CRASHING THE SUMMIT

Reading Time: 11 minutes

See Ski Canada Readers’ Trips for this winter!

Searching for Ski Canada’s next readers’ trip destination, and maybe a new world order, co-conspirators Nigel and Iain infiltrate Davos.

NIGEL “Down there?” MacMillan quavered.

Slightly wan and unusually quiet, he peered over the small cornice and beyond into the massive bowl on the backside of Jakobshorn above the lively mountain sports town of Davos. As MacMillan’s gaze wandered over the serried ranks of the GraubÜnden Region’s peaks, I could see him wondering if this postcard view might be the last he ever got to enjoy. I tried to be encouraging, and comforting too: “Look, if it does slide, which it probably won’t, at least you’ll have this stunning view burned into your retinas”.

I began to feel sorry for him but the sensation quickly passed. After all, normally it’s him excitedly saying, “Harrison! I have a great idea! You should ski down there, and skin back up, while I stand here [safely] and take photos.”

The tables had turned for the little man who sometimes signs hotel registers “Blofeld.” It felt good.

With a grunted “Well, alrighty then,” (yes, he does look a bit like Ned Flanders) MacMillan rolled over the cornice and into the bowl, turning to the fall line above one of several spines, sharply illuminated by the low-angle winter sun. 

My feelings of smugness turned quickly to envy, as through my iPhone’s screen I watched him ski the crest of the spine in what was obviously run-of-the-season snow. To make matters worse, I could hear him singing some ’80s new wave dance number. It wasn’t just his best run of the season, it was very possibly the best run anyone would have, anywhere. Damn. I had played my cards all wrong.

Before I’d even put the phone away, MacMillan was ordering a beer, because we were, once again, in Switzerland, a place where one may ski dreamy, untouched spines inside a massive ski domain, accessed by a 10-minute skin from the top lift, and where far, far below sits a farm with a bar and little dining room.  Envy aside, it was very, very good to be back in Switzerland.

IAIN Just to set the record straight, I’ve never “quavered” in my life. And it wasn’t a 10-minute skin to my starting point, it was more like 30. The thing about iPhone photography is everything is time-stamped, including the series of photos of Nigel’s arse, taken as I skinned behind him, while he followed a nice Swiss couple, about a third of my age.

It’s true, the spine I ski-modelled on was my best run of the season. But, between thoughts wondering if the whole bowl would slide, I had to remind myself that it was a run for the lens and every vertical metre I dropped would require a hoof to get back to the skin track where the now-envious Nigel stood waiting to continue to our snack at the summit.

Harrison’s memory is feeble. We were a long way from beer o’clock. But yes, we were rewarded much later in the afternoon when we stumbled upon the lovely Farm Teufi in the valley below the barren backside of Jakobshorn that now had two sets of tracks. After repeatedly finding face after face of old but untouched powder, a footbridge helped us cross a stream in the valley floor to reach Teufi, where our hunger and thirst led us to the family’s small but full dining room. We were joined by a pigtailed and bubbly new friend Heidi from Berlin who’d hiked up from Davos. 

The farm’s delightfully lost-in-translation menu provided comic gastronomy:

“Enjoy a fine sausage on request with homemade enclosures,” Harrison read to me like he was quoting Shakespeare. “A Pair of Wieners!” he continued, now with tears

in his eyes. “I think the farmer’s wife is talking about us!” I settled on “The Fitness Dish, served with a rich choice of salads and a nice piece of meet.” Our lovely late lunch and conversation continued into après before we caught the Post Bus home to Davos Platz.

In the spirit of rambling backward, we’d started our day at the posh Hotel Grischa in Davos Platz, where, incidentally,  the January 2024 Ski Canada Readers Trip will be headquartered. The Grischa lies directly across the street from the Jakobshorn cable car as well as the train station that whisks skiers off each morning to a choice of ski stations: Davos Dorf-Klosters-Madras, Pischa, and Rinerhorn.

With only three days in Destination Davos, we were challenged to sample the skiing, dining and town distractions, of which there are many. As well, Nigel needed time to track down Charles and Camilla in Klosters. Again this year, Ski Canada’s invitation to the World Economic Forum had been lost in the mail so we arrived a   few days after heads of state and their finance ministers had split town, leaving us offering to strangers on chairlifts our opinions on geopolitics, globalization, economic growth and the best waxes for cool, dry snow.

NIGEL Another dinner, another potato. And more cheese. In Switzerland, in winter, it isn’t easy being a vegetarian, but I never get bored of potatoes, or cheese. As MacMillionaire tucked into his cruelty-free veal I contemplated our morning: a delightful breakfast müesli, a quick cable car ride, 30 minutes of skinning—which would have been 10 if MacMillan didn’t have to stop every 50 metres to select new dance beats—two laps of dreamy powder and, finally, 1,200 metres of perfection back down to the masses. Followed by potato, cheese, and beer. Life simply does not get much better than this. 

We decided to head home and begin the digestive process. We slept. I got up. MacMillan, the king, had already risen and was puttering about.

“Ah. Serf’s up!” he said, laughing again at his joke, which as usual was my joke, culturally appropriated. I wandered into the breakfast room looking for a table for one. 

What, I wondered, would today bring, apart from cheese? What it brought was Andreas, from the Davos-Klosters tourist office.

“Today, for you, a nice surprise!” said Andreas. 

A potato? More cheese? I was thinking.

“Today,” he continued, “you go ski touring with Thomas from the ski school.”

“No potatoes, then?”

Andreas looked surprised: “Amazing! How did you know? You will end your ski-tour at Restaurant Pension Parsenn in Conters im Prättigau [as opposed to the other three Parsenn restaurants in and around Davos] home of the best rösti in Switzerland.”

“This will be our carriage,” said ski instructor Thomas an hour later. He stepped onto the train that carries happy skiers to the white slopes of the north side of the Davos valley. 

Looking up, I was thinking that nothing about the place was disappointing. Every angle and aspect was available, from sunny corduroyed groomers to barely tracked snow beyond, just a short skin away. Yet, as ever, everyone who was skinning was dutifully following a single-tracked line to a distant col. So Swiss.

“Why not over there?” asked a kingly MacMillan, pointing the opposite direction to Thomas’s instructions. “That looks like a fun place to make Harrison do a turn.” 

It wasn’t an awful place to turn, but it wasn’t exactly heaven either: a shoulder of snow, with a cornice lining the lip and a big unsupported roll below, just waiting for the weight of that cornice to land and trigger a full-depth slide on its grassy base.

“Hmmm,” said Thomas. I waited for the kibosh but it never came. “Yah, looks good! Let’s go,” he said, going.

And you know, those were some nice turns. The cornice didn’t collapse, the slope didn’t slide, and it wasn’t as steep as it looked. For a passing moment, I felt what may have been gratitude to MacMillan for setting me up with a nice turn, for once. Was it possible our relationship was mutating into one of mutual cooperation? Is this what Davos does to a man?

On the other hand, if “Well, at least I’m not dead” is what you’re thinking at the bottom of a run, clearly your bar for awesome is not that high.

And the rösti? World class. A few more days and I’d be able to use the new-mom parking spaces.

IAIN Klosters (pronounced Close-ters, by German speakers anyway) is connected to Davos Dorf by lifts and train and has long been the ski holiday choice of the British monarchy and their throngs of blue blood latch-ons who ski, or at least pose, like Harrison, whom I’d taken to calling “Count Harrison, Umpteenth Lord of Buggerallshire.” Indeed, it was under the Gotschnagrat cable car that rises from the posh village of Klosters where, in 1988, Prince Charles lost his long-time bff Hugh Lindsay in an avalanche. (See season 4, episode 9, The Crown.) “Ghastly” is how Princess Di later described it in her tell-all book, according to Harrison who reads celebrity mémoires.

But as far as skier ability is concerned, I say, “Huzzah! Kudos to the King.” Despite his predilection for big-shouldered onesies, if the Gotschnagrat terrain is the level of off-piste slope he is used to, then he is no poseur on skis. King Charlie likes the steeps. 

Now, where were we? Back to my critiquing of Nigel’s writing. Our day of off-piste with Thomas was typical of skiing in Europe: magnificent scenery, gloriously sunny but cool enough to keep the snow wintery, yet mild enough to be down to a baselayer on the skin track. Until our second late lunch, we only saw two people the entire day, a mountain guide and his charge who, in tight white pants and a fur-trimmed, shiny, lamé jacket, left us feeling underdressed. 

Our day’s mission: ski, photograph skiing and ski more. Thomas’ mission: lunch.

We had started the day high above Davos Dorf at Weissfluhgipfel (if I didn’t spell that right, who’s to notice?) at 2,844m. Thanks to our guide’s compass that pointed only to Restaurant Parsenn in the wee, middle-of-nowhere hamlet of Conters im Prättigau, at 1,110m, we managed another memorable day that’s only possible in the Alps. Nigel, the only vegetarian I know who doesn’t like vegetables, pulled up an extra seat for his rösti.

NIGEL A knock on the door that evening  turned out not to be the transport police as I first feared, but Andreas again, wanting us to join Charlotte and Adam, a pair of attractive young “influencers” from Britain, to watch a game of ice hockey.  My evening was really getting very Canadian. What next? A smokie? A plaid shirt? A Ski-Doo?

But, goodness me, isn’t ice hockey noisy? A small band of seemingly right-wing extremists played the drums the entire match, and all the while grown men would rush onto “the ice” as I now know it is called, and dash around to beat each other over the head with sticks while several thousand of us in the impressive, wood-beamed Vaillant Arena cheered on. So quaint. I was even able to buy chips with cheese on them, and wash it all down with a dry sauvignon. Another cultural experience under my ever-expanding, wine-and-cheese-filled belt. Who says we Yorkshiremen are not inquisitive?

Of course, after ice hockey, one must go for après ice hockey. Our Davos colleagues walked us down the street, telling us immodestly about each fine-dining establishment. And to be fair, Davos has a great deal to be immodest about: from tapas to Sichuan, from Japanese to steak, the town caters to every palate at every possible price. Can’t afford Wagyu beef? Go to the casual sushi bar next door instead. Quality is ubiquitous, price point is determined by level of service.

And the same may be said of the vacation experience. In Davos, a family can ski for a week without having to sell its home. You can stay in a friendly, bright, well-maintained two-star and have the same day-to-day ski experience as the banker staying in a classic hotel. The two spots might be situated right next door to one other, with a delightfully historic hostel a few steps beyond. What separates them is comfort, not quality. Want a butler, art deco decor and a palatial suite? Go five-star. A friendly hello and a clean bunk room with a pot of coffee and a shower? That’s available too. 

…everyone who was skinning was dutifully following a single-tracked line to a distant col. So Swiss.

IAIN One can immediately spot a new Canadian when he says “ice hockey.” Is there any other kind? 

I’ve always considered hockey to simply be a distraction to skiing. Yet, here I was, experiencing Hockey Night in Davos with three Brits at their first-ever hockey game. With me explaining rules and nuances of the sport. 

“I wasn’t aware you could score a try or a conversion in hockey,” Harrison said suspiciously. “The scrum half on the Biel team was so big!” said Charlotte between sips from a fourth glass of wine. Shaking his head, her boyfriend Adam corrected her. “He wasn’t scrum half, silly! Remember what Iain said? He was the bowler.” Andreas remained silent as I changed the subject with a history question.

Winter tourism began in Davos as a place of healing 150 years ago but winter sports were soon introduced into the rehab programs. The first pair of skis arrived from Norway in 1883 and only two years later, local boy Franz Heierling made his first ski boot. As a child with annoying leather lace-up ski boots in the ’60s, I remember being envious of my mum’s Heierlings, she was the first in our family to ski in a pair of buckle boots. Four generations later, Heierling of Davos is still in business but concentrating much more sensibly on sports orthopaedics and boot fitting. 

Throughout Hockey Night in Davos, it was refreshing to experience this genuine multi-sport town that has real people living and working, going to school and participating in all sorts of winter sports, and not all related to a ski lift company. 

Unobserved by Harrison who had fallen asleep with an empty bottle tucked under his arm, the similarities of Swiss and Canadian hockey fans was spooky. And just outside, a hectare of natural ice was home to decades of speed-skating history. And curling. Beyond that lay the meticulously groomed cross-country ski trails, snowshoeing paths, sledging runs…

NIGEL After hours spent adding the words kingly, regal and tall to every description of himself in my first draft of this story, MacMillan fell unusually, suspiciously quiet in the hotel the night before flying home to Canada. His jewellers’ monocle was clamped firmly in the baggy folds of the larger of his two eyes.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Shhhhhh!” He sent a flat palm in my direction. A pause. “I’m…working…on…my…boarding…pass.”

Not wanting to know, but at the same time really, really wanting to know, I made what I have come to learn is a very Canadian noise: “Eh?”

“It’s brilliant,” he muttered, concentrating. “One simply copies this letter here and replaces it with this pre-made code, here, make a few changes to words (replace ‘Toronto’ with ‘Istanbul’ for example) and, presto! Plus, now I can turn left at the curtain.” (That would be business class for the rest of us.)

Accepting my role in life—that of travelling with a teenager trapped in the body of a 62-year-old dwarf—I rolled my eyes, closed the door, and returned to the bar. What adventures, I wondered, would tomorrow bring?