Winter Sports in Switzerland

by E. F. Benson

SKI-JUMPING, MONTANA, SWITZERLAND

Plate XXXIX

VETERANS OF THE ST. MORITZ SKI CLUB

CHAPTER VII
NOTES ON WINTER RESORTS

Of late years the number of the English and other nations who annually go to spend a portion at any rate of the winter at some High Alpine resort has enormously increased, and in consequence every year fresh hotels are opened in valleys which hitherto have hybernated like dormice beneath their snow-laden roofs, during the months of short days. But it is by no means every high-perched hotel that is suitable as a centre for winter sports, for there are several conditions to be considered. In the first place, such a spot must be sufficiently high up to make it probable that there will be fairly continuous frosts there throughout the winter, and this again depends not only on height but also on aspect. As regards height you cannot reasonably depend on getting this continuity of frost (allowing for reasonable breaks) under the height of round about 4000 feet, especially if the place in question is to enjoy long hours of sun. True, an exceptionally severe winter may come, and the strictness of the binding of the frost may hold, week after week, at a much lower altitude, but it is natural that the holiday-maker, who has only a week or two abroad and wants during all his hours of daylight to be employed in sliding movements, should wish to be fairly safe to find the conditions suitable, and he has, obviously, a better chance of finding them if he goes high. But there are several places considerably below this 4000-foot level, such as Grindelwald, which lies in a very cold valley, where he may in an average year find himself unhampered and rendered idle by thaws, and it is wonderful how continuous frost is at Grindelwald. But there both skating-rink and curling-rink are, all day long at midwinter, entirely in the shade, for the sun does not rise high enough at noon to look over the great barrier of rock that lies to the south of it. That protection, of course, preserves for the place its excellent ice, whereas if, as at other winter resorts, it basked in the sun all day, the rink would speedily be metamorphosed into a degraded glue with discouraging pools interspersed. But if you go to greater heights, you can combine the pleasures of skating with those of sitting in the sun, and that to this writer is a remarkably charming combination. But in order to enjoy that you must have greater height than is possessed by Grindelwald, and a place like Montana, where the sun is on the rink by nine in the morning, and continues to beat down on it till somewhere about five in the afternoon, would see its ice and snow disappear into slush and torrents of water were it not perched nearly 5000 feet above sea-level. St. Moritz and Mürren are throned higher yet, and it has to be a very warm winter indeed which will cause a general thaw at such places. And there is nothing more irritating than to have gone to some comparatively low place and find that day after day goes by in melting mood, and at the same time to know that a thousand feet higher up ideal conditions are being experienced.

The skier naturally is less dependent on the altitude of his village, provided that there are high hills abounding in suitable slopes round him. It is part of the essence of his sport that he climbs for it, whereas skaters and curlers demand their playgrounds at the door and no climbing at all. Thus the high valley leading across from Montreux in the Rhone valley to Spiez by the Lake of Thun is, though its highest villages and hotels are below 4000 feet, ideal for the skier, since it has on each side of it lofty hills which are rich in good slopes. But for the others, skaters, curlers, and tobogganers alike, it is important that the frost should hold in the immediate vicinity of their hotels. They do not seek their various joys on the tops of neighbouring mountains.

Now this question of sun is, of course, a personal one, and the popularity of Grindelwald shows that there are multitudes of folk who do not mind skating and curling in the shade. For them, then, that is all right, but if you happen to like skating and curling in a blaze of sun, you will be wise to go somewhere not below the 4000-foot level. Even there, of course, you cannot be safe against thaws, and the deplorable series of days known as the winter of 1911-1912, when thaw succeeded thaw at almost all Swiss resorts, taught us all that the malice of climate is infinite and incalculable, and the summer of 1912, here in England, where the general temperature was about the same as that of the previous winter in Switzerland, repeated the same lesson. But in the average year winter places over 4000 feet in height can be trusted to let the visitor enjoy sunshine and hard frost together.