Brissago · Field note
Above Lake Maggiore: Rain, Fog, Then a Clear Morning
After a soaked climb, we could see almost nothing that evening. The next morning, a huge part of the Alpine horizon opened outside the hut.
Five things first
In brief
- The climb More than two and a half hours of changing rain to Rifugio Al Legn.
- The evening Wet clothes, fog and almost no view.
- The morning Clear sky, Lake Maggiore and a long line of Alpine peaks.
- The silence For almost two hours, we were completely alone.
- What stayed Not only the view, but the immediate contrast between both days.
The wet climb from Brissago
One of the moments I remember most clearly from hiking in Switzerland began with a drive to Brissago in the rain. From the start, it was obvious that the climb would not be particularly pleasant.
Light drizzle and much heavier rain alternated all the way up. The higher we climbed, the more the surroundings disappeared into cloud. After more than two and a half hours, we reached Rifugio Al Legn completely soaked and fairly exhausted.
The view we had come for did not exist that evening. The mountains, valleys and lake far below were barely suggested through the grey. We changed out of wet clothing, tried to dry a few things and eventually went to bed accepting that we might see almost none of the landscape.
The morning after
The next morning could hardly have been more different. When we stepped outside, the sky was clear. The previous day's fog had disappeared and a huge part of the Alpine horizon was suddenly visible above Lake Maggiore.
What struck me even more than the view was the silence. Nobody else had stayed in the hut, and for almost two hours the morning belonged only to us. There were no conversations from other hikers and no sound rising from the valley, only the mountains and the sky slowly becoming brighter.
Why the contrast stayed with me
Only a few hours earlier we had been able to see little more than the path in front of us. Now the lake and a long line of peaks lay open below the hut. That change made the morning feel almost unreal.
After roughly two hours, the first hiker arrived from the valley. By then we were already packing and preparing for the next stage. The clear morning did not erase the miserable climb. It made the whole night memorable because both versions of the mountain belonged to the same walk.
