The Cresta was first engineered, I believe, in the year 1884, and its chief architect was Herr Peter Badruth of St. Moritz. From that time onwards it has yearly been built up with as much thought and care as is lavished on a cathedral; every yard of it is staked out, and the angles, curves, and shaping of its banks and corners most accurately calculated. It is built up from the bottom upwards, so that the lower part of it can be used while the construction of the upper part is still going on, and the whole run is generally open not until after the middle of February. Every winter is this amazing architecture in crystal planned and carried out under the direction of Mr. W. H. Bulpett, who has for many years been chief architect.
To begin with, the snow is trampled down, after the manner of making the foundation of an ice-rink, so as to form a firm solid base, and where the banks are to be built snow is brought in sleigh-loads, shovelled on to it, and beaten down. More snow will then be still required, and again more, till the whole of the banks are solid and of the necessary height and curve. Then the banks and the rest of the course (the straights) are sprinkled with water and again beaten down, and the glazed ice surface begins to be made. When this has frozen, water is again sprinkled on it, and again and yet again, till the whole section has become, banks and course alike, a surface of smooth hard ice. Down each side of the narrow racing track (except at its banked corner it is only a few feet wide, a riband of ice) are little walls of firm built snow, also iced, so that the runner, if he is going moderately straight, cannot leave the track, though he often comes into slight collision with these walls. But even slight collisions when travelling at a speed that sometimes exceeds 70 miles an hour are not experiences to be encountered unarmed, and the elbows and knees are thickly protected by felt pads, while on the toes of his boots are toothed rakes made of steel, which are used to guide the runner round the bank and to check his speed if it is so excessive that, unchecked, he would run over the tops of the banks.
A very high degree of nerve, skill, and judgment is required on such an ice-run as this. The rider’s object being to cover the course in as few seconds as possible, he must clearly take his banks (i.e. get round the curves) with as little loss of speed as possible, and he will only use his brakes when his judgment tells him that if unchecked he would be carried over the top of them. On the other hand, he does not want to brake unless it be necessary, and you will often see him with his top runners within an inch or two of the edge of these huge sloping ice-curves. At Battledore and Shuttlecock, the two biggest banks on the Cresta, he enters the second immediately after coming out of the first, and the two form a great S curve. Lower down again, before he threads the
ON THE CRESTA RUN
From the Drawing by Fleming Williams
arch of the railway bridge, there is another called Bulpett’s corner, designed to protect him from running out to the left of the course, and then a headlong descent takes him to the winning-post, which is at the bottom of the hill. Passing this he snaps a thread with an electric connection, which registers the exact fraction of a second at which he passes it. Then, on his run out, he whirls up a steep ice-covered slope, for if this were not iced too, his speed would be so abruptly checked that he and his toboggan would be bowled over and over like a shot rabbit, and comes to a stop just outside the little village of Cresta. But even with this steep slope to check him after his race is over, the momentum acquired is so great that, if he does not brake heavily all the way up this hill, he will, on reaching the level ground at the top, shoot high into the air, toboggan and all.
Some idea of the speed at which toboggans travel on the straight reaches of the course may be gathered from the average speed at which the course can be run. It is over 1300 yards in length, and has been traversed in a shade over 60 seconds! This means that the highest rate of speed must be well over 70 miles an hour. This on a pair of steel runners, head foremost, with your face a few inches above the solid ice, with nothing to check you except a small-toothed rake on the toe of each boot! Yet so wonderfully skilful is the construction of the run, so cunningly is it built to safeguard the headlong traveller, that accidents are very few. Two fatal ones, indeed, there have been, but of these one had nothing to do with the course itself, but was owing to the fact that a rider started from the top before one of the barriers across the course, which show that it is not open for racing, had been removed. In the other, the rider ran over a bank and his toboggan fell on the top of him. One of the great difficulties which the builders and managers of this run, in company with other ice-runs, have to contend against, is the power of the sun. It is, of course, absolutely necessary that the icing of the run should be so solid that there is no chance of the runner of a toboggan going through it, which would naturally mean a bad spill. But it is also necessary that certain of the banks must have the sun blazing into them all day long, which would cause them to lose ice faster than it could be made by the sprinkling which goes on when the sun is off them. At such points, therefore, big canvas screens are put up, which shade the bank from the direct rays; also tobogganing is never permitted to go on all day. It starts early in the morning, when the run has been recuperated by the night of frost, and is closed when, in the opinion of the management, the sun has so softened the banks that there is danger of a toboggan cutting through the crust.