Mike Page leads English speakers down the paths to somewhere.
Chewing on a piece of Apfelstrudel, Mike Page, leader of the Munich Wanderers—a hiking club for English-speakers—tells his story. He was born in Dorset and raised in Wiltshire, southwest England, where he lived up to the end of his school days. It was during a study placement 14 years ago in Basel, where he discovered an aptitude for learning foreign languages, that he decided to return to a German-speaking country upon finishing his degree in biochemistry. Placed with the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Sandoz (now Novartis), Page was actually learning Schwyzertüütsch (local Swiss dialect) before he could speak high German. “A lot of things gelled during that year,” says Page, who, entranced by the beauty of the local Jura Mountains, soon became an avid mountain walker.Returning to North Wales to complete his studies, Page joined a hiking club known as “The West Wales Wanderers.” There he met club president Sharon, whom he says he fell for on a Welsh mountain (Cadair Idris) and proposed to on an English one (Hart’s Crag). Speaking of his wife, who is said to have climbed all the peaks in Wales, Page jokes: “Of the two of us, she’s the ambitious one. I’m just along for the ride.”
Page first came to Munich some ten years ago to carry out some research for a Ph.D. in biochemistry, which he followed up with a stint in urine diagnostics (a discipline he describes as “actually quite interesting”) at one of the city’s university clinics. When Sharon joined him, Page soon found himself spending almost more time in the mountains than in the lab, organizing weekly excursions for friends and colleagues. The Page’s alpine walks became so popular that they eventually decided to set up their own walking club—the Munich Wanderers.
Page says there have been no serious accidents or hospitalizations in the Wanderers’ history to date. The bearded Brit confesses that the most serious incident actually involved him. “I was trying to be clever coming down a mountain and ended up tripping over my own poles and lacerating myself.” As a result of this incident, Page contacted the DAV––Deutscher Alpen Verein—to discuss insurance coverage and was delighted when they invited the Wanderers to become a sub-group of the association. The Munich Wanderers has been under the wing of the Munich section of the DAV for over two years. While membership is not offered by the Wanderers, everyone who goes walking with the club is required to be a member of the DAV for insurance reasons.
Like Page, many of the Wanderers have office jobs and see the group as a way of counterbalancing their desk-bound lives. Given the relatively high turnover in the “ex-pat set-up,” as he calls it, Page often spots new faces at the monthly meeting at the Unionsbräu. Newcomers find the Wanderers not only through the DAV but also on the Internet and in regular listings in Munich Found. Though keen to encourage new recruits, Page offers a word of warning to those who sign up thinking they’re going on a gentle half-day walk in the valley. “I don’t think we’ve ever done anything like that,” says Page. “We’re serious walkers.”
When he’s not scrambling over a glacier or poling down a mountain, Page is a patent examiner in biotechnology: “The dubious branch, the one that gets all the criticism from activist groups,” he grins. Page seems most challenged by working on controversial cases, such as those concerning HIV. “It looks like they might have found a way of inhibiting HIV’s ability to inhibit the immune system,” he shares, enthusiastically. Asked about his home, Page describes it as “an isolated farmhouse, somewhere out in the sticks between Germering and Fürstenfeldbruck.” Last November, life at the Page’s rural retreat was virtually turned upside down when his wife gave birth to twins. This has obviously meant Page having to take more of a back-seat role in the club, letting others lead the weekend walks. However, the youngsters could soon be mobile as last Christmas the group pitched in and bought the couple two children’s rucksacks.
Having lived longer in Munich than anywhere else, Page and his wife have decided to remain here. Clearly the proximity to the mountains has some bearing on this choice, together with Page’s strong affinity with the Bavarians. He compares them to Yorkshire people. “You don’t have to guess what they mean. They’ll tell you forthrightly.”
