Travel
Winter. Sport in Switzerland
(We publish on this page articles They are written by correspondents of the Travel articles published in and notes which may help our readers in their plans for travel at home and abroad. who have visited the places described: We shall be glad to answer questions arising out our columns. Inquiries should be addressed to the Travel Manager, The SpEctittoa, 99 Gower Street, W.C.1.) IT should be easy enough to count the cost in actual cash of a winter sports holiday in Switzerland, even though the moral and physical expenditure be beyond any man's reckoning. The tourist agencies issue alluring booklets, containing details of fares and accommodation. From them we may learn that the second-class return fare, to a place as near the Swiss frontier as Engelberg, is about £8, exclusive of food and registration of baggage, that the pension terms per week in a first-class hotel range from about 6 guineas. The tone of these pamphlets is optimistic, in that no mention is made of innumerable extras, such as the hire of skis, the cost of funicular . tickets, sports taxes, baths, coffee, drinks, teas and the like and the unlike Nor are we warned of the rigours of the journey at this most crowded season of the year, of the passport scramble in mid-channel, and, supposing we have not paid about £5 extra for a sleeper, the sardine-like wedging of our jaded bodies in hot railway carriages. This blithe disregard of detail is more than counteracted by the pessimism inspired in the hearts of the poor by the compilers of winter-sports kit catalogues. As we turn over the pages of these booklets, with their pictures of sleek-faced men and slick young women, we feel that it is impossible to dare a marriage with the snows unless we have many changes of wedding garments.
WHAT TO WEAR.'
We are assured of the need for special and revolting woollen underwear, of swanklets and scarves and goats'-hair socks. We feel that the ice is greedy for fur and velvet and that the snow yearns for bodies, lapped in alpine shirts, patterned in criss-cross designs, and brushed wool sweaters and expensive gloves. Actually very little is needed except a gaberdine ski-ing suit or riding breeches and a tough coat. Waterproof gloves are a necessity, so are thick woollen socks and regulation ski-ing boots, though army boots with built-out heels may take the place of the latter. Women who skate will need pleated skirts which may be worn with ordinary ski-ing coats or sweaters. Skis and skates and sealskins for climbing may all be hired at a slight cost. It is best to allaw ES or 14 a week for extra expenses.
SHI-ING RUNS.
Now let us consider the runs that we get for our money, taking the ski-ing tuns first.
Our initiation begins on the nursery-slopes. How com- forting the name is : it suggests cosseting and suave kindliness and safety I Yet those of us who may remember our early staggerings from chair to hearth-rug in other nurseries may also recollect how our feet betrayed the longings of our embryonic brains, that the fender was hard and the floor a perpetual magnet for our top-heavy bodies, and, remembering all this, will not be too surprised at the difficulty of learning to move on skis, even down the nursery slopes. All that we learned by nature then, the standing, the walking, the turning j round the angle of the door, the running, the jumping and the climbing, we learn again now with more pain. Our progress is even more exhausting now that our movements are labelled. Our booted feet may have been less unwieldy to us than our skis are now, but at least we could take time over our actions, and out muscles developed gradually and according to Our necessity. Here, in our white nursery, where the snow is seldom so " deep and crisp and even " as is desirable, we each, like the trembling page, find masters as hustling and peremptory- as King Wenceslas. These may be Swiss instructors or the ski-ing experts of our own particular party, who will instruct us in the urgency of boldness.
At first we flounder helplessly. Our skis scissor and skid : we fall in knots and tangles and thigh crashes on to ski edge. It is incredibly painful, exhausting and depressing Then gradually we grow canny ; we learn how to fall, how, having fallen, to unknot ourselves quickly and get up. We learn to run and know the terror and exhilaration of gathering speed, until at last we crash, either to avoid an obstacle or through terror of our own pace. Novices incline, at first, to boast that they need not learn to turn or to stop, since they can always sit down, but after a time the wear and tear of their bodies persuade them of the necessity for science. Thereafter they become maniacs : they stand in " stemming-position " in the lounge of the hotel. They have caught the infection of ski-ing and the nursery slopes contain them no longer. They " telemark " in their sleep and dream of " chrysties in their baths.
BECOMING EXPERT.
After the nursery slopes have been abandoned, except as oractice-grounds. come the long runs. First there is the
climb up to the heights. It is now that we realize the joys for which we have paid so great a price of energy, fear and pain. The memory of the first ride or the first dive is as nothing to the recalled ecstasy of the first long ski-run. Our skis are no longer enemies, furiously pursuing their opposed ways ; they are almost a part of us. They run lovingly down the great white slopes, and we are their masters. We swing and glide and swoop ; we crash, too, of course, but we do not count the falls on that first glorious day. We have skied, really skied for the first time. The next day, so we boast, we will go a little faster—we shall take that slope straight we will do a downhill turn round that bend instead of fumbling it. Our joy _becomes sensuous and at last we retract our vows never to undertake that dreadful journey again. Actually we shall most likely ski extraordinarily badly after our first run, for moods and achievement in Switzerland are as uneven as the snow. We may take to skating or lugeing or bob-running, but always we shall return to our skis in the end unless we break ourselves.
Pessimists may be interested to hear that they may insure themselves against accidents by paying a premium of 15s., so that they will be safe whatever happens—" From thence a paradox which comforts while it mocks."
BARBARA EUPTIAN TODD.
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