The Car That Went Abroad: Motoring Through the Golden Age

by Albert Bigelow Paine

"You Can See Son Loup from the Hotel Steps in Vevey, but It Takes Hours to Get to It"

We telephoned to the Son Loup hotel at the top of the last funicular, and got an early start. You can see Son Loup from the hotel steps in Vevey, but it takes hours to get to it. The train goes up, and up, along gorges and abysses, where one looks down on the tops of Christmas trees, gloriously mantled in snow. Then by and by you are at Les Avants and in the midst of everything, except the ski-ing, which is still higher up, at Son Loup.

We got off at Les Avants and picked our way across the main street among flying sleds of every pattern, from the single, sturdy little bulldog luge to the great polly-straddle bob, and from the safe vantage of a café window observed the slide.

It was divided into three parts—one track for bobsledders—the wild riders—a track for the more daring single riders, and a track for fat folks, old folks, and children. Certainly they were having a good time. Their ages ranged from five to seventy-five, and they were all children together. Now and then there came gliding down among them a big native sled, loaded with hay or wood, from somewhere far up in the hills. It was a perfect day—no cold, no wind, no bright sun, for in reality we were up in the clouds—a soft white veil of vapor was everywhere.

By and by we crossed the track, entered a wonderful snow garden belonging to a hotel, and came to a little pond where some old men and fat men were curling. Curling is a game where you try to drive a sort of stone decoy duck from one end of the pond to the other and make it stop somewhere and count something. Each man is armed with a big broom to keep the ice clean before and after his little duck. We watched them a good while and I cannot imagine anything more impressive than to see a fat old man with a broom padding and puffing along by the side of his little fat stone duck, feverishly sweeping the snow away in front of it, so that it will get somewhere and count. When I inadvertently laughed I could see that I was not popular. All were English there—all but a few Americans who pretended to be English.

Beyond the curling pond was a skating pond, part of it given over to an international hockey match, but somehow these things did not excite us. We went back to our café corner to watch the luging and to have luncheon. Then the lugers came stamping in for refreshments, and their costumes interested us. Especially their shoes. Even the Dutch family had brought home no such wonders as some of these. They were of appalling size, and some of them had heavy iron claws or toes such as one might imagine would belong to some infernal race. These, of course, were to dig into the snow behind, to check or guide the flying sled. They were useful, no doubt, but when one saw them on the feet of a tall, slim girl the effect was peculiar.

By the time we had finished luncheon we had grown brave. We said we would luge—modestly, but with proper spirit. There were sleds to let, by an old Frenchman, at a little booth across the way, and we looked over his assortment and picked a small bob with a steering attachment, because to guide that would be like driving a car. Then we hauled it up the fat folks' slide a little way and came down, hoo-hooing a warning to those ahead in the regulation way. We did this several times, liking it more and more. We got braver and tried the next slide, liking it still better. Then we got reckless and crossed into the bobsled scoot and tried that. Oh, fine! We did not go to the top—we did not know then how far the top was; but we went higher each time, liking it more and more, until we got up to a place where the sleds stood out at a perpendicular right angle as they swirled around a sudden circle against a constructed ice barrier. This looked dangerous, but getting more and more reckless, we decided to go even above that.

We hauled our sled up and up, constantly meeting bobsleds coming down and hearing the warning hoo-hoo-hooing of still others descending from the opaque upper mist. Still we climbed, dragging our sled, meeting bob after bob, also loads of hay and wood, and finally some walking girls who told us that the top of the slide was at Son Loup—that is, at the top of the funicular, some miles away.