Sledding in Switzerland by Ann Banks
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Some people want their kids to gaze upon the Sphinx before it flakes into sand. Or ride in a gondola before Venice sinks beneath the Adriatic. Or go to a drive-in movie while there are still some left. Me, I wanted to show Kate snow. So far, she'd seen mainly the odd flurry that whitens the cars on our block like powdered sugar on a cruller.
I was prepared to travel far.
Snow around our parts, snow deep enough for childhood enterprises like sledding, has become a wonder of the past—at least it seems that way to me. Though such perceptlons have been commonplace since well before global warming:. "Years and years and years ago," wrote Dylan Thomas. "when I was a boy ... it snowed and it snowed."
That was the feeling I wanted, and I made up my mind that for Kate's first encounter with real snow we'd go someplace where the stuff was as thick and white as a featherbed. We'd go to Switzerland.
This choice, of course, put us in step with thousands of other winter vacationers. They all ski, however. Or plan to learn. Or plan never to learn, yet don't want a divorce. But Kate and I would attack the slopes on sleds, a decision that put us significantly out of step in Switzerland—and. as I was to learn the hard way, being out of step in Switzerland is not without peril.
At first everyone congratulated me on my excellent, if unusual, plan. The Swiss tourist office promptly dispatched a batch of colorful maps crisscrossed wilh yelIow-and-black dotted lines indicating sledding courses. I was relieved to learn that there would be no trudging uphill. Most sled runs in the Alps—some 200 miles of them—are reachable in the same manner as ski runs: by aerial cable car, mountain railway, and funicular. A press release entitled "Sled Runs in Switzerland" lamented over "the lack of relevant historical literature," then went on to recall that Roman legionnaires slid down the Alps on their shields, thus becoming Switzerland's first sledders. More recently, it informed me, Swiss sledding had been principally a children's pastime until the mid-nineteenth century, when English holidaymakers arrived in droves and "adults began to hurtle down the snow-covered streets of Davos and St. Moritz on wooden sleds. As with the children, they sat on their sleds and braked with their heels." Here a truly alert reader might have detected a patronizing undertone. But I was charmed and encouraged to learn that, while recreational sledding takes a backseat to skiing, it's "still a popular activity for the young at heart."
The press release managed to sidestep what l came to understand is the fundamental question about sledding In Switzerland: Does it rank as Winter Sport'?
Confusion over the precise nomenclature still persists among the Swiss. Reading the brochures. I noticed that the terms luge, toboggan, and the German Schlitten seemed to appear more or less at random. But what did they name? Most Americans would agree that a toboggan is a sled that is flat to the ground. And luge, which is the French word for sled, has come to mean a specialized device upon which fearless individuals compete in the Winter Olympics while lying flat on their back. But where Switzerland's tourists are concerned, the terms are all labels for the same thing. Unlike the text, the photographs in the brochures told a consistent story: They pictured old-fashioned wooden sleds with gently curved runners—precisely the same as those on which the Victorian tourists hurtled down the Davos streets.
Looking at the pictures, I realized that I'd found my Rosebud. My early childhood was spent in Germany, and the sled featured in our family album is not a streamlined Flexible Flyer, but one of these same upright models you steer by dragging your feet in the snow. So I had a sentimental appreciation for the shape. But my intent was to take sledding seriously, to approach it as Winter Sport—not easy with archaic equipment. Were we really going to sled down the Swiss Alps on these antiques?
Yes, we were, starting with Wengernalp, just above Wengen, the Bemese Oberland village I selected as our center of operations. ("If you are going for winter sports, Wengen is the place," says the border guard in A Farewell to Arms.) A ski resort popularized by the British after the First World War, Wengen occupies a sunny terrace high above the Lauterbrunnen valley. Even without taking to Wengen's renowned piste, a visitor has orchestra seats for the inspirational panorama starring that peerless Alpine trio the Jungfrau, the Eiger, and the Moench. From Geneva. we had to take three trains to reach Lauterbrunnen—where our transport truly began. There is no road to Wengen, only the green cogwheel trains of the Wengernalp Railway. In 18 minutes we were borne from the valley floor up into the snowy heights of fairy tales and chocolate-wrapper illustrations. The makings of mountain scenery were there in abundance: indigo skies, sun-washed peaks, starched fields of snow.
We tumbled off the train in Wengen straight into a tropical lagoon teeming with fluorescent creatures. Never having visited a ski resort at high season, I was unprepared for the gaudy spectacle. Everyone—tall, small, male, female—was wearing hues that would make a parrotfish blush. Kate had packed a snazzy one-piece snowsuit, predicting that in her gray bib snow pants and fisherman-knit sweater she would "look like a dork" among the skiers. She was right. Even my purple jumpsuit, borrowed from a skiing friend and still sporting an Aspen lift ticket on the zipper, looked drab compared with the prevailing lime greens and hot pinks.
I had been drawn to Wengen partly because of its advertised freedom from "motorized iniquity," as one tourist brochure put it. "Children," it also said, "can ... play in the street without risking their lives." Well, maybe, but only if they keep a sharp lookout for the goodly number of cars. But, strangely, there reigned a reverse Emperor's New Clothes effect: Everyone ignored the existence of these service vehicles and giddily wandered down the middle of the street as if there truly were no cars in Wengen. Kate and I plunged in for a brief and appreciative tour of the picturesque village, "They don't even have a McDonald's here," Kate noted with satisfaction.
Our first stop was Molitor Sport, an equipment-rental shop. We had the good fortune to be waited on by Andrew Cantwell, a New Zealander who became our sledding guru. After renting us a couple of classic Rosebuds, he offered a valuable tip: To reach the starting point of the sled run, take the train up to the same stop where the skiers get off, the Wengernalp station. Having already pored over the maps and brochures, I knew this was not the official line. The tourist-office flier instructed. "The tobogganist has the opportunity to enjoy a prepared toboggan run from either Allmend or Bannwald," both of which were intermediate stops only halfway to the Wengemalp summit. Not only did Andrew's differing advice prove accurate, but any sledder who went by the tourist literature would miss the most spectacular part of the run. A bit careless on the part of the authorities, l thought crossly, and the sort of misinformation not likely to be encountered by a skier researching the location of the piste.
We disembarked with our sleds in the glory of the morning sun on Wengernalp. Here was the Alpine radiance that had so stirred the Romantic poets. I'd wanted to show Kate snow and how it stretched before us like a shining ocean. Her reaction was everything I'd hoped for. The sun spangles on the white mountainside made her think of a giant glitter spill. She observed the tall snowclad evergreens lining the sled path and said, "They look so dressed up. I wonder if the trees without snow feel embarrassed."
With a light-headedness that was equal parts exultation. altitude, and adrenaline, I started us down the slope, instructing Kate as we went on the fine points of sledding. "Hold the rope tight," I yelled, "and yank it in the direction you want to go." We were halfway to Wengen and had plowed into numerous snowbanks before I finally admitted that you couldn't neck-rein these babies. It was hard to believe that we were perched on inanimate objects, given the degree of willfulness they managed to demonstrate. Deciding that our sleds needed names, Kate christened them Schwanli and Baerli, after the Aim Uncle's strong-minded goats (I'd brought along Heidi for her to read on the trip). To cajole her sled into good behavior, she directed at it a running commentary of encouragement and was the first to recognize that there is only one way to steer a Rosebud and that is by dragging the foot opposite from the direction you want to go.
Having grasped this crucial secret, we continued on our sled run without incident, until I lost Kate. She'd insisted that she precede me down the run, and as we neared Wengen, a half hour after starting out, she sledded around a curve and out of sight. When I reached the bottom—no daughter. To make a long story short, she'd completed the sled run, and I somehow got diverted onto the wrong path.
When I didn't come along, she calmly backtracked up the hill to look for me, and when she got thirsty, she ate some snow. (Maybe she learned that from Heidi—I don't know.) Rather less calmly, I attempted to enlist official help in searching for her, in the course of which I discovered several things. First, your typical Swiss villager has a different idea than your typical Manhattan mother about how long a child may be lost before there is cause for alarm. Second, and more important: The protective embrace of the Swiss ski industry does not extend to sledders. While ski runs are patrolled vigilantly from morning till night, sled runs are patrolled not at all.
I proposed that we climb back on and try again before nerve failure set in. Our second go at Wengemalp was a glorious success. Smartly in control, we descended the magnificent and varied run, gliding through green tree tunnels, around hairpin bends, down one thrillingly steep incline, and across dazzling open stretches paralleling the ski run.
Now we were hooked. In the coming days we set out to conquer more of the yellow-and-black dotted lines on our map. Sylviane of the Wengen Tourist Office steered us to the Alimendhubel slope above Murren. The sled run descended two and a half miles into the farm village of Gimmelwald. From there, we'd catch the Schilthorn aerial cableway down to the valley floor; then go by bus and Wengenalp Railway back to Wengen.
Murren, it turned out, is Wengen's Wengen: higher in the mountains. harder to get to, and even more auto-frei. It’s equally popular with the English skiing set and has turned up as a setting in the spy novels of both Ian Fleming and John Ie Carre.
Since the Muerren sled path was advertised in brochures as a bob run. Kate and I were hoping for speed thrills. We got them. The run was so fast that I sledded the entire 1,000-foot length in first gear, which, on a Rosebud, means dragging both feet. I vowed greater daring the second time around, but I hadn't figured on the cows. Kate and I were poised to take the plunge again when we heard the jingle of cowbells, accompanied by cries of consternation in several languages.
Crossing the ski trail nearby was a small herd of dairy cows, a black Saint Bernard, and a rosy-cheeked girl in knickers carrying a stick. It was fun watching skier after skier skid to an unscheduled stop—but the joke was on us when girl and dog herded the cows away from the piste and right down the bob run. We gave them a long head start, but not, as it turned out, quite long enough, and we ended up having to brake for cows. Worse, the formerly pristine path was now garnished with fresh cow plop. As Kate said when we'd finished the run, "It was hilarious, but it wasn't that nice."
The next leg of our journey, the sled run from Murren down to the fairy-tale village of Gimmelwald, was tame by comparison. The only frisson being provided by a DANGER OF AVALANCHES sign by the side of the path. It was ignored by everybody but me. I stopped to take a picture. We ended our descent to the valley floor on the celebrated Schilthornbahn, upon which James Bond had such a hair-raising adventure in the film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The cableway gondola was as big as a London bus, and the ride not even as exciting, I thought.
Not 20 hours later I was sincerely repenting of that sentiment. Kate and I, plus our sleds, plus three Swiss strangers, were dangling in midair in a gondola that more closely resembled a London telephone booth. Egged on by Sylviane. we were embarked on what was meant to be our sledding tour de force. I'd found on the map an extra-long sled path that descended from the Faulhom all the way into Grindelwald, a town in the next valley over. We' d ascend by a half-hour cable car ride to a mountain terrace called First, and then hike a couple of hours along a beautiful ridge to Faulhom. From there the trip back into the valley would be easy sledding. In Sylviane's office this had sounded like an excellent plan—one that surely made the grade as Winter Sport. Having done the hike herself, Sylviane assured me that it was "not so steep; no, not too bad," though, without doubt, "it would be an adventure." "Let's do it," said Kate ... I like adventures."
So now we were stuck 100 feet up, in the cable car to nowhere. As soon as the gondola has ceased to move forward, I have an insight: I am only afraid of heights when I'm motionless. After three or four decades, one of our fellow passengers explains the delay: "They've gone off to lunch." Everyone laughs so hard that I realize I'm not the only one who has nerves of overcooked spaghetti. Bitterly I recall the many guidebook references to the superiority of Swiss engineering. Hah!
This is worse than the D train!
I concentrate on the ski run far below, speculating on whether it's possible to learn parallel turns by prolonged aerial observation. Kate gets in some skills practice reading aloud the notice printed in three languages under the window, "Should your gondola stop on the line, please remain seated and calmly await continuation to the top or instruction by the staff." "Mom," she says, turning to me, "what would the instruction be?"
That is a question I am afraid to ask, even once we're back on solid ground more than half an hour later than scheduled. I silently rejoice that we are going back another way, by a "well-maintained winter hiking route on the sunny side of the slope," according to my First brochure. At the spot where piste and Wanderweg diverged, I reflected on how pleasant it was to see the backs of so many skiers following one another down the mountain.
As we climbed onto the gleaming white track along the treeless ridge, I pointed out to Kate the peak of the Faulhorn, our hiking destination. Lacking neither pluck nor stamina (plus, I'd promised her all the chocolate she could eat), she was eager to be off. I, on the other hand, now felt apprehensive, some of my daredevil spirit having deserted me in the stalled gondola. Despite Sylviane's assurances, the Faulhorn looked a long way off. Pulling out my map, I asked advice of hikers coming from that direction. The consensus: It was a steep hike and would be strenuous for a child. When I explained that I'd heard otherwise—that the ridge was more or less level—one of my advisers said, "Who told you that?" "Someone in the tourist office," I admitted, and we shared a laugh at my expense. He pointed out on my map something that I, in my preference for anecdotal rather than quantitative evidence, had missed: According to the elevation markings, Faulhorn was 1,640 feet higher than First.
Ignoring Kate's cries of "Stick to the plan. Morn. I can do it," I decided on an alternative itinerary suggested by one of the hikers. We would follow the ridge for 45 minutes and then descend on a walking path into the hamlet of Bon. From there we'd pick up the sled run into Grindelwald.
We pulled our sleds through a panorama to dream about, picnicked at the turnoff, and then pointed our runners toward the valley below. The path was well plowed and sleddable, and the slope was ours. We were already a long way down before we saw anyone else: a man sledded past on a sporty little model with skis for runners. Then all was still and solemn and beautiful and I congratulated myself for having scaled back the excursion.
Until I spotted our fellow sledder trudging back up the mountain toward us. I did my best to deny the horrifying implications of this sight. Erwin, as he turned out to be named, knew a little English and persisted as long as it took to get his message across: Not far below, the plowed path came to an abrupt end. We must—as he was doing—turn around and make the entire ascent back to the Firstbahn station. Yes, it would mean an exhausting climb of several hours, but to continue down through hip-deep snow would put us in serious peril. We turned around—not an easy decision after that morning's terror in the cable car.
Our deus ex machina took the form of a lanky young man in orange coveralls driving a shiny red snowplow. He told us his name was Cory and that he worked for the Firstbahn authority; it seemed he was there to finish plowing the trail. We hitchhiked a ride down the mountain to Bon, the place we'd set out for earlier. On the way, Cory chattered in excellent English about last year's moose and black bear hunt in Canada. Overcome with gratitude, I willed Kate not to express her opinion of wild-game hunting. But my thoughts changed course when we came to the place that Erwin had warned about, the place where well-maintained wanderweg ended and trackless snow began. Exactly why was the path clearly marked on my map as a winter hiking trail plowed only halfway was a mystery.
Finally back in Grindelwald, we boarded the last train of the evening up over the mountain to Wengen by way of Wengernalp. In our smoky railcar, filled with skiers of all nations, a woman wearing a traditional Swiss dress took out an inlaid accordion with red leather bellows and began to accompany herself while yodeling. I mulled over the day's events—keeping in mind Mark Twain's advice that "one should always get even in some way, else the sore place will go on hurting." Who (myself excluded) could be blamed? Sylviane was the most obvious candidate for revenge, and in honor of Twain, whose pet aversion they were, I thought about presenting her with a cuckoo clock. But I feared that. being Swiss, she might not take it in the spirit I intended.