This weekend's weather in Zurich was once again glorious. The sun was shining on the backdrop of a storybook blue sky. The temperature was perhaps 50degrees F. The kids had playdates again all day on Saturday, and I had a friend stop by and we enjoyed some tea. It was a lovely day. With the great weather, we decided to enjoy the great outdoors, but to skip skiing on Sunday and, instead, have an adventure, sledding ("sledging" as the Europeans say) at Mount Rigi.
In late fall, J had a 10 day trip to Z, and on the weekend he & his buddy went to Rigi. Rigi is a mountain in Central Switz, and is known as the "Queen of the Mountains." The highest peak is the Rigi-Kulm at 5900 feet. It is accessible by train, and offers skiing/snowboarding, snowshoeing trails, "airboarding"(? we think it is extreme sledding, but are not sure), parasailing, and "sledging". When J went in late fall, there was no snow, so the hills were beautiful, green, and harmless. He & his buddy took the train up the mountain and hiked down, stopping at the multitude of local traditional restaurants, eating fondue, sampling the various biers like a couple of carefree college kids.
J planned out our trip to Rigi and it sounded delightful and wholesome....sledging on the Swiss Mountain. We awoke at 7:30, and started our day with a big breakfast. I cooked some eggs, and without the delightful Pillsbury dough boy's help, I baked some "quick Cinnamon rolls" (pizza dough with some cinnamon + the highly coveted imported brown sugar that I brought from the US- not sold in Switzerland).
We gathered our snow gear, and left the haus to get on the road at 8:30. We took a bus and series of trains to get to Goldau, a charming looking town at the base of Rigi. There were loads of skiiers and winter sports enthusiasts on the early trains with us....and such a diverse crowd. There were little old ladies, families with young kids, teenagers smooching, and one guy who I am certain was a pirate. He was an older, burly man, with his arms folded across his ample belly, a black 'do rag on his head, and a silver hoop earring. I couldn't see his complete body from my seat, but I am sure it was littered with tattoos, and his snowpants obscured his wooden peg leg, and behind that cocky grin surely was a gold tooth or two. What really impressed me, besides the skiing pirate, was the VERY SENIOR citizens. Even little old ladies and men who can't walk too steadily head up to the mountains and find enjoyment... basking in the sunshine, or thru walking, snowshoeing, or skiing, or sitting at the restaurants.
At one train change, we caught a glimpse of the "restaurant car" of the train. I didn't even know that these still existed. We could see the basket of croissants in the window as a couple were eating their breakfast. It was so neat. T asked me several times when would we be able to go to a restaurant car. I replied, several times, perhaps when we go on a long train ride, overnight, we could use the restaurant car.
So, we changed at Goldau for the special train that would climb the Rigi in approx 30 minutes. There are two train lines that go up two different sides of the mountain, the blue line and the red line. We headed up the blue line,which makes a few stops along the way to various villages that offer equipment rentals, restaurants, and trails. We watched the wonderous changing view as the train chugged up the mountain. We saw the little village disappear and change to green farmland, to steep snowy forests with deep ravines. We saw a radio tower on the top of the mountain and could hardly believe we would soon stand "way up there!" Wow ! The journey offered spectacular views. The train finally reached the summit and we disembarked. We then walked a bit to get to the actual summit, to the radio tower, and we marveled at the sight. Of course, a little camera cannot accurately capture what the eyes do. When you see it live, you can see, all at once, the panoramic never ending view of the vast mountains, the little villages below, Lake Lucerne and Lake Zug, and the farms, the hot air balloons floating in the sky, the skiiers who look like specs restaurants nestled on the mountainsides, Swiss flags blowing in the breeze, sightseers snapping pictures, ski lifts running up and down, the dizzying view down the mountain, and the seemingly tiny train climbing upward. It is amazing!
So, like good tourists, we marveled at the view, snapped some pictures, and then prepared for sledging. We ate a little snack, and added an extra layer of snowpants, gloves, hats, helmets, and we were good to go. We walked down the mountain on a trail, which offered a bit of foreshadowing for the rest of the day. The bright sun was melting the snow on the well packed trails, but the cold air was causing it to be quite icy. Walking down the trail was tough...After a few slips and slide, most of us walked along the snowy side of the path for to be able to get a grip, but K chose to slide her way down, eating snow along the way.
We took notice of the sledges. Wooden sledges, like America used until the '70s when China convinced us everything made of cheap plastic is better, is the preferred vehicle. When I looked at them I thought that they were so quaint....that we are here at a Swiss ski mountain and they are going to give us the full quaint, charming, old fashioned experience. These are just simple wooden design, not changed for hundreds of years, except that they have a bit of padding. There's no steering, no brakes, nowhere to store your cell phone, cooler, or video camera....just an innocent, tried and true, old fashioned harmless sledge.
We stopped at the rental shop, rented three sledges and teamed up: K&me, J&T, and A by himself...poor thing. The sledging trail was 4 miles down the mountain, but had a few stops along the way. We scooted our way to the sledging trail, and watched others slide down. There didn't seem to be any trick to it - you just lift your legs and slide. Hmmmm....we noticed lots of people scraping their legs thru the snow as brakes. All the Swiss seemed to be laughing there heads off, and having a delightful experience.
With our arms wrapped around our partner kids' waist, we lifted our feet and slid, OH MY how we slid ! Is there a greater word than slid? "Slid" compares to our experience as "skipping stones" compares to "avalanche." I quickly discovered it was treacherous. The trail was icy at parts, so there was no where to dig my heels in to slow down, no steering, and as hard as I would try to lean to one side, it didn't seem to go in the direction I needed it to, instead, it just felt as if the sled was sliding out beneath me. The trail runs alongside the cliff and it would be very easy to just slide off. I was very conscientious of the edge and constantly trying to stay away, but we were sliding very fast, and there was no steering. How do these Swiss manage this? This is fun? This is recreation? This just seemed a bit terrifying to me. When it was good, it was good, when it was great, it was crazy dangerous. I was very grateful for the padding of our clothes and for our helmets.
There were a few areas that were really just insanely dangerous. At one point, I could see we were heading down a sleep decline, in the shade, thus icy, and there was a sharp turn. I spotted J& T ahead of us, laying on the ground. I realized I couldnt stop, couldnt even slow down - it was so icy, I was afraid we would careen into J& T, and there was no way we could safely avoid them and make the sharp turn. Working on instinct and adrenaline, I had to make a fast decision, so with my arms around K, I held her tightly and leaned to the right and threw us off the sled. We had a hard landing, the sled continued to crash near J&T, but we were all laying there scratching our heads. Then I looked and saw A sprawled as well. We were dumbfounded and amused at how challenging this was. Then we looked at what was ahead...this turn lead to a similar crazy icy decline and turn, and yet another, so it was a steep decline/zig zag of pure treachery. After the second turn, K& I crashed badly, captured by A with the camera. This time we were getting a bit used to it and were laughing about it, so glad to not be hurt. We skidded, slid, and crashed our way a bit further until the trail leveled off at the end of the sledging trail at Kloisterli.
It was time for a break. Along this path, we passed a little church where it later occurred to me that this is where the sledging survivors drop to their knees and thank God for their survival. Then we approached a restaurant. The atmosphere was typical for these mountain restaurants - real traditional Swiss chalet style....just lovely.We left the sledges outside, and entered the restaurant. In addition to checking your ski coats, and helmets, there was shelving for your shoes. It makes perfect sense, right? Our kids are so good about trying new foods. We all try to order something and sort of share it...or share some tastes at least. A ordered spinach ravioli, but didnt care for the brandy sauce that we had added "to the side," K had Nudeln Napoli (spaghetti), T ordered Poulet Provincial which came with soup (Cream of Broccoli eaten by K), and J&I shared rich cheese fondue. The boys gave me the fancy veggies that came with their dishes. K doesn't care for cheese, so the boys shared in our fondue. It was a lovely meal....just wonderful. If you are curious about costs, lunch for 5 cost 116swiss francs, about $116.
With our batteries recharged, we were determined to tackle the sledging run again. We survived once, and now that we are older and wiser, its got to go more smoothly. We walked to the little Kloisterli "sports train" station, and ascended the mountain again. This time K&J were teamed, as were T&me and A was flying solo again. For the most part, it was smoother, and more fun....however, when we hit the zigzag icy decent, it was more chaotic. There was a pile up of people sprawled about the trail. T& I crashed off on purpose to once again avoid the danger. K&J & A were all off their sledges as well. T&I walked down the decent....actually, I just slid on my butt, but it was still treacherous, as it was sheer ice and I could not grip anything nor control my decent. T&I walked along the trail until level ground. Then we sledged a bit, and caught up to K&J who were having a sit down watching other people crash. A crashed into a snowy area, but when he got up and set up his sledge on the track, it slid out from underneath him - he jumped up and chased it. It was hilarious, seeing him try to catch the runaway sledge. It finally crashed into a ravine with pinetrees near a creek. Fortunately he managed to retrieve it before it fell in the creek. We all inched our way to Kloisterli, and bravely took the train back up the hill.
Third time's the charm, right? T&I decided to only run 2/3 of the trail, seeking to avoid the zigzag hell. We got off at Staffel, and sent the other 3 Swiss-daredevil-wannabes down the trail, and agreed to meet in Kloiserli at the train station. T&I took our sledge and hopped on the next train heading in the direction of Kloisterli....only it wasnt headed to Kloisterli. Remember how there was a red train and a blue train. The blue train goes down the Kloisterli route, and I erroneously placed us on the red. We went to the next stop, realized it was not Kloisterli, learned the next train back to Staffel comes in 30 minutes, so we walked back to the Staffel stop. UGH! It was 20 minutes, uphill, on the icy path, carrying the quaint wooden sledge, and poor T was whining, "I'm so tired....I need to rest." I was doing my best to encourage him...let's not prolong the misery...the sooner we get there, the sooner we can rest. It was exhausting, after an already-exhausting day. T rose to the occasion and we made it back, and eventually met up with J& the kids in Goldau for the train ride home.
The trip home was not without event, of course...J split from us to go into Zurich and meet up with a friend to pick up some Costco! items that she brought over for us. The trio and I left him in Zug and had to get on a train to Thalwil by ourselves, wearing snowpants, and boots, carrying 2 backpacks and a large Ikea bag filled with helmets and gloves. We had 3 minutes to run down the platform steps, and back up to the track for the Thalwil train. There was a big incentive to run fast, for if we missed it, the next train would arrive in one hour! We did great running up and down the steps, dodging the other snowboard carrying, sledge bearing Swiss, and maneuvered our way to the correct train. We got on with a minute to spare and walked thru the car, noticing something didn't look right. The seats were plush red, and there were lovely tables, and circular sofa seating. Ahhh....this must be the first class train, for which we do not have tickets. Eyes widened with this realization, the kids quickly followed me off and we jumped into the next car, just as the doors were closing. Whew ! As we began to look for seats, we realized that this one was also a first class car. The train was moving, and I examined the doors to lead the kids to the NEXT car...but I honestly could not figure out how to open the doors. I was afraid of doing something wrong and setting off alarms. Frankly, I was exhausted, exhausted by the day of death-defying sledging, weary of traveling, tired of being fearful of making mistakes, tired of the struggle. Screw it - "kids, let's just stay here and be extra-quiet." K was very worried and anxious about "getting caught." As I sat next to her, I held her and with the little energy I had left, explained to her that its ok to make mistakes if you accept the consequence. If and when the conductor comes around I will explain to him that I am new here (and have the paperwork to prove it), I don't speak German, I couldn't figure out how to open the doors, and if he has no mercy, then I have to pay a fine (the ususal fine is $80 x4 of us = $320) then so be it; I surrender. Fortunately, the conductor did not check tickets : ) I suspect that will be our first and last first class train car experience.
The next day, J & I both had interesting conversations with Europeans about sledging. Another parent at ZIS told me that her husband was terribly injured a month ago sledging and has only just recovered from his back injury. Also, several ZIS students had broken bones during a pile up during a school trip sledging trip last year. Yikes... Then J told a Swiss colleague about our sledging day and he told J that it is considered quite dangerous, and a couple people die each year at Rigi, generally from sledging without helmets...like J did.
In reflecting on the sledging experience, it appears that Swiss don't actually have the preoccupation with safety and liability the way America does. I think they engineer it right the first time, and then the responsibility is transfered to the user for their judgement and skill to ensure they are safe. If this had been the US, there would be a hold harmless agreement signed, zillion warnings posted, and 20 accident injury attorneys advertisments on the highway heading home.
A few years ago, J & I took the kids to a Fall festival in IL where there was a young man offering rides on his camel for a fee. We put the kids on the big "saddle" and I noticed the "saddle" had a railing only on one side. I asked if there was a strap or rail for the other side, to ensure the kids wouldn't fall off. He cocked his head to one side and looked at me like "duh," and replied, "We're from Wisconsin, we care about fun, not safety." So, J & I have this ongoing joke/signal...when things are a bit rustic, potentially dangerous/safety questionable, we refer to it as "Wisconsin-esque." I think we've devised a new term when things are definitely dangerous, but fun, we will refer to them as "Rigi-esque."
I am not sure when we will sledge again, but I am glad our experience ended safely. : )
You guys are really pushing the envelope...seriously...waiting for the Swiss Hospital Blog experience soon. BE CAREFUL - yikes!!!!!! Miss you - Kim
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