There are some friendships that arrive through work and stay long after the work is done. Thomas is one of those. We were in Alpnach visiting him — a colleague from Maxon HQ, the kind of person you meet across a conference table and end up trusting completely — and on a clear March morning, with the whole valley laid out in winter sunshine, we did what we always do. We went for a run.
Sarah came with me. Her foot wasn’t right — it hadn’t been right for a few days — but she ran anyway. That is, in its entirety, the Sarah approach to these things.
Sarah running the path along the Sarner Aa. The mountains don’t care about your foot.
The lake
The Alpnachersee is the southernmost arm of Lake Lucerne, separated from the main body by just enough geography to feel like its own thing. In March it was a flat, cold green, ringed with reeds and ducks and mountains on every side. We ran paths along its edge, the kind of paths where you stop photographing after a while because every angle is the same level of unreasonable.
Alpnachersee from the southern bank. Reeds, ducks, peaks. March.
The lake through bare branches. The mountain behind Alpnach.
Where the river meets the water
The Sarner Aa runs down from the Sarneraasee — the lake to the south that we’d run past later in the morning — and spills into the Alpnachersee in a rush of white water and green. We stopped at the confluence to look at it for a moment. Construction machinery was working on the far bank, entirely untroubled by the fact that it was working in one of the most absurdly photogenic settings imaginable.
The Sarner Aa meeting the Alpnachersee. The weir and the mountains and the diggers, because Switzerland is still a working country.
The reserve
Some of the path ran along the edge of the Städterried — a protected wetland and floodplain of national significance, as the information board told us in four languages. The reed beds and bare winter willows had a particular quality in the low morning light. The signs asked you not to leave the paths, not to light fires, not to bring dogs. We did none of these things. We just ran through it and were glad it existed.
The nature reserve sign at Städterried. Four languages, one instruction: stay on the path.
Städterried. National significance. We believe it.
The cut short
Sarah’s foot called time somewhere around the midpoint. Not dramatically — she didn’t stop suddenly or sit down somewhere. She just said her foot was done, and we turned for home. Five and a half miles on a foot that wasn’t cooperating, in a Swiss alpine valley, on a perfect March morning. Bloody well done, love.
Heading back along the airfield perimeter. The mountain that had been behind us was now in front.
The valley opening south toward Sarnen. Snow on the high peaks.
The canal through town
The return took us back through Alpnach itself — the river running in stepped concrete channels through the middle of the village, framed by bare trees and the hills beyond. Functional, precise, and somehow still beautiful, which is probably a sentence that applies to a lot of Switzerland.
The Melchaa running through Alpnach. Steps in the concrete, hills in the distance.
We got back to Thomas’s. There was coffee. There would, in later years, be DJ sets — Thomas and the connections made through these visits would lead to JAM-S performing at the Carnival in Sarnen, and thanks to his friend Josa, the kind of opportunity that only arrives because you went somewhere and stayed long enough to actually know someone. But that was still to come.
That morning it was just a run. Switzerland, early spring, a foot that held on longer than it should have. All present and correct.
Alpnach, Switzerland – 5.58 miles – 55:44 – 80ft – 9:59/mi