CHAPTER XIV
WINTER STATIONS—WINTER SPORTS—HOW TO USE SKI
The awakening of the English—Switzerland the ice and snow rink of Europe—The high winter stations and the low—Principal sporting centres—Insular delusions—The Continental network of winter sport associations—Winter sports on ice—Tobogganing—The winter climate varies with the altitude—A classification of sporting centres according to altitude—The ski-runner is monarch of the Alps—How to keep one’s ski in good order—How to learn the gentle art of running on ski—Precepts and practice—The turns, breaks, and swings—Point final.
It is strange to have to acknowledge, that while in the high-lying valleys of the Alps the Swiss have basked for centuries in hot Christmas sunshine, the English, till within the last twenty years, remained ignorant of Alpine winter sports. Enlightened medical men first recommended the tonic properties of the Alpine climate in winter. Then came the spirited promoters of the Public Schools Winter Sports Club. Now Sir Henry Lunn’s winter stations stud the Alpine ranges from end to end.
These stations are typical of the best organisation hitherto devised to connect winter games known in England, such as skating, curling, and hockey, with the magnificent scenery and inexhaustible opportunities afforded by the Swiss winter climate. As compared with regions situated further north, the sporting advantages of Switzerland over, say, Scandinavia, consist in its central situation in mid-Europe, the closeness of its population, the immense accommodation for visitors, the short distances from station to station, the compactness of the road and railway system, and above all in the abundance of sunlight throughout the winter months. We need say nothing on the benefits of altitude. If air, sun and snow are ideal winter conditions for modern men and women, the higher we go, the more completely will those benefits be secured.
Be this as it may, stations under 5,000 feet are not so reliable for steady, continuous frost, as those situated above that level. This is a pity, because, from a social point of view, the lower stations are largely patronised. The winter sportsman likes to rise quickly. He knows that high peaks and deep valleys are nowhere so closely and attractively interwoven as in Switzerland. The two highest points permanently inhabited by a sedentary community are, in the valley of Cresta Avers, between the Maloja and Splügen passes, and at Chandolin d’Anniviers above Sierre, both at an altitude of about 6,000 feet. These places are above the forest zone and should in time become the flourishing winter sport stations which their situation entitles them to be. At the other and lowest extremity of the scale, but in the vicinity of Mont Blanc, and wanting but little energy to raise its potentialities to the level of the very best, should rank Megève, above Sallanches in the valley of the Arve. Unfortunately there has been hitherto in that part of the world but little disposition to act in an enterprising spirit.
The most important stations, so far, are those situated:—
1. In the Engadine and adjoining valleys (St. Moritz, Pontresina, Kampfer, Silvaplana, Sils, Maloja, Fex, Davos, Arosa, Klosters, &c.).