A view to a trash can

March 8, 2009

The Schilthorn trash can must have achieved a high level of Zen while meditating on the view and on the offerings tourists have chosen to travel to such heights to dispose of in it. PHOTO: Leigh Hedger, Dec. 3, 2004

Almost 3,000 meters up from Murren, Switzerland, in the Bernese Alps, is the most Zen of trash receptacles.

The view, the silence, the passage of time, the nagging of frozen tourists wanting Dad to stop taking pictures and get inside to buy crap at the souvenir shop. The secrets it must have collected over the years.

One can only imagine what Telly Savalas might’ve spilled to this wise, old can. While on the set of “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” he might’ve had too much bar time at the revolving Piz Gloria and ended up recovering with his head in it.

That conversation likely ended with some stagehands extricating Savalas while he cried, “Who loves ya, Trash Can?”

Ernst Stavro Blofeld, that’s who.

The history of Piz Gloria comes to life as the Schilthorn's Touristorama shows dated highlights of the not-most-famous Bond movie of them all. PHOTO: Leigh Hedger, Dec. 3, 2004

Your own Zenful pilgrimage

If you’re looking to dispose of your Cheet0s bag, trekking up to the Wise-Old Trash Can of the Schilthorn is certainly worth the altitude.

As anyone who’s journeyed there knows, it just takes a few train and cable car rides, plus a possible funicular to get there. After taking the train from Interlaken to Stechlberg, one cable route takes you from Stechelberg, to the disappointingly not-Gummy-inhabited village of Gimmelwald, to Murren, to the non-assimilating civilization of Birg and finally to the Schilthorn itself.

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