Winter Wonderland

Our real Alpine vacation started after all the Christmas festivities were over. We had spent most of the weekend celebrating indoors, so when we awoke on Monday to a beautiful blue sky day, we had to take advantage of it. There are a lot of winter sports in this area, including downhill skiing, cross country skiing, snow shoeing, ice skating, and sledding. We decided to start slow, so we bundled everyone up, rented an additional sled and headed to the nearby gondola.

A the top of the mountain, we had to hike over to the top of the sled run, darting across ski slopes with downhill skiers rushing past. When we came to a section with a downward slope, we crammed 5 people onto 2 sleds and rode down to the chalet by the Öschinensee, a beautiful alpine lake nestled among the mountains at 5177 feet. It was at this point that we realized we still had a long ways to go to the bottom of the mountain, and that sledding in the Alps is not really a slower choice after all.

The next section of the sled run is incredibly steep and follows a ravine which is not blocked by any kind of fencing. We flew down, jamming our heels into the snow as hard as we could, which only slowed us down to 50 mph from 60 mph. Joe and Emily, who had a significant lead, tanked first. And just as they were brushing themselves off and getting back on the sled, I flew by with the boys screaming at the top of their lungs. Seconds later, we also wiped out, mostly becuase it was the only way I could find to stop the sled before crashing into a tree or going over the edge. Just ahead of us was a 120 degree turn onto a narrow bridge over a mountain stream. But, after a few more harrowing turns, the trail calmed down a bit, so that we could at least look up occasionally and enjoy the scenery as we were whizzing past it.

We decided it wouldn’t be prudent to bring Henry on that run again, but the other kids were willing to give it another go. So, we took turns doing it again, with a little more success on the second round.

That night, we slowed way down, and walked over to the lighted toboggan run (Schlittenbahn) in town, which is a fairly straight and well groomed run with lights strung above it. We went down it a couple of times, and then walked back to the hotel under the stars for a dinner of traditional Fondue and Raclette.

Tuesday morning started our skiing adventure. Joe took the older kids up the mountain for their first ski lesson while Henry and I stayed back and hiked and sledded in the valley. Emily and James struggled quite a bit to keep their skis from crossing, they fell down a lot, they worked hard getting across flat areas, and they came back sweaty and exhausted. When I asked them how it was they said, “Great!”

With their first lesson under their belts, we figured we could take them out the next morning on our own. So we got up early and took the whole family up to a quieter, easier mountain on the other side of town. It turns out, this was not a good idea. Although the scenery was beautiful and we snapped a couple of cute pictures, do not be decieved. It was an unmitigated disaster. I could write a whole post about the next three hours of skiing (if you can call it that), but I don’t really want to remember it. Let’s just say that skiing with young beginners is extremely hard work. There was a lot of yelling and whining, though no crying, which puts us ahead of most of the other beginner families we saw. But, technically, we can all say that we have skied in the Swiss Alps.