Extreme Sledding

My day today started about about 5:30am. Okay, 5:45. Maybe 5:50. We all know how much I hate getting out of bed. I am just not a morning person. I never will be.

So, why did I get up at 5:45? (Okay, okay, 5:50.) I was lucky enough to spend the majority of today in the middle of some Swiss Alps. Today was the Skitag (ski day) for the Oberstufe (6-9 grades), and we were all meeting up at 6:45 to leave for the ski resort. The mountain we were to spend the day on is located in Lenzerheide, in the canton of Graubünden, which was about 2-ish hours by bus (coach bus, not city bus) from Winterthur.

As we got closer to our destination, we began to see mountains zig-zagging the skyline and mountains surrounding us as we drove. Well, they were mountains to my American eyes. According to my Swiss friend, what I was calling a mountain was just a really big hill. If it has trees up to the top, it's just a hill. My mountainless Michigan brain can't really comprehend how that isn't a mountain, too ;-)

We snaked up the mountain and piled out of the buses and inside to rent sleds, if needed. Many students brought skis or a snowboard and some brought their own sleds. I was assigned to the sledding part to keep an eye on the students, and of course, participate in the fun as well. (I did not ski or snowboard, because I have never tried either before and am not too keen on learning it in front of all the students :-P) If you've got an American brain, particularly a mountainless Michigan brain, then you might think "oh boy, sledding for five hours sounds not so fun." But you are wrong. Sledding American-style for five hours would be not so fun, but sledding Swiss-style for so long is an adventure.

First, the sleds. This is what I grew up with:

Ahh, classic!

But this is what the Swiss use:

You sit on the sled with your legs stretched out on the sides and steer by digging the heels of your feet into the snow (and leaning/pulling on the rope attached to the front helps a little bit too).

In the US, this is similar to what my sledding area looked like:

5 hours of this would be boring

But in Switzerland, the sledding looks like this:

minus the dog...

If you're thinking "that looks like a track" then you would be right. It's a special track for sledding that goes down the mountain. So, we had to take a cable car up to one part of the mountain, where we then followed the track down on our sleds (or skis/snowboard if that's the sport you chose, although the skiers/snowboarders were on a different track.)

to see this better, go here: http://www.ep-reisen.de/sites/default/files/lenzerheide_ostseite.jpg

On this map, you can see the Gondelbahn, which are the cable cars. The yellow-green-dotted track (in the middle) is the sledding track, with a couple of sharp lefts and sharp rights and a few very steep parts. It was very fun and I was only crashed into by another sledder once (no injuries for either of us).

After lunch, I took the next cable car (labeled "Rothornbahn 2. Sektion) to the peak of the Rothorn mountain, and wow, what a view. I felt like I'd jumped into the middle of a painting. It was one of the most beautiful and coolest (no pun intended) things ever. In the far distance, I could even see mountains that were over the border into Austria. Don't worry, I took the cable car back down--there's no way I would ever think about sledding down from the peak of that mountain, although many people were skiing down from there.

Anyway, talk about stunning. Absolutely breathtaking views in every possible direction. Since this trip was a trip of sport, I did not bring my camera along, for fear of breaking it! As soon as we got there--actually, as soon as I started seeing the mountains (ahem, hills)--I wished I'd had it with me. Next time, though, I promise. Whenever I forget my camera, 3x5 by John Mayer always pops into my head. Always. So, if you ever make it to Switzerland, dear reader, then I will gladly show you the fantastic mountain views and take you sledding down a mountain or two.