Naked at Lunch (19 page)

The main trail ended at a scenic
gasthaus
that overlooked several beautiful lakes. One of the things I found surprising about hiking in the Alps was the number of taverns plopped atop mountains. It seemed like there wasn’t a trail that didn’t end at some scenic little restaurant where hikers could have a seat, a strudel, a beer, or a big plate of cheese and bread. Needless to say, I’m a fan of the Austrian
gasthaus
. Every trail should have one.

We dressed as we approached the
gasthaus
—Richard felt we should respect the people who were eating and drinking there—and then we made a turn that sent us up a small goat trail. Once clear of the pub, everyone stripped again, the French being particularly adept at the clothing change as they were wearing what they called “hiking kilts,” but what were really miniskirts for men. I’d never seen anything like them before.

We made it to the summit in time for lunch, then set off again after twenty minutes, which brought howls from the French hikers, who like to sit and enjoy their food. Richard assured them that there would be another stop in a little while—and in retrospect, I think he suddenly realized how much ground we had to cover before it got dark and knew we needed to move—but they weren’t happy about having to eat quickly.

We traversed a ridge dotted with several large patches of snow. You might think it would be weird to walk naked through snow, but it isn’t when the sun is shining and it’s warm out. Roberto looked at a large ice field that ran down the side of the mountain and said, “If you slip, you slide all the way to Vienna.”

The trail ascended and descended multiple times, wrapping around one side of a mountain and then cutting back across to the another—the word “serpentine” comes to mind—and the overall effect was disorienting. Of course the scenery was magnificent. Jagged mountains rose in the background on almost all sides, the sky was blue, the sun was hot, and there were streams and ponds caused by snow melt running across the trail. If the von Trapp family had skipped past us holding hands and singing songs, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Though they might have been.

The first five hours of the hike were thoroughly enjoyable. We would stop for periodic rests while Karla and Stuart took photographs and I quickly learned to spot clumps of soft lichen to sit on.

At one of these breaks I was astonished to see Bruno, the naturist from Marseille, open a thermos and pour himself an espresso. The smell of hot strong coffee mixed with the clean mountain air caused me to salivate. The French hike with style. If he’d pulled out some cheese, a baguette, and a cold bottle of crisp Sancerre, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

As the day wore on, I noticed that many of my fellow hikers were starting to show signs of sunburn and I heard Dr. Grenier’s voice saying, “They should give you combat pay.” So I put on some clothes. I wasn’t the only one. As the snow patches increased in depth and frequency, other people began to throw on layers.

We were a little past the halfway point in the hike when my knee began to exhibit signs of falling apart. With each descending step I felt a sharp pain shoot through my right leg and, well, there was nothing I could do about that. I could take a step up without a problem, but that wasn’t going to help. I had to go down the mountain.

Ironically, I thought I had prepared for this trip. I had trained for this alpine adventure by hiking up to the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles twice a week for a month, a regimen that I quickly realized was like training for a marathon by jogging around the block a few times. But I wasn’t the only one hurting. Casualties were mounting, water was running out, and, although I wouldn’t describe the situation as dangerous or life threatening or anything like that, people were definitely getting cranky. My knee began to swell, which is never a good sign, but I persevered. I was touched by Bernard’s offering to carry my pack and Vittorio’s offering me one of his hiking sticks. I thanked them, but declined. These dudes were ten and twenty years older than me. I would tough it out, do a gut check, see what I was made of, keep a stiff upper lip, and other heroic wilderness survival clichés. Besides, it wasn’t like I had to saw my arm off with a Swiss army knife—which I didn’t have—or eat one of my companions. My knee was swollen. I would live. I refilled my canteens from a spring and we trudged on.

My phone peeped to tell me I had a new text message. My wife, who’d just arisen from a good night’s sleep in Los Angeles, had texted: How was the hike? My reply: Still fucking hiking.

A little over nine hours after we started, we made it back to the parking lot.

People were uncharacteristically silent when we returned to the hut; everyone was exhausted and even Richard, who was generally chatty, was quiet. I think Richard felt a little bad about the hike being so demanding. Not that it was his fault—he’d never hiked that trail before.

I didn’t have anything to say to anyone about anything. It wasn’t just my knee that was swollen; my body ached all over. My elbow hurt and I had a gash on my right hip that was oozing blood. How these things happened, I cannot say. I went to the refrigerator and grabbed two beers. I washed down three Advil with the first beer, then sat outside staring off into space as I sipped the second.

Stuart had an app on his phone that kept track of our adventure, but the stats tell only part of the story of the Ursprungalm Death March. We walked thirteen miles and climbed 2,400 vertical feet in a hike that took just over nine hours to complete. According to Stuart’s app, we burned 4,125 calories.

…

Richard’s passion for naked hiking has turned into a major problem in his marriage. “My wife thinks it’s disgusting,” he said. “She told me she’d rather I have an affair.” They were beginning to go through divorce proceedings. I could see that talking about this made Richard unhappy, but it made me curious. With all the societal and marital pressures not to hike, why did he keep doing it? What motivated him?

Richard looked off into the distance, considering the question, then turned to me. “I got this thing called vitiligo when I was fortyish, which makes your skin all blotchy. And it’s not a skin problem, per se, it’s a systemic problem. You can tell because it’s mirrored on both sides. I’ll show you, you can see that there on my wrist.”

He put his wrists together and, sure enough, there was some mottling and discoloration on his skin. I looked closer at his face and saw that what I had assumed was just sun- and windburn was more evidence of his condition.

“I’ve got it all over—can you see that?—blotchy on both sides, mirrored. Anyway, it disfigures you, basically, visually. And you’re kind of walking down the street and you see people looking at you strangely, you’re not sure that they fancy you or whether they think you’re a bit of a weirdo or you just . . . you’re being stared at strangely.” He shifted uncomfortably. “And I think that being naked has helped me deal with that in a more positive way because I’m less concerned about what other people think. I’m probably still concerned about what other people think as a person, you know, but I’m a bit less concerned about it than I used to be. So this kind of disfigurement is something I just think, ‘Well, that’s how I am, that’s how I look. Get over it. That’s just me.’ It’s something other people have to deal with. You know, I don’t need to wear makeup to cover myself up to make myself look a different color or clothes to hide behind.”

His skin condition is subtle, you wouldn’t really notice it unless you were looking for it, but I can see how it would color his self-perception. I asked him if he felt some acceptance from practicing nudism.

He nodded. “Yeah, yeah. In that respect, I think it has given me confidence. I think you get that being an ordinary naturist, if you like, in a club. You know, you can say, ‘People accept me.’ And I’ve got it through my naked hiking. Some sort of a positive benefit for me personally, in that respect.”

…

Although the next day’s hike was an easy one, I was not confident that my knee would make it. In fact a few of us needed a rest, so while Richard led the hard core out on what he called “a leg stretcher,” I puttered around the hut.

On their way back from the hike Richard passed the little restaurant next door, the Mandlberggut—which is also apparently a schnapps distillery known for making a hay-flavored spirit—and asked the proprietor if she would host a group of naked diners. Soon enough, picnic tables were set up outside next to the distillery tasting room and there were twenty naked people sitting around drinking beer and eating pizza. It was an amazing thing to see. The owner of the restaurant, an attractive Austrian woman in her early forties, and her teenage daughter waited on us and there was nothing strained or unnatural in the way they behaved, nothing that showed any hint of discomfort or embarrassment. In fact, they seemed to be enjoying the experience as much as the naturists and, a few weeks later, they e-mailed Richard and welcomed him and his group back any time. It was great to see, as if Richard’s manifesto had come to life, nakedness normal in any context. And that includes a large group of naturists out to dinner.

In fact at one point Andreas, one of the German hikers, stood up and put on his shorts to go to the bathroom. The idea of putting on clothes to go to the bathroom was surreal enough, but the fact that he unknowingly stood in front of a glass partition while he slipped on his shorts, essentially mooning the entire restaurant, well, that was funny.

It’s one thing for the restaurant staff to be cool with a bunch of naked people, but how did the naked people feel? I mean, you’re the one who’s exposed. When I was eating lunch in Cap d’Agde it was different. Almost everyone was naked, so that became the norm. But to be naked in an environment where everyone else is wearing clothes, where the expectation is that you are dressed? Doesn’t that make you feel weird?

I asked Richard about it. “I’m much more relaxed about it. I’m much more comfortable with the idea that—and maybe this would be similar to someone that was gay that was coming out, you know—I feel much more comfortable about saying I’m a naked—I hike naked. And I have every right to enjoy that experience.”

“But what about a place like this?”

“The informal rule I have is on tarmac you get dressed, which basically includes all towns and villages and so forth. And I regard every
gasthaus
or mountain hut as being owned by those people and it’s their space, right? So what they say goes. Now when we’re out hiking through wild mountain territory, that’s open public space, so I have every right to be there and dress in any way I chose. And when I go into someone else’s home, or their house, I expect to abide by their dress criteria, if you like, or their rules, whatever they might be. It is more about respecting other people’s place, space, and environment. This is one argument I’ve had in the past where people have said, ‘You just want everyone to be naked all the time.’ Well, I don’t want that. I want everyone to have their own choice.”

One of the interesting things that happened when I injured my knee was I suddenly didn’t feel like hiking naked. I know that a pair of shorts isn’t going to offer me any real protection, I understand that, and yet being totally exposed while my leg hurt was just not happening. The clothing offered a kind of psychological protection if nothing else. It was too bad, really. When I was feeling spry and energetic I had really enjoyed scrambling up the mountains in the buff; it was way more fun than sitting by the pool at a resort or walking on the beach in Spain or France.

Now I just wanted to keep up and enjoy the scenery and the company of my fellow hikers, and I hoped my knee didn’t totally give out. In some ways it was interesting to be wearing clothes, like I was the control group in an experiment, because it really was different. As soon as we began an ascent, I worked up a serious, shirt-drenching sweat. That didn’t happen when I was naked and, trust me, it wasn’t particularly pleasant to walk around in sweat-soaked clothes.

Later, Gus, the one-man-show writer and performer from England, and I stood outside the hut watching birds flit and swoop around the field feeding on insects. It turned out Gus was an amateur bird-watcher.

“I wish they’d slow down. I can’t make them out.”

I looked up at the sky. “They look like swallows.”

Gus looked at me like I’d just said I’d shit myself. “Those aren’t swallows.”

“They look like swallows.”

“Well, they might look like swallows to you, but they’re not.”

“Are they larks?”

Gus burst out laughing. “Larks? Do those look like larks?”

“They could be.”

“They’re definitely not larks.”

I think I heard his teeth grind.

“Barn swallows?”

“No.” He shook his head in disgust. “They’re probably house martins.”

“That’s a band.”

Gus was fully agitated now and began to swing his arms wildly in the air. “Yes. It is the name of a band. It’s also the name of a bird. Those birds. That one there. House martins.”

I couldn’t resist provoking his bird-watcher rage. “Looks like a swallow to me.”

Gus grumbled angrily and said, “Why were you wearing clothes today? These are supposed to be naked hikes.”

Before I could say anything Richard jumped to my defense. “People hike in whatever makes them comfortable. There’s no problem with that.”