Jane Merryman

I asked the owner of my guesthouse about this word I kept hearing that sounded like "grew-et-see."

"Oh, that means ‘hi’ in Swiss German," he said. "Literally, ‘I greet you.’ Spell it g-r-u with an umlaut-e-z-i."

Grüezi. Everyone said grüezi. Old people, youngsters, lone hikers, merry groups. As they passed me on the forested paths high above the Swiss resort town of Klosters, people looked me in the eye, smiled, and said, "grüezi."

I was on my first hiking trip in the Alps, based in a small town famous for winter skiing. In summer the gondolas carry hikers to the tops of the peaks where trails fan out into meadows speckled with blue gentians and where fell fields nearly touch the sky.

I was soon repeating this word and even becoming the first to grüezi my fellow hikers. All grüezi-ed in return, except one stout old woman, an apparition in traditional mountain garb and flying white hair, who boomed, "Gross Gott," Great God, or could it be God is Great?

In California and other parts of the American West, trail greeting in the Swiss style is not universally practiced. On remote routes, backpackers and day hikers do acknowledge each other and exchange a few words about where they have been and where they are going. But on frequently used trails closer to town, the silent treatment is more common. Perhaps this reflects a distrust or even fear of strangers that modern urban complexes breed. Yet, these crowded spaces can inspire their inhabitants to seek secluded trails as a respite from the din of talk, traffic, and machinery. Some people use this time as a meditation and are loathe to disturb their contemplative mood.

I meet others who seem to be hiking under a dark cloud and look so closed off I dare not speak. I respect their walls since I have long believed that miles of trail are an effective substitute for hours of therapy. Many other people are deep in conversation with their companions and ignore not only passing hikers but also their surroundings. I often wonder why they have made the effort to get their bodies to this particular, rather beautiful place when their heads are still at home or at the office.

I greet those who look up, but I want to grüezi everyone.

On my daily walk along the river, nearly everyone is in the grüezi mode: the leisurely dog-walkers, the joggers, even those plugged into their  iPods. "Hi" or "Morning" is our usual exchange, accompanied by a smile. We are a small coterie, since it is just a few minutes past sunrise. The same early risers cover this route almost every day–the diminutive grandmother, in purple jacket and bright pink pants, swinging her arms like a British regiment; the photographer lugging his tripod and impossibly long lens; the sleek, well-groomed jogger who looks as if she will be presiding over a boardroom in a few hours; the white-haired, crumpled-faced man who finally acknowledges me after many grüezis.

I returned from my Swiss mountain holiday with the conventional memories of little red trains chugging along forested slopes, snow-covered peaks, and docile belled cattle. I carried a list of wildflower sightings. I also came back with a different outlook on traveling the way–the dusty, rocky, muddy, grassy way over mountain passes, across flower-blown meadows, along dancing rivulets–and the fellowship of those who meet on the trails. We grüezi our comrades, those like ourselves who have chosen this path. But the greeting is so much more than this, because the way is much more.

I go out to the river mainly to greet the sun. Perhaps a Zoroastrian gene has slipped cuckoolike into my double helix, for I am addicted to watching a sliver of fire limn a notch in the eastern hills. The neon line becomes a bright crescent, then a fiery oval, and finally a blinding disk, all in about a hundred and twenty seconds. How fast Earth turns–my cheeks should be flattened against my skull, my hair flying out straight behind me, and my sleeves and pant legs fluttering in furious tatters. But, no; all is calm, breathless in anticipation of the tumult of the waiting day. Only the grasses brush against themselves and put me in my place, my place in the universe. Now I can travel the way without taking myself too seriously.

But why greet just the sun? I send forth my grüezi to the cattails, the egrets, the river, even the early morning traffic snaking along the far hillside. The red-winged blackbirds clamorous in the reeds, the fog sitting in the south over the bay, the wild fennel parching in the late summer heat–they too, companions of the way, receive my greeting.

The way is the Way of Tao, the unity of creation. All the wayfarers are me and I am them. I shout grüezi to myself.