Birthday No. 52! Alpine Swimming in Champex-Lac

This is a summary of my latest Alpine Views personal blog that can be found at www.alpineviews.ch

Birthdays can often be a bracing event. For some, it is a day to take stock of the past year, celebrating personal triumphs, or lamenting lost opportunities over a drink or two. For others, it is a day for making energetic plans about the future, announced in a post-birthday cake speech.

 My own birthdays are bracing in quite a different way. Every year, I climb a mountain and take a dip in a chilly Alpine lake. Not the same lake. I take pleasure in planning an expedition with my family to new destinations where I can inflict my own brand of personal torture on my long-suffering wife and kids.

 This year, my target was Champex-Lac, or as it would be in English, the Lake of Champex. Situated at only 1500 metres of altitude, it is perhaps not as high up as some of the other lakes I have conquered. However, it is considered one of the most charming lake-side resorts in a country brimming with lovely lakes. The lake becomes a natural skating rink in winter, complementing the ski-fields that begin within walking distance of the town centre. Surprisingly, we had never been there before. Curiosity, is a major motivator of many of my expeditions.

 This year, we warmed up with a hike around the lake itself, exploring the shore for interesting entry points for swimming. The afternoon had become slightly overcast, making the water look grey and singularly uninviting. There was no-one else swimming in the lake. ‘Of course’, you might observe, ‘even in summer this lake is too cold for swimming’. However, on one previous expedition to a lake near the Aletsch glacier, we did meet another hardy hiker who had a similar penchant as ‘yours truly’ for the refreshing waters of an Alpine waterway. So, it would not be completely unheard of to encounter a kindred spirit in such a place as Champex-Lac. Or at least hear a splash, followed by a scream, as someone fell off their paddle board.

This year, we did it! The photographic evidence is on my Alpine Views personal blog that can be found at www.alpineviews.ch. Please, no comments about my pallid complexion. The water was very cold! I would rate the water temperature as middling in terms of the Alpine lakes I have frequented. The overcast weather and slight breeze did add a little wind chill factor that helped. Water quality was good, although there was a great deal of mud on the lakebed. Overall, a perfectly swimmable lake, in bursts of 30 seconds.

This year, we drove down into the valley to hold my birthday celebration in a restaurant in the town centre of the medieval village of Saillon Les Bains . The town has a thermal spa and was fortified with a spectacular castle at least 1000 years ago. With its ancient, paved courtyards and austere plantanes trees, Saillon reminds me of a Spanish village. The geographic and cultural diversity of our little Canton of Valais is stimulating. One moment you are swimming in the icy water of an Alpine lake fed by a glacier, then you are sitting in a leafy plaza sipping a glass of red wine that comes from vineyards that you can see just down the road, accompanied by delicious local cold cuts of dried meat.

So, if you would like to include ‘alpine swimming’ as an activity in your next corporate retreat, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Or just contact me anyway if you would like to have a bit of a chat about the other ways I assist individuals and groups with my Alpine reflection methodology that is featured on the Alpine Views Blog. Oh! Look out for Birthday no. 53… I am already starting to plan another special expedition.

 By the way, it also just got easier to fly directly into the Valaisan capital of Sion (instead of via a big detour through Geneva or Zurich) with the new airline Powdair opening up routes with some major European cities, including London. This is a perfect option for getting straight up into the mountains.

By Richard Francis 

The Armchair Anthropologist

Summer base camps – Sierre (Valais) and Allaman-Aubonne (Vaud)

Remember: Even on birthdays, you need to find time for a little Alpine Reflection….