At just 14 years old, he recalled hiking over Zermatt's 3,300m-high Theodul Pass to Italy's Aosta Valley to trade tobacco for the prized grain. "My [widowed] mother had six children, four cows, three goats and not a penny," he continued. Far from being shackled to the stove, women toiled the land too, even braving avalanche paths to tend to their livestock.
