Switzerland - The Land of Milk, Money and Snow

Tobogganing again! After a little too much Friday night revelry (Sri Lanken dinner party at a friend's), we got up and started to get ready to go. The car failed to start. Never a good way to begin the weekend. But after a little time, the nice man came and jump started it. We finished getting packed and it failed to start up again. I see a pattern developing. But, our car guy friend decided that all we needed to do was bump start it. This involved pushing the car while the driver pops the clutch to get it to start, or at least that is my translation of what occurred. Off we were to Melchsee-Frutt.

I picked this place, as opposed to the hundreds of other places to go, because they have an 8 km toboggan track! Nice! It was very snowy on the ride up. Thanks, Scott, again, for driving. There was about a foot of new snow and it was still snowing. So we get to the ticket booth and nice ticket lady tells me that all the sleds have already been rented. Grrrrumph. So we go to the rental store to see what nice rental boy has to say. Sure enough, no toboggans for us. But nice rental boy, being a local, tells us of another place to go, half an hour away. He is sure that they will have sleds. So off we go again, this time to Lungern-Schoenbuhl.

At the ticket counter, this time, we are told that the toboggan track is closed because of too much snow. Yes, I just said, TOO MUCH SNOW!!!!! I cannot comprehend too much snow. Ich verstehe nicht! But, I did understand that the toboggan won't make it through unless the snow is pretty packed. But, nice ticket booth lady tells us that we can just as nicely use the ski slopes to toboggan on (um, aren't they a little steeper than the track?). Up we go, on the gondola (which only runs when needed, BTW).

At the top, which is really just a bunch of Doppelmeyer lift equipment perched precariously on a steep point, we head to the rental shop to get our toboggans. Up the lift we go.

Very cold, poor visibility and we can't see if the slopes are groomed or not, from the lift. But there aren't many skiers this particular day. Despite the powder, they chose to stay home. The rest of the story involves the guys being guys and the girl being a girl. They proceeded to go down the steep head walls at full speed, crashing, burning and face-planting their way down. I am no wimpy girl when it comes to snow, but I acted with some caution and self-preservation technique. I chose the less-likely-to-bruise method of keeping my feet on the ground in some form of braking most of the time on the steeper head walls.

Trying to maneuver the toboggan through that much powder was very tricky and exhausting, but fun just the same. On flatter parts we had to walk, but the views were great. Most of the time, we were being serenaded by the sounds of helicopters and avalanche control. An occassional big BOOM coming from the shrouded hills above you is a sound I know and love from skiing.

When we got toward the end of the day, we noticed other tobogganers down near the bottom. There was a nice, even head wall that you could go down and hike back up to do it again, instead of taking the freezing cold, long, slow lift. It was here that we found the real experts.

A bunch of teenage boys and a big plastic sheet. Yup, you guessed it. They weren't having no stinkin' picnic on that sheet, but using it to sled down the hill. They put it down, climbed in, luge style, one behind the next, etc. They pulled the front and side flaps up and around themselves. Off they were, like a big, snowy caterpillar, inching its way, but fastly, through the snow. You could tell that they had done this before.

Near the end of the head wall, the veered to the left, into a very deep, untouched snow bank, to stop. This avoided a longer hike back up. Very efficient, these Swiss. But one time they had a little more speed and kept going through the snow bank and into a little gully. They were pretty much buried. But it looked like a blast. We could tell they were natives!

I learned this weekend that there are different types of toboggans. The plain wooden kind, that has cross members that stick out and really bruise the inside of my knees. Been there, done that. There are also the wonky sleds, that just won't go and if it does decide to go, it goes only in one direction. These are in need of allignment. When I got tired of bruises and veering issues, I upgraded to the Rolls Royce of sleds.

I told the rental guy I needed a faster sled. What I got was fast, very, very fast. And it had a nice comfy seat, too. But, you couldn't stop this thing and you couldn't flip it over to bail out. I had to push it out from under me, in front of me, to get myself to stop on some steep stuff. The key is that you have to tie the leash around your wrist so it doesn't fly down the hill without you.

Scott took the last trip down on that little Swiss Rolls Royce. Yes, his toboggan is still underneath him. Seeing is believing!


Here is the view from laying in a snow bank. Remember, all these snowy Field Trips are about people enjoying what nature gave them. Happy tobogganing!