“Alpinmesse 2025 was a great occasion to meet old and new friends, but also get emotional on a totally spontaneous conversation.
I had a drink in my hand and many good points to talk about. Then I turned around and a man started to talk and immediately showed his helvetic open-mindedness.
It's evening and like every year you need to scream in order to be understood with this loud music. Anyway, he's a policemen in the Canton of the Grisons and comes always to this annual fair packed with news, clothing, skis, climbing shoes, talks and the usual bouldering competition.
He tells me about how we are “Bergmenschen”, mountain people and have a deeper understanding of each other because we share common values, simple and genuine. I tell him of that one snowfall in Ampezzo, where one good metre of snow let me realise that I would have nothing to do but wonder about how to move it and be stuck in awe. The Olympics are also around the corner and I let some of that magic there is at home shine through my eyes. We smile and say goodbye. To the next one!
This week on Wednesday I was walking home from the annual dinner with my colleagues. Then I looked around wandering between the mountains Serles, Patscherkofel, Hafelekar or Brandjochspitze. I thought about that word I had two weeks ago: we are mountain people, blunt and tied to simple but eternal principles. No language, border, definition, label, pin, artificial intelligence or any expression of the modern age will change us. Like the awesome mountains we willingly surrounded us with.
