Part 3
“Although Leysin is a resort for invalids for whom all violent exercise is forbidden, yet it should not be forgotten that out of these 4000 winter residents there are at least 1000 onetime patients who have been completely cured, and who return year after year to the slopes that gave them back their health. This explains a seeming paradox—the immense enthusiasm for winter sport and the number of sensational victories that stand to the credit of Leysin’s sportsmen. By reason of its altitude (1450 metres) and its unique position sheltered from the winds, Leysin is assured of good snow everywhere, excellent ‘runs’, and smooth ice on its rinks. All sports are popular—Bobsleighing, Tobogganing, Ski-ing, Skating, Hockey, Clay-pigeon Shooting, and Rifle Shooting; and all is directed by the _Sporting Club de Leysin_, one of the most important of its kind in Switzerland. The club was formed ten years ago (1903), at an epoch when engineered runs were unknown and sportsmen and sportswomen were content with the homely, modest _luge_. Davos had only begun to know the bobsleigh in 1902, and Leysin, not wishing to be behindhand, joined two _luges_ together with a board, and thus was _à la mode_. The success of this contrivance, rushing down the slopes, spreading consternation and terror among oldfashioned _lugeurs_, and beating all records for speed, was immediate and enormous. The example of this pioneer bob was quickly followed, and then it was that the Sporting Club offered its first Challenge Cup, and soon began to carry off cups from rival centres. Its list of victories is indeed significant of its members’ prowess. For instance, at Davos, in 1904, the _Coupe de France_ was won by the bob _La France_ (Captain Bonford), and the same year the same Leysin captain won the championship of Vaud and also the championship of the Vaudois Alps. This latter championship was won again a few years later by the bob _Russie_ (M. Coussis). In 1910 M. Renaud de la Fregeolière, on his bob _Jeanne d’Arc_, carried off the _Coupe du Président de la République_, creating a record that has not yet been beaten; and the same bob won the _Coupe du Mont Blanc_ at Chamonix. In 1913, with M. Coussis at the steering wheel and M. Ewald at the brake, the bob _Russie_ won the Challenge Cup of the _Association Suisse Romande des Clubs de Bobsleigh_ against fifty competitors. Leysin, indeed, is in the front rank of bobsleigh racing, and the club actually offers, besides innumerable lesser prizes, six Challenge Cups for this one form of sport: The _Coupe de Leysin_, _Coupe Hansmann_, _Coupe Handicap Garlakass_, _Coupe du Sporting Club de Leysin_, _Coupe Régionale_, and _Coupe de l’Association Suisse Romande_.
“But if bobsleighing takes the lead at Leysin, the other sports are not by any means neglected. The hockey team is a strong one, and in 1910-11 Leysin was the scene of the first round in the tournament for the Swiss National Championship, and will be the scene of the second round in the tournament for 1913-4. The Captain of the Swiss National team, M. Bernard Bossi, was for two years President of the S. C. L., and no fewer than three Leysin players were in the International Hockey Tournament at Chamonix in 1913. Ski-ing is not, perhaps, in such high favour as at Villars and Morgins, yet it has no lack of devotees, for whom there are gymkhanas as well as two running competitions carrying two Challenge Cups. There are, too, gymkhanas and carnivals for skaters, and in the long list of prizes in this section are a Challenge Cup for racing and another for figure skating. Nor is the modest _lugeur_ forgotten in these contests; and, in this regard, one day is set apart especially for the villagers.[16] And over and above all this activity are the shooting matches, pigeon shooting, or ball-trap being particularly popular here in winter, attracting some of the finest shots in Switzerland. Rifle shooting, also, is admirably installed, and meets with keen support, the winners in the numerous competitions receiving gold, silver, and bronze medals.
“To say that apart from the Challenge Cups already mentioned, there are seventy other cups to be won, is to say that Leysin flourishes remarkably in the realm of winter pastimes.
“L. A. EMERY “President of the S. C. L.”
Looking across the Rhone valley to the Dent du Midi, a rift in the hills can be seen through the blue haze: that is the Val d’Illiez, whither we must now turn our steps in order to gain Morgins and Champéry, tucked cosily away almost upon the frontier of Savoy. As we leave the sunny slopes of Leysin to take train for Aigle, there comes a striking demonstration of the healthful beneficence of snow when treated sanely. In the hot sunshine, upon the glistening snowfield, little children, boys and girls, wearing nothing but bathing-drawers, hat, and snowshoes, are ski-ing bravely, or are snowballing each other, boisterously happy in the stinging warmth of it all. They are the tiny patients of a doctor who is proving in miraculous fashion the health-giving power in Switzerland of what in England gives us the shivers and compels us to put on extra clothing. It is distinctly reminiscent of what snow can do for chilblains and frostbites—the glow of life that it imparts; but I must not be supposed to be advocating it as a general and pleasurable practice to be followed by all and sundry in the Alps in winter.
Once back at Aigle, we must take the little local railway that crosses the Rhone and lands us at the quiet market town of Monthey, in Valais, and at the foot of the Dent du Midi, whence an electric mountain railway will take us to Champéry. The fault about mountain railways connected with the railways of the plain is that you are apt to go right through to your destination, thus missing much that is of interest _en route_. This applies to Monthey; for all around this cigar-manufacturing _bourg_ there is much that really repays a halt. So halt we will.
Passing through the marketplace and crossing the old covered wooden bridge spanning the Vièze—a swift little river hurrying to join the Rhone, and whose source is in the mountains beyond Champéry—and following the road which rises straight in front of us across steep chestnut-shaded slopes, we come to the delightful hamlet of Choëx, the elegant white steeple of whose small white church is so prominent a landmark from Bex. In spring and early summer this quiet retreat, perched high among the rolling woods at the base of the Dent du Midi, and with its broad view across the Rhone valley to Villars, Leysin, the Tour d’Aï, and the Diablerets, is very charming. There is here, too, a wonderful wealth of flowers beneath the chestnut trees and in the woods and fields; indeed the neighbourhood of Monthey is quite as interesting in this respect as is the neighbourhood of Bex, and it can produce certain gems that are strangers on the other side of the valley. Not far from the road at _Fin du Bruit_ an ancient Druid’s altar has been discovered: great formidable rocks placed mysteriously as if on purpose, with an underground cavern beneath, containing, among other prehistoric objects, a stone coffin with a skeleton inside. Also in this subterranean chamber may be seen a crack that extends upwards in the rock to beneath the altar-rock above-ground, and some years ago I was told by the custodian that it was through this crack that the priests shouted up the messages of the gods to the assembled and trembling people. This may have been so, for it only follows the lines of the old Egyptian oracles; but unfortunately the tendency is to fake, or to supplement by the aid of plausible imagination, all that is authentic in such remains as these, particularly when a charge is made for viewing them. At any rate I believe I am right in saying that the stone-coffined skeleton, although genuinely prehistoric, was not discovered where it now lies, but in the quarries on the other side of Monthey. However, it is possible that the owner of this skeleton in life was one who worshipped in fear and trembling at this sacrificial altar; and it is a fascinating process to picture on these quiet, flowered slopes the quaking half-clad crowd, the human victim prone upon the great rock-slab, the white-bearded, white-robed priest with fanatic eye and gleaming knife upturned to the heavens—and all the awful ritual of those ancient heathen ceremonies.
And now we must push on to
MORGINS
Of course the orthodox way nowadays is to take the train to the village of Troistorrents and then to walk or drive to Morgins. Personally I prefer to walk from Monthey, as in days past, keeping to the old cobbled road as much as possible;[17] or, better still, mounting the woods and forest which rise immediately from the _Pierre des Marmettes_, and then crossing the high pastures leading eventually down upon Morgins. This latter route, although unusual, is preferable by far for those lovers of Nature who are eager to reap all they can from the delightful scenery. And then, all the time to the left, for nearly five miles, towers the glorious Dent du Midi with its seven peaks. I imagine that there is no more individual, graceful, and arresting mountain in the Alps of the whole wide world. Like the Matterhorn, it stands out, a living personality amid its neighbour mountains. As among the many and striking peaks at Zermatt the eye rests at once and all but always upon the Matterhorn, so among the many and striking peaks in this district of the Rhone valley does the eye immediately rest upon the Dent du Midi. One never tires of it. It is the first and the last upon which one gazes; it is the first and the last that one remembers afterwards throughout one’s days. Neither chocolate boxes nor picture postcards can dim its great appealing beauty. No _telephote_ contortion of its exquisite proportions, in conjunction with an over-small Castle of Chillon, can destroy its repute and fascination. Whether it be seen in all its breadth from Montreux, Champéry, or Lac Champex, or as a single peak from Bex or St. Maurice, it is unique, inimitable. No wonder that it was Javelle’s first absorbing love; no wonder that Juste Olivier and Eugène Rambert were moved to voice its mastering charms; no wonder that, before these other wielders of poetic pens, Senancour made his home at its feet and wrote rhapsodically of it in his famous _Obermann_.
We have arrived at Morgins; or, at least, we have it now before us, lying below the slopes we are descending—sheltered, secluded, rustic little Morgins, with its encircling hills, its dark pine forests and ruddy stream, its hotels and châlets embedded in green, and its quiet deep-green lake lying beside the Col de Morgins, whence a road winds over into Savoy, down the Valley of Abondance to Evian and Thonon on the shores of Lac Léman.[18] The red iron waters of Morgins have been long famous in fighting anæmia, and the quietude of the place itself is sought in summer by those suffering from overwork. But of late it has acquired a new fame, almost, if not quite, eclipsing the old: a fame that Mr Arnold Lunn, one of the best known and most intrepid of ski-ers in the Alps, has consented to explain: the fame of
MORGINS IN THE SNOW
“The Englishman has marked out a few corners of the Alps as being exclusively British. There are, however, neutral zones where Britons and Continentals meet, but the Englishman keeps in the main to certain well-known routes. You will find him at Zermatt, at Grindelwald, at Binn, and at Arolla. At Champex he will be outnumbered, and at Morgins he was, until quite recently, entirely unknown. It was the discovery of Morgins as a winter sports centre that brought the tardy Englishman to this retiring valley.
“Years ago I had looked across the waters of Léman to the range of fronting hills, and idly wondered whether some hidden and silent valley lurked among their recesses. Leslie Stephen’s “Bye Day in the Alps”, which I discovered in an old _Cornhill_—it was not reprinted in the “Playground of Europe”—gave form and personality to an outstanding sentinel of these Savoy hills, but it was some time before I explored for myself these outlying heights that guard the central citadels of the Alps. Since then I have often revisited the long defile that leads to Morgins.
“You reach Morgins by a curious little mountain railway that connects Monthey and Champéry. At Troistorrents you leave the train and prepare for a sleigh drive up the valley which branches off to the right. Troistorrents is a characteristic Alpine village. It lies in the heart of the Val d’Illiez, one of the loveliest of Alpine glens, which is still quite unspoiled. The big hotels of Champéry are hidden from view and there is nothing to disturb the quiet music of the three streams that meet below the parish church, and give to Troistorrents its name. Of course the chief glory of this valley is the incomparable Dent du Midi. This mountain, or rather this grouping of separate and successive rock towers, has a curious fascination; it is so distinctive. There are domes not unlike Mont Blanc, pyramids that resemble the Matterhorn, peaks very like the Weisshorn; but in the whole Alpine range you will find no match to the Dent du Midi. Its outline is unique. Its history is interesting, and considering its moderate height it has attracted a very large share of Alpine literature. Like so many mountains, it was first climbed by the parish priest of a neighbouring valley.[19] Its conquest occurred in 1784. Sixty years later five men of the Valais climbed the beautiful eastern peak that rises like a lion above the towers of Bex. The last turret, the Eperon, only yielded its secret as late as 1892.
“Those who have read Javelle’s delightful Alpine memoirs will remember the fascination which this peak influenced on the great climber. ‘I am completely captivated,’ he writes, ‘by the Dents du Midi … is there anything astonishing in it? For two years it has been before my eyes every moment of the day.[20] The eastward aspect of my window provided that the first image on which my waking eyes should rest was its graceful and slender profile. At table a malicious fate had chosen my place so well that between my two opposite companions the seven peaks of the _arête_ were visible to me in a frame. What I specially love is the eastern peak. She may not be the highest, but is she not the proudest, the slenderest, the most beautiful? Is it not the peak which gives the mountain all its character, and, in spite of the few metres by which her western sister overtops her, is it not she who first strikes the beholder and who dwells in the memory?’”
“Let us first dispose of the rough guidebook facts. Let me tell you that Morgins is 4800 feet above the sea level; that it enjoys more than its fair share of snow; that it is one of the great ski-ing centres of the Alps; and that the sun can find its way to the rink during the best part of the day, while it discreetly keeps off the northern ski-ing slopes save for a short interval too brief to damage the snow.
“Each winter sport centre has its own peculiar atmosphere. Life at Morgins is comparatively peaceful. We danced, of course; we played the usual absurd games—trundling the potato and so forth—but we were unmolested by a potato-trundling committee with a special and peculiar badge. We were not troubled by those who come to the winter Alps in order that they may bask in the sun. The men of Morgins were built of sterner stuff. Morgins will go down to history as the home of a great renaissance. The English School of Skaters, driven out of their old shrines, have founded a new Temple at Morgins. I do not know much about skating myself, though I believe I am the worst skater that ever passed the third-class test, but I am told by those who do that English skating reflects our national characteristics with most uncanny acuteness. I gather that the main difference between the two schools is ethical. The foreigner, when he wishes to make a ‘3’ turn, waves his arms, kicks his leg into the air, sways his body, and in general advertises his skill with no little success. The ladies stand round and applaud, while the English skater curls a contemptuous upper lip. Not for him the vulgar _réclame_. Body stiff, unemployed leg gummed firmly into his trousers, arms rigid … a twinkle of the shoulder blade … a slight movement of the little finger … and the hardest of ‘B’ turns is a thing of the discreetly successful past … no ladies stop and applaud … only the initiated can detect the amazing skill involved in this modest performance. The aim of the Continental school is to emphasize apparent difficulty. The ideal of the English school is to conceal difficulty. They skate for the joy of the thing, careless of applause. The strong silent reserve of the Briton that scorns vulgar advertisement finds perfect expression in the sedate, dignified curves of the English school … I hope I have made myself clear.
“But this is not an article on the rise and fall and subsequent renaissance of the chaste and refined school of skating. I must content myself with stating that Morgins is the winter home of the great apostle of the counter-reformation. Mr. Humphry Cobb pilots his novices into the true faith. Mr. Cobb and Rudolph Bauman between them could make ice at the Equator, and the rink at Morgins is all that devotion and genius can achieve. Ice making, as Bauman understands the craft, is one of the fine arts.
“But it is as a ski-ing centre that Morgins is famous. The classic expedition is, of course, the Porte du Soleil. A mighty host left for this pass the morning after my arrival. In the night it had rained at other centres which shall be nameless, but at Morgins, which is a well-behaved spot, it had snowed, and the old crust was covered with a beautiful dusting of fresh snow some two or three inches deep. It was a glorious day. The clouds, that so often drift up after rain, rested on the summits of the hills, and showed through casual openings the blue sky of an Alpine winter. We wandered slowly up a narrow valley, along a stream gagged with the covering of snowdrifts, between pines that had not yet shaken off the new load of snow. We soon branched off to the left, and marched up open slopes to a little châlet, where we had lunch. Here he who had carried the beer had an opportunity of testing the ratio of potential thirst as anticipated in the valley, when the rücksacks were being packed, with the actual thirst as exhibited on the mountain-side, when rücksacks were unloaded. After the customary pipe, and the still more customary remarks, such as ‘Who would believe that one could sit in the sun with one’s coat off in mid winter;’ or ‘Fancy the poor fellows grinding away in their city offices;’ or again, ‘Just think of the …’; after, in short, we had smoked all the tobacco that there was, drunk all the beer that there was, made all the quips that there were, ruptured all the infinitives that were still united, and exhausted every cliché dear to those who describe the Alps in winter—after all this (the proper ritual of a ski-ing lunch) we turned upwards once more and marched gaily forward to meet the pass. A long upward stretch brought us to the foot of the last slope, a few more tacks and the Dent du Midi shot out beyond the portals of the sun. At any time this view must be singularly beautiful; as we saw it the vision from the pass had a peculiar loveliness. Fleecy clouds driven up by the breeze, ‘shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind’, rested on the highest snows without materially restricting the view. The battlements of the Dent du Midi were free from haze, and the upper reaches of the Val d’Illiez, sadly brown, formed a satisfying contrast to the snowy slopes round Morgins. Poor Champéry! Scores of disconsolate exiles, thirsting for the real winter, deserted Champéry for Morgins during the course of the winter.
“Of the descent it is hard to speak with decent restraint. There are some two thousand feet leading direct from the pass to the glen. As we found them the snow was in perfect condition. One put one’s ski together and let gravity do the rest. You start off with a thousand feet of easy, gradual slopes, which you can take nearly straight. There is not a single difficulty to give one pause; it is all plain sailing, or rather plain ski-ing. Then comes a slight ascent, promptly followed by one of the best bits of running in the district. If you can take this stretch of some thousand feet without using your sticks or pulling up you are something of a runner. You begin with a gentle swoop down into a hollow, you swing round by a telemark or stemming turn, and then you have a wide choice of some good snow for the next lap. Follows a somewhat steep slope, which will give you a chance of putting in four sharp curves; swing round to the right, and then take the last stretch of a hundred feet straight, and wind up with a Christiania before the stream. The rest of the run home is not so good, but it affords some very excellent short bits and some pretty work through the woods.
“An alternative to this expedition is to cross the Porte du Soleil to Champéry. You start with a stiffish traverse, and then spin down some divine slopes to the Col de Coux, winding up with a run down an easy pass to Champéry. In a good season, when there is plenty of snow at Champéry, this run is well worth making. After an excellent light repast at Champéry you return by road to Troistorrents, quite enjoyable ski-ing of its kind, and then home either on foot or by sleigh. Or you might sleep at Champéry and return the next day over the same pass.