, a bucket list trip, in the company of good, old friends. The skiing was nice. The cuisine was wonderful. The scenery, spectacular.

But I was taken by a cow barn.

The trip started from Boston’s General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport. Icelandair flies a nicely renovated 757 from Logan to Reykjavik, where we made a frantic 20 minute connection to Munich. No panic was necessary as all the heavy ski baggage somehow miraculously made the next flight, as did we.

Munich is situated on a broad plain in northern Bavaria. As we rode south with limitless expanses and far horizons, we could only pray that there were actually mountains involved in this venture. Finally, after an hour, the terrain became hilly, rising, with pine covered mountains in the distance. Yes! We had not accidently gotten on the wrong bus.

For several hours more we continued south, into Austria, and up into the Alps. The mountains grew taller, steeper, and we negotiated multiple tunnels and high mountain passes. Finally, we entered a valley containing our destination, the village of Ischgl.

It was late in the day, so after checking into our attractive, warm, wood and stainless hotel, we wandered the streets a bit then returned for dinner, and retired, exhausted after a very long day of travel.

Next morning, after a bounteous breakfast buffet, we ventured out once again and paid more attention to our surroundings. Ischgl is nestled in a deep, narrow valley. There is a small river flowing through and a few hay meadows extending a couple of hundred feet up the slopes. Above that, it is too steep to harvest hay and the slopes ascend steeply into pine forests. The sun peeks into the deep valley, directly, for only a few hours each day. A tough environment in which to grow corn and potatoes and beans. And hay.

The valley floor is at 4,500 feet, with the slopes angling steeply up to over 7,500 feet. A ride up in a gondola is nearly a nosebleed experience. Arriving at the top, we are above the tree line, and see a plateau of brilliant white, as the snowfields are firmly established at this level. To the south, another mountain ridge rises to nearly 10,000 feet. Unlike the narrow confines of the valley, at this altitude we can see for miles, plateaus and peaks extending into the far distance. It is as if we have escaped into another world. We must wonder how the early human inhabitants of the deep mountain valleys reacted when first ascending the heights to see this panorama.

But we do know that they did so. In the summer, these snowfields are alpine meadows, lush with grasses and flowers, benefiting from full sun unlike the narrow valleys below. We must wonder how human settlers, 6,000 years ago, solved this puzzle.

They did so by migrating their livestock, cows, sheep, and pigs, from the deep valleys to the high plateaus every season. The herdsmen would live in stone huts and tend the animals, protecting them from predators with the help of stringy, tough dogs. At the end of the season, in the fall, the herds were brought back down to the village. These comings and goings were celebrated as festivals, with the cows gaily decorated and costumed.

And that’s where we were, now, in the deep valley, in the winter. Walking about the village, we smelled the unmistakable odor of cow. (Those of you who grew up in the country know that of which I speak).

And suddenly, we realized we were standing outside a dairy barn. A large, two story building nestled between the tourist hotels, on a street crowded with skiers on the way to après ski celebrations. We found a window and brushed a bit of dust aside. The view became clear, a row of dairy cows in their stanchions patiently awaiting the evening milking. It became clear that the ancient rhythms of husbandry continued in Ischgl in spite of the enormous growth of tourism.

This seasonal migration of livestock from the deep valleys to the high plateaus had been going on for over 6,000 years, driven by the simple fact of available sunshine. And it turns out that the name for the high mountain pastures are “alps.” And that the mountains in which this process occurs are called the Alps.

What a deeply meaningful bucket list trip. To ski in a fabulous locale, famous worldwide. But to discover common agrarian roots, to smell those wonderful cows, that was profoundly satisfying, It goes without saying… we’d do it again.

Free stuff in a cold universe

It is night in the Colorado Rockies and it’s brutally cold. Above the tree line, vast snow fields glimmer in pale moonlight. The few alpine animals that survive here, such as marmots and pikas, hibernate or munch stored grasses in their burrows, surviving from stored fat that was laboriously accumulated during the short summer growing season.

This is a severe ecosystem, where energy is meager and survival is not assured. It is an effective laboratory to illustrate the physical world in which we live and the preeminent role played by energy.

In the world of our everyday experience, smartphones and supermarkets, commuter trains and college tuition, we measure abundance and scarcity in terms of money. But money is a human invention, a proxy for effort and achievement, risk and reward. In the stark physical universe we inhabit, energy is the only true currency.

We can see that on a macro scale by viewing the development of human energy infrastructure across the ages.  The Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, offers a sweeping view, from the discovery of fire to the latest in nuclear fusion research. (If you can’t visit in person, a virtual visit on their website is highly recommended).

Human history has been fraught with efforts to wrest energy from our physical world and to direct, store, and utilize it. It is no accident that northern realms far outpaced the southern in this regard. Winter is a harsh taskmaster, and failure is met by death. Northern societies were stressed and challenged by their low available-energy environment, compelled to innovate to survive.

Abundant sunshine and warm temperatures made human survival much easier near the equator. But without the challenge of fundamental survival, there was little drive to innovate and develop beyond basic needs. Fires for cooking and oxen for plowing were more than adequate for thousands of years.

It is interesting to contemplate the particular circumstances that brought us to this point. Eons ago, a massive collision knocked the Earth off its perpendicular axis. This tilted axis gave us seasons – spring, summer, fall, and winter. The periods of balmy weather invited humans to migrate away from the equator, but the winters drove them to innovate. This innovation led to energy and transportation and manufacturing infrastructures which created great wealth. Most likely, you can thank that giant whack for the British Empire, the iPhone, and the Mall of America.

Which brings us to the topic of free stuff. What stuff, exactly, is free? In the context of the physical universe in which we exist, it is not likely that much of anything is free.

We have been told that the air is free. But is it? For air to be useful to us, we must breathe, inhaling and exhaling, and exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen. All this requires energy, the only true currency. Air is not free.

How about wind? We are assured that the wind is free. But to harness it, one must build and maintain devices, whether a sailing vessel of the old British Empire or an advanced wind turbine. Just ask the people of Portsmouth, RI, who are tearing down a broken wind turbine and are left with an unpaid $1.5 million mortgage. Wind is not free.

But surely water is free, isn’t it? Water for sustenance, water for irrigation, must be treated and transported. The Romans built elaborate, expensive aqueducts to support their citizenry. The City of Attleboro, likewise, spends millions to provide clean drinking water. Water is not free.

In all of the above cases, we must expend energy (or funds representing energy) to utilize what many consider free resources. There is no free stuff. Consider that alpine marmot, hibernating in its burrow as the temperatures plunge below zero. His survival depends on husbanding the energy he has stored as fat. He knows in his genes that nothing is free.

So in this silly season of political theater, beware of promises of free stuff. We always pay – it is the nature of our universe.