Skiing at Flumserberg

The Swiss LOVE winter, Love their gigantic mountains, LOVE the snow and everything that comes with it. It is amazing to see people- both young and old-  hiking all winter, camping out in the snow, carrying snowboards and skiis thru the city of Zurich.  I like skiing, but am definitely more of a summer person, and more comfortable at 1,000 ft elevations, expecially when the location involves sand, and water. But....when in Rome...

We decided to embrace our new surroundings and try our luck at skiing/snowboarding on Sunday Jan 23 at a local ski resort called Flumserberg. This would be the Vernon Valley of the East Coast or the Cascade Mtn of the Midwest. It is an hour from our home. We had the option of taking the train to the mountain or driving. Since it was mostly highway (easy for me now!) we decided to drive.

I had booked an instructor for my boys who are new to snowboarding, and a group lesson for my daughter at Bobo's Kids Klub of the Sweisse Ski Schule. We awoke early in the morning to prepare for the adventure. We were all a mix of emotions - me trying to remember everything we needed to bring in terms of equipment, and warm clothes, and planning the drive, the boys were SO excited, my daughter was so scared and nervous for it was her first time on skiis. My husband was rather worried about our boys' safety as he continues to be haunted by the time our older son had broken his arm while prematurely attempting a ski jump, with only a handful of lessons under his belt. It was a glorious moment when we all worked thru our anxieties and finally got out of the haus and on the road.

It was the first time since the drive to school 2 weeks earlier that my husband was in the car with us. We had a lot of laughs telling him about our drives to school, the numerous times we have  gotten lost, our frequent screaching to a halt for pedestrians that dart into the middle of the street, and the crazy drivers. He finally got to see the routes we take and how well we are managing now.  My husband was quite impressed with my greatly improved driving skills, I must add. 

The picture above was taken as we were approaching the mountain. It was so beautiful to see the sun rising and glowing off the mountain. It was just glorious and exciting....and I tried not to get dizzy realizing we were actually going to be skiing somewhere up there....

We arrived at the mountain, and parked at the base near the train station. We saw on the website that we would have to take a Cable Car/Gondola- thing to the ski base. We had no idea how to work all this, lugging the equipment, managing the kids, the crowds, all the signs and instructions being in German, buying tickets, ascending these tall steep stairs to the Cable Car. We were so surprised by how high up this Cable Car would ascend; it was quite intimidating. These mountains are truly unlike anything I'd ever seen before... Massive is an understatement. I kept reminding myself that this is the "beginner mountain," everyone learns to ski here, so we'll manage too.

 To give you an appreciation of the elevation of the mountain, Vernon Valley's summit is 1480 ft, and Wisconsin's Cascade summit is 820 feet. The Elevation of Flumserberg is  7290 ft. and Vertical Drop. 2697 ft. It's a looonngg way down:

Here's the view from the Cable Car.There are some villages at the base of the mountain, by the lake, and somewhere down there, about the size of a dot, is our car.  These evergreen trees are massive, but appear so small from our height. The upper right shows part of Walensee (Lake). If this Cable Car ride had been a ride at Disneyworld, I am not sure I would have ridden it! We were wondering how the engineers managed to design and build this amazing, sturdy system all the way up this mountain. The ride took about 15-20 minutes. Thankfully, it all worked out smoothly and it certainly affirmed our confidence in the precise Swiss Engineering.

We met up with the ski instructors and dropped off the kids for their 2 hour lessons. The boys liked their instructor and are SO glad they took the lessons. They learned a lot, and also learned how inexperienced they are at snowboarding ! K had a tougher time. I am very glad we put her in the childrens ski school. She was clearly the oldest ....probably oldest ever in a kids klub lesson as these Swiss start their kids YOUNG.( I am  not kidding when I tell you I saw a baby skier with a pacifier in his mouth.)

I'm glad that this is how she started, because the lessons went very slowly, and just worked on the basics....walking, balancing, going down a slight decline, getting up from falling. As basic as it was, it was still very frustrating for her, realizing how difficult learning to ski can be.  Her next lessons will be individual private lessons so she can begin to ski.

The boys:

After the lessons, we sat at a nice lodge restaurant and had a nice meal. The kids ordered chicken and pommes frites (french fries), Jason had a Hawaiian Toast (ham & cheese - yummy), and I  had a cup of Hungarian Goulash (beef stew). We treated ourselves to Coke Light and Sprite ! The kids told us about their lessons - the boys dissin' each other about who was worse, and K, having recovered from the trauma/drama of her lesson, agreed to proceed with private lessons....with her dad :)

Some other sights I noted:

* Dogs - I need to write a separate blog about the dogs in Switz. People bring them everywhere. I dont think there is any place you can not bring your dog. I saw one at the ski mountain (no pic), on the public trains, in RESTAURANTS!. The dogs are so well behaved here - I recall only hearing one dog bark. Its amazing!

* Babies skiing - seriously 3 yrs old. As I said, one kid had a pacifier in his mouth.

* parent holding a baby while teaching older children to ski

Then we headed to the cable car, amazed again at the view down the mountain. We enjoyed the drive home, and are looking forward to our next ski outing.