Springing into Action Part II

For the past 16 years I have been fortunate enough to be able to walk out of my front door straight into some of the most stunning alpine scenery and countryside. I can choose to walk on the flat, down the Abondance Valley alongside our local river (the Dranse) or to walk up high to peaks like Mont de Grange at 2,432m or Morclan at 1,970m, both with views on a clear day over to Mont Blanc. That said, I don't think I either fully appreciated or fully utilised the environment right on my door-step until much more recently, and I have a pandemic lockdown to thank for that. I vividly remember being outside walking on my own the first Monday morning of lockdown. When I stopped and listened, really listened hard, the only two sounds I could hear were birdsong and the river - absolutely nothing else; no cars, no people, no talking, no phones, no building work, no traffic, nothing other than the sounds of nature. It was just beautiful and something I suspect I will probably never experience again.

For a number of weeks during the initial stages of the pandemic we could only leave home for a maximum of 1 hour a day and only travel a maximum of 1 km away from our house, having to take an 'attestation' (piece of paper) with us each time stating our personal details, date, start time and purpose of our trip in case stopped by the local police. It all seems very surreal looking back now, but I very easily got into a daily routine of doing a 1 km lunchtime walk around the same circular route. Given the amazingly fantastic spring weather we all experienced at that time, it wasn't exactly too much of a challenge.

The next few weeks and months saw me walking more regularly, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes at lunchtime and sometimes at the end of the day. As lockdowns and curfews lifted, I was able to start walking longer distances, particularly at weekends. Any days off work I would prefer to get out walking than spend my time doing other things. I spent two periods of annual leave in 2022 staying at home and walked most days. Even though I now knew I had the capacity to walk a decent distance in one day, in my mind my biggest challenge was being able to walk those long distances, day in day out, over a longer period of time.

I remember one of my greatest achievements being the day I hit 40,000 steps, probably for the first time ever. I did learn two things about myself in the process of walking more. Firstly, I love early mornings; being the first up, being the only one awake, enjoying the peace and quiet. In fact during Covid when our team was working from home it became a standing joke with my colleagues that my working day would sometimes start as early as 4:00/4:30am when I was up and about and started responding to emails. It wasn't long however, before the requests arrived to begin scheduling my email-sending to not earlier than 8:00am. I often took the opportunity to walk early, loving to leave in the dark under a moon-lit sky and to see the day dawning over the mountains. Although chilly to begin with and requiring a number of layers, I often returned home too hot in just shorts and a t-shirt.

Secondly the confidence of being out and about in nature on my own increased, even in the dark! I have never been a big fan of the dark and as a child, couldn't fall asleep unless the landing light was on outside my bedroom door. I found I began revelling in walking in the dark on my own with my head-torch on. That said, the first time I saw a pair of eyes (no body) looking out at me from the trees only 100 metres away, my heart might just have skipped a beat or two. I think it was a deer. Five minutes later another two pairs of eyes stopped and stared at me from across a field - I suspect they were foxes.

By autumn 2022 I felt that walking had well and truly got into my blood and had definitely become part of my lifestyle, albeit not daily. I missed it, and became quite resentful when I wasn't able to get out for a few days at a time. The challenge with the winter season approaching would be to keep on walking the distance whilst coping with: shorter days, below zero temperatures, a busy work and chalet schedule and a raft of winter weather conditions.