Sometimes I think all my hiking fails happen when I invite friends along. Or maybe I just don’t think of them as fails until I have someone outside my family witnessing our madness. In any case, when friends are along, I want everything to be perfect. But that is just not how it works.
After a fun year bonding with a short-term expat family, we had one last hiking hurrah together before they moved back home. We took them to the Toggenburg Tone Trail, a classic theme trail with 20+ musical activities scattered along the trail. We had a great time, playing and chatting, enjoying the late summer light, definitely losing track of time.
As we neared the end of the trail, I suddenly realized that the chair lift might be closing soon. I frantically checked the map and realized it was closing in 5 mins. We all took off in a sprint to the end, skipping the last couple stations, only to arrive 10 mins later and not only was the chair lift closed, but all the chairs had been removed from the lift and placed in overnight storage. Aaahhhhhh!!!!
So now we had to walk down the mountain with tired, hungry kids. Fortunately, it wasn’t too long or strenuous and actually a very lovely trail. There was some complaining but our kids managed the 30 minute walk down to the valley without incident.
Now a short bus ride back to our starting point where our car was waiting. Our friends would continue by public transportation back to Zurich. As we exited the bus, we said our goodbyes and headed back to our car.
Later that night, my friend filled me in on the rest of the drama. Right after we said our goodbyes, her son realized that he had left his engraved Swiss army knife on the mountain at the playground next to the chair lift. He built that knife himself in Brunnen (very cool, you should do it) and was so sad to have lost it. So they rode the bus back, hiked back up the mountain, retrieved the knife, hiked back down, then rode the bus and train all the way back to Zurich, a long journey at the end of a long day.
Moral of the story: check chair lift closing times & keep your knife in your pocket!
