Mürren via ferrata: The Scariest Hike of My Life (So Far)

This is me hanging from the side of a mountain, several hundred metres above the Lauterbrunnen Valley in the Swiss Alps. I look considerably calmer in the photograph than I remember feeling. My heart was racing so fast because of the height. I remember thinking about nothing except the next step.

I was doing the Mürren via ferrata in Switzerland. I had wanted to do it for a while, and it was one of the main reasons I planned that trip. I knew it would be scary. In fact, before starting, I had jokingly described it as the scariest hike of my life so far and said that my main aim was to stay alive.

There is one particular moment from the hike that I keep thinking about.

I had almost completed the via ferrata when I reached the final suspension bridge. The bridge was moving because of the wind, and there was only one side to clip onto and hold. I stood there looking at it, and for the first time during the hike, my brain genuinely asked, “Can we go back?” As I stood on that bridge, I swear I saw my whole life flash before me.

But there was no going back. The bridge was the end of the hike. I had already crossed the rest of the route, and now the only way to finish it was to cross that bridge.

Anyway, I crossed it. Very scared, with my legs shivering and my whole body nervous, anxious, and panicked, but I crossed it. This was the first hike I had done that came close to what I would call life-threatening, and I think it will remain a memory for life. I am also pretty sure I will do more of it. I enjoyed it so much, lol!

I have had some thoughts since the hike that I am still marinating over.

When you are hiking, you look up most of the time. You are focused on where you are going and what the next step is. But you also look down. Looking down makes you aware of the danger. It makes you more afraid, but it also makes you more careful.

I think we do the same thing in life. We are focused on where we want to go, but we are also aware of everything that could go wrong. That awareness creates fear. But perhaps fear is important; it is not always there to stop us. Sometimes we need to work with it. It helps us in a way, if you think about it. We end up using it to be careful while still moving towards something we want.

But also, sometimes there is no going back.

That bridge made it very literal for me. I could look down and understand exactly why I was afraid, but I still had to cross it. It was almost like my fear and my brain were working together to finish whatever I had started.

I guess I knew all of this, maybe in pieces, though. And this hike kind of made me put all of it together. Moving forward does not always mean we have stopped being afraid. Sometimes we look around enough to understand the danger, and then we look forward again because we still have somewhere we are trying to go.