Day 10: Sledging in Grindelwald

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Early morning wake up call! On the road before 7:00 so we can get to Grindelwald and take on the world famous 15km toboggan run. Donna’s driving today, as Jon may or may not have gotten a photo radar ticket yesterday! After a 2 hour drive, we arrived in Grindelwald, another smallish ski town. We stopped at the visitor centre to figure out just how one goes about getting tickets for lifts and rentals and parking etc., only to be told that Big Fritz, the 15km run, is closed today due to avalanche risk. What??? We decide to make the best of things anyhow, seeing as there were still several trails that were open. Parked the car, rented ourselves some “sledges” and helmets, purchased transit passes for 2 different options, and boarded the train for the first one.

Glad we overdressed, because it was COLD at the top! We disembarked from the train at approximately 7,000 feet, and found our way to the toboggan path along with many others. Then we just stood there and stared at it. OK, this will probably be fun, but right now it looks pretty freaking scary! And how the heck do you steer these things anyhow? We let everyone else go first and then with no other excuse to stay, we got on those sleds and tried. And failed. And tried. And failed. The first hour was a mess of running into snow banks, purposely rolling so as not to go over a ledge, and going over ledges into steep banks and deep snow. And watching others go at it with ease…what are we missing? The only thing that seemed to work for steering and controlling speed was to have your feet on the ground instead of on the sled, and just digging in when necessary. All of a sudden our hiking shoes which we thought could surely double as snow boots were woefully inadequate. By the time we reached the halfway point about 1.5 hours after we started, we were tired and caked in snow. We stopped at a small restaurant there for some lunch and to thaw out, and while the schnitzel was great, the overall idea of stopping may not have been, as it gave the snow a chance to thaw, and our feet to become giant pools of water, which was particularly comfortable for the rest of the day!

After lunch, we started down the second half of the hill, making considerably better time than the top half. We even opted for the “steep” option instead of the “easy” when the trail split in two, which may account for the speed at which the second half was completed! (And who knew that toboggan runs could have moguls?) At the bottom, we caught a train to the other mountain and took a cable car up to the top. On the way, we happened to meet a couple from Connecticut that were also out sledging and exchanged sledging stories.

We headed for the start of the run, and this time we didn’t need to wait for everyone else to go. Where before we had stopped at nearly every corner to make sure the other person was still alive, we now went for it, even passing people, going faster and faster, taking the moguls in stride. Jon was unstoppable and Donna couldn’t seem to keep up. At every corner, she looked for him, expecting him to be stopped and waiting for her to catch up, but again and again he was not. Finally she began to wonder what the heck was going on. It wasn’t like Jon to go for so long and not make sure that Donna was still with him. She stopped, thinking maybe she had gotten ahead of him somehow. After waiting for a little bit, she decided to continue on down the hill. Either he took a wrong turn, in which case finding him would be difficult, or he is still ahead. So down she continued, all the while watching out for him, until she got to the bottom and walked to the cable car (seeing as Jon had made her promise they could go back up for another run!).

Meanwhile, Jon HAD taken a wrong turn, right onto a ski hill that was much steeper, with much less powder, way more ice, and way more skiers in the way! He quickly made a decision to bail off the sled, but he was unable to grab onto the sled, and it continued on down the hill without him for several hundred feet until a nice skier hooked onto it with his ski pole to stop it. A calamity of errors ensued. Jon played in the snow, cursed, walked uphill, and then went on a manhunt for his wife, showing her picture to everyone he met. “Have you seen this woman?” After losing each other a couple days ago, Donna had told him “I will not leave the attraction without you” and these words echoed in his mind as he searched. But what exactly entailed “the attraction” when one was on a ski hill? That section of the hill? That particular run? Would she be by the cable car? By the actual car? Standing shivering on a ski hill just waiting for him to find her? So many options, what should he do? Finally, with no luck searching, he decided to just go back to the bottom of the hill and hope that she was there…and she was. But by that point, darkness was fast approaching and another run up the hill no longer possible. Glad to have found each other after being separated for nearly two hours, it no longer mattered. Our first priority – get rid of these damned toboggans that seem to be getting heavier and heavier. Next? Find Jon some cheap shoes, seeing as he only brought one pair with on this part of the trip and based on how soaked both of our shoes were, it would be days before they were dry again. Got back to the car and rid ourselves of wet pants, socks, and shoes before continuing on our journey.

We drove another 2 hours to Täsch, just outside of Zermatt, home of the famous Matterhorn. On the way, we had a new experience riding a “car train”, which loaded cars onto a train like a ferry and transported them to another stop (couldn’t tell why it was necessary as it was dark!). In Täsch we checked into our “Fawlty Towers” hotel and made arrangements to park our car there for an extra day courtesy of Sybil while Basil played the accordion in the background. You may think we’re kidding here. We’re not. After a nice HOT shower, we found ourselves a pizzeria and had some dinner.

Tomorrow can’t be THIS eventful, right? No complaints however. Even with all the madness, today was a sensational day, and “sledging” is awesome. Plus we had some killer views of the Alps up there.

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Photos

We will GRINDELWALD you
Poster in the rental shop

Donna on the cable car
AKA the photo Jon showed to dozens of people when he began the manhunt for Donna