In Which We Begin Our Swiss Skiing Adventure

As I begin this first blog about our skiing experiences in Switzerland I should explain a few things about my life as a skier.  As a child I skied a few times with my family (I’d better leave discussion of my father’s teaching philosophy for another day), but I took up the sport seriously only about ten years ago.  About five years before that, The Spouse and I had agreed that we should introduce our then-nine-year-old son to skiing.  We all rented skis and took beginner’s lessons at a small area in the Poconos.  The Spouse and Handsome Son both fell immediately in love with the sport, while I had trouble with just about everything it involved.  So, for some time I cross-country skied in the valleys while the guys did their thing on the mountains.

Family at Steamboat in 2004

Eventually I tired of being left behind and decided to try again.  This time I took everything at my own pace, riding the littlest lift over and over and staying on the baby slope until I gradually lost my fear of heights and began to enjoy the fluid motion of skiing.  I fell in love with the sport, the exhilaration of being outside (well insulated) on the coldest days, the views that grew ever more breathtaking as I moved up to higher slopes.  Our winter ski vacations became the highlight of the family calendar as we explored areas in the northeast, Canada and the Rockies.  The opportunity to experience skiing in Switzerland and Europe was a major reason for our readiness to undertake this move to Switzerland.

That said, our introduction to Swiss skiing has not been as smooth as one might expect.  To understand precisely why, we have to return to that perennial focus of these blogs, the awesome structure of the Alps.  You will recall our discussion of the Lauterbrunen valley, with its steep rock walls carved by glaciers.

Since that first visit we have learned that Lauterbrunen is only an extreme version of common geological features of the Alps – steep, closely packed peaks separated by deep glacial valleys.  In America the really big mountains stand far apart, with much broader, more gradual valleys between them.  Hence, American ski resorts are built around one or two mountains, with beginner and easy runs at the base and the most difficult located at the heights.  For example, look at this map of Steamboat, one of our favorite ski areas in northern Colorado.

This arrangement enabled me to start off each season by recapitulating the process through which I learned to ski – beginning on the easiest (green) slopes and gradually working my way through the intermediate (blues) and by mid-season one or two of the easier expert (black) slopes.  Except that here in Switzerland there are few if any beginner slopes.  (Plus they confuse everything and change the color scheme: here the “easier” slopes are blue, intermediate are red and expert are black or yellow.)  I guess we can blame the glaciers for carving away the lower areas where easy slopes might have resided.

So the first thing that one does when skiing in Switzerland is clamber onto a tram or cablecar of some sort to get up that first thousand meters or so. 

Slope above Mürren in October

Then one reaches relatively level ground stretching gradually upward toward the peaks.  There one finds a number of trails, or pistes, that claim to be “easier.”  But trust me, they are nothing like the green runs back home.

In December we began by skiing at two smaller areas nearby.  Forced to start the season on slopes that were much closer to advanced intermediate than beginner, I found it difficult to get my technique back in shape.  In addition, the heights, while breathtakingly scenic, triggered my vertigo.  Looking down a slope that seemed to drop off into open space, my brain went into panic mode and I could barely navigate some of the easier runs.  And then there was the fog….

But there were always compensations.  On our first outing to Andermatt, a smallish resort exactly an hour away, we fell in love with the charming little town nestled in the valley.  We returned later to spend two days, staying overnight at the Hotel Zur Sonne, on the first night that it reopened for the winter season.  (Unfortunately, extremely cold temperatures knocked out my camera’s battery, so I wasn’t able to take photos, but here’s a picture snagged from the hotel’s website.)  After an arduous day of skiing we were delighted to spend a long après ski period in the restaurant, drinking beer and watching snow falling softly outside.  We stayed on for a hearty dinner in the cozy wood-paneled dining room.

Terrace at Davos

Moreover, the Swiss have this wonderful custom of setting cafes and restaurants not only at central points, but at the end of long runs and inevitably at scenic points where one can take in the stunning views all around.  (When I am skiing, I don’t have time to really appreciate the beauty, which offers a handy excuse to stop from time to time during a run.)  They invariably also have large terraces where one can sit out on clear days and soak up the sun – sunbathing seems to be as important a reason for getting up to the mountaintops for many Swiss as is the skiing itself. 

I have to admit feeling a bit nervous as we set out on our first extended ski trip last weekend, to the world-famous resort of Davos.  Yes, the Davos of the World Economic Forum, located in the Canton of Graubünden where the mountains are reputed to be even steeper than in the rest of Switzerland.  The weather had turned warm in early January, doing some damage to snow conditions generally, and Davos is located at a higher altitude than most other resorts.  It is a huge resort, with 311 kilometers of pistes located on five mountains on both sides of a deep valley.   So we reserved a hotel for three nights, and hoped for the best.

The first pleasant surprise was realizing that Davos is located only two hours away by car.  We could leave after work on Friday evening and arrive early enough to get a good night’s sleep before our first day of skiing.  The next was finding upon our arrival that Davos was much more down-to-earth than we had expected.  Our hotel was located in Davos Platz, several blocks from the aerial tram to Jacobshorn area where we would spend our first day.

By now used to the routine of skiing in Switzerland, we put on our gear at the hotel and clomped to the tram station.  Crowded into the tram along with forty or fifty others, we felt it rising steeply against the face of the lower mountain.  It also brought us out of the shadow of the valley into the sunshine of a cloudless blue-sky day.  We transferred to a second tram that took us to the top of Jakobshorn, 2590 meters high.   I was a bit apprehensive to see that the first run began with a so-called “cat track” down a narrow ledge, because ledges with steep drops set off my vertigo alarms.  But we made it down without trouble and found ourselves at the top of a wide open mountain meadow.  Running through it were a number of well-groomed blue and red pistes, but almost all of the area was open for skiing by those who liked to venture into deep powder.  These vast meadows are the signature features of Alpine skiing.  Unlike American resorts, which are mostly below treeline and where ski runs are carved out of the forests, Swiss areas are wide open with few trees and lots and lots of powder. (Check out the interactive map at http://www.davos.ch/en/winter/region/town-map.html.)

But for me the wonderful discovery was that I could handle these pistes.  There were plenty of steep parts, but not so much that I couldn’t focus on my technique and get back into shape.  I was elated.  We were both delighted to find that conditions were fine despite the lack of new snow.  And so we proceeded to explore the slopes, stopping for coffee and lunch breaks at several charming restaurants with amazing views. 

Days two and three we spent at the Parsenn area on the opposite side of the valley.  This was reached via a cable-driven funicular car that began at Davos Dorf and climbed in two stages to Weissfluhjoch at 2662 meters.  This is the largest and one of the most popular sections at Davos, and rightly so because it offers a wide range of types and difficulty of skiing.   

Beginning of run down to Parsennhütte

The most popular run is a long rolling blue “cruiser” from the top down to Parsenhütte with sweeping mountain views in several directions.  I commented to The Spouse at the end of our first run on it that the piste itself has more acreage and different degrees of steepness than the entire ski area we frequented in the Poconos.  Such abundance!  I think I should just insert here some photos of this run.

Your Faithful Blogger further down on the run

View of run from aerial tram

End of the Run

And Parsennhütte waits at the end

Each day we began together, trzing out new runs, and then after breaking for coffee we'd separate – me to continue on the blues for which I’d developed a fondness and TS to seek out more difficult terrain to try out his new Swiss-made Stöckli powder skis.  It was on one of his trips to the top of Weissfluhgipfel, 2844 meters, that he took a series of photographs demonstrating that it was mountain peaks all around!

And then it was time to descend from the mountaintop and return home.  But we will be back.  Next time I will relate why Davos is called the Magic Mountain.