Alpine Crossing: From Innsbruck to Nice in 21 Days

1.000 km and 27.000 HM – Alpine Crossing with Adrian Niski

“Hey you! Where are you running off to?!” shouts a young guy to me on the way from Les Houches towards Col de Voza in the shadow of Mont Blancs. I only noticed him and his crony before because of the huge backpack. “I’m running to Nice, and you two?” I answer the two of them, totally sweaty and out of breath. “Us too! But you don’t have anything with you?!”, the other is amazed. I grin and think that the two of them have probably brought far too much.

Again and again I meet hikers and wonder what they carry in their high-tech backpacks. Already after the second day I feel like unpacking half of the things I took with me for my meanwhile third attempt to cross the Alps and sending them on their way home. “Sure, I need that, I’d rather have more comfort and all that,” I justified myself, why my companion weighs about 1.5 kilograms more this year than the years before. The comfort is one of those things, but I have to carry things around me because I am unsupported on the way.

The mini Charles Bukowski book unfortunately has to make the trip home, although it was intended to cheer me up in the evening, but it turns out that park bench, sleeping bag and starry sky are perfectly sufficient to cheer me up. Admittedly out of necessity, as I also parted with my 200 gram mattress – even 200 grams can be too much ballast.
And in general this year it was a completely different approach. After 2019 I couldn’t have imagined to start again in Innsbruck and run towards Nice. The whole thing was actually quite absurd, I thought to myself. But in spring it slowly became clear that there would be few or no races this year, I thought: “Oh, fuck it, let’s do it again and actually it was a very special time every time”.

The second day starts with an unforgettable sunrise and ibex

Day two, however, was to be the first moment when the arrival in Nice was already far away. Starting in the morning at the Muttekopfhütte, I went to the Höhenweg, where I bumped my foot on the rock slabs. With quite some pain I descended into the valley and was already building a Plan B route for this day. This ended in Lech and I hoped for improvement for the coming stages at sunset. Unfortunately this was not the case. So it meant for me to have a plan B every day again, because my foot condition did not improve. Either it was a severe bruise, or, what made me feel insecure with every step, maybe even a fracture. So after a few kilometers I found a walking technique that looked more like limping but was at least halfway painless.

In the last four years, since the first attempt to run to Nice, I have learned a lot. Not only the view on things that come unforeseen, like a foot injury like this. Also how to plan, run, eat – and of course the physical condition develops over the years. As a former long-distance triathlete, I thought everything could be done well. After all, I have already finished an “Ironman” twice. Accordingly, I also felt iron. Looking at the Alps in the atlas at the time, I thought that 1200 kilometers in 21 days would be a good distance to cover. At that time I had hardly any experience in the alpine area and my longest distance run was 52 kilometers on a comparatively “easy” trail. My trip to Nice in 2017 ended after just 390 kilometers. But I am still very grateful for this naivety of that time. Although I was taught better, I would never have tackled many things without this attitude and the ease with which I dealt with challenges. Failure is simply one of them, but you also have to be able to admit certain things to yourself – I have learned that in the meantime.

What I couldn’t see was the pain in my foot. The worst situation for me was at the Brienzer Rothorn on the 7th stage. At the top I enjoyed the incredible view of the Brienzer Lake and the ibexes hanging in the grasses. After lunch at the summit station, I was looking forward so much to the Hardergrat – an almost endless ridge that runs parallel to the lake shore to the west. But unfortunately I had to dismount early and limp again in the flat because the pain in the technical terrain was unbearable.

The Hardergrat with view to the west

The perception of pain has also changed a lot over the years. If one were to divide “How do you feel?” into bad, good, very good, each of the three answers would have received exactly a third earlier. Today, the answer “good” probably accounts for 90 percent. I mean, what am I complaining about, I decided to go and I knew what was coming.
Fortunately, the pain disappears after the 9th day and the advance feels like walking again – not only that, it seems to be much easier now. And having arrived in Chamonix, I am back in a hotel after a few nights on park benches. There I not only treat my clothes to some wellness thanks to hand washing, but also myself with shower gel, shaver and deodorant.

Over time I not only learned to deal with pain and doubts better, but I also became a real freak when it came to route planning and all that. I love to plan different routes in my spare time and just save them on my cell phone. But when you’re on the road solo, you don’t just have to know where you’re going, you also have to know where to find something to eat. Exactly this point became my undoing in the last year. I thought I had thought everything through, but I was too sloppy when it came to food.

Which does not mean that I was spared from small mistakes this year, like on the 8th stage towards Fluhseeli in Switzerland. Actually, I knew that in the valley town Adelboden was pretty much the last chance to get something real to eat. I probably hadn’t thought about later when I ate the pizza there – it was Sunday, a kind of “rest day”. I also didn’t have enough cash to pay in the little huts on the way, only cash was available. So I had to be satisfied with the last NicNac’s at Fluehseeli, which had to be enough for breakfast.

Main food for on the way – “pre-chewed” sandwiches

The food problem I solved quite easy towards the end of my tour, maybe a bit too easy – I walked a lot on the asphalt roads. Like on stage 12, from Bourg Saint Mourice to Lanslebourg, where I ran up the main road towards the ski resort Val d’Isere and more cyclists than cars overtook me.

A great feeling, especially because most of the people on the racing bikes cheered me on with the classic “Allez, Allez” – as a cycling fan, Tour de France feeling came up in me. As the pain in my foot disappeared, it became easier and easier to move forward, even though I had already unwound several kilometers and meters of altitude. It had become routine and I enjoyed the daily trips to the restaurants to eat and the lively bustle in the towns. But my hardest day was yet to come on the fourteenth stage. After I had had lunch after the first thirty kilometers, suddenly nothing worked anymore. Not even iced tea helped. I had to lie down and fought with myself and the sudden nausea. Lying in the supermarket parking lot I tried to take a short power nap and hoped for improvement – it didn’t help. After 20 minutes lying on the floor I decided to “just keep walking”. The heat was unbearable and I hardly made any progress. But such a plan is also an absolute self-deception. Anyway, you pretend the whole time that everything is fine – I already knew that from my pain in my foot. It’s incredible how quickly switches can be flipped – even in this case. Put Deutschrap on your headphones, rap along and it works again – from one moment to the next. It went forward again.

From then on I was absolutely sure that nothing could stop me until Nice. But – there was still a little moment. A beautiful high valley followed on this 14th day – before there were warning signs. Something with dogs. “Sure, I know it already, it must be a hut with a dog. I’ve had it all before.” On the descent from the high valley I see at some point two big grey stones left and right of the path. “Quite a few rocks,” I still think. “Funny, I’m already starting to hallucinate, look like two giant dogs.” Actually, I find this state quite nice, when you start to see things that don’t exist, or feel more intensely. You can imagine it like when you had a few too many drinks in a bar or club and get some fresh air. But this time I was right, they were actually dogs, bear killers, as they are called. “Fuck…!” Not only two, there are five. I was immediately encircled by them and kept my sticks far out to keep the animals at a distance. At the same time I screamed and hoped that the shepherd would hear me. Fortunately everything went well, the shepherd called his dogs together and I could go on.

Hotel as I like it best

From then on everything went pretty fast. It was not far to Nice and I could hardly wait to arrive. On the last stages I had a high and could unwind kilometer after kilometer without any problems. This was also the case on the penultimate day, where I laid down on the bench at a boules court after almost 76 kilometers. It was already late in the evening, I ate my leftovers from dinner and was looking forward to my sleeping bag when five older men started playing the typical French boules. That didn’t bother me, the men probably didn’t either, and I fell asleep around midnight when they had finally fought out the winner.

Nice welcomes me with sea, sun and pizza

On the last day everything went on forever. Although I didn’t have that many kilometers ahead of me, I couldn’t wait to arrive in Nice. But I took my time and enjoyed the last kilometers, because my journey was over that day. On the one hand, it was a pity, because I was now really in rhythm and could have felt like I could go on like this forever. On the other hand I was looking forward to my home again, to my partner, friends and family. The arrival at the finish line was unspectacular, but that’s why it was so beautiful. I am not a fan of hype and spectacle. View of the sea, a walk along the promenade, pizza in a box and the warm sun. I could not have imagined the last day more beautiful. Happy to have reached my goal, I was already thinking about the coming challenges in life, be it sportive, private or professional – I want to learn, experience and also fail again, just like on my alpine border walk.

Text by Adrian Niski

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