Ski Course, 1963. St. Moritz

by H. G. Watts

The Swiss Ski School Association each year, for the first three weeks of December, run what they call a ‘Manager’ course, the main purpose of which is to train ski instructors for the coming season. In conjunction with this instructors’ course, ski schools are held which can be attended by skiers of any degree of proficiency on payment of a fee which in-cludes a week’s full board at an hotel, ski-ing lessons, and transport on the local mountain railways and ski-lifts.

These courses, which take place at a different Swiss ski centre each year, are attended by about 3,U00 skiers from many countries. For the skiers the course lasts one week, the changeover taking place each Sunday; there are six classes, ranging from complete beginners to experts.

This year St. Moritz was the favoured centre. The word ‘favoured’ applies because the hotels, whose season usually begins the week before Christmas, can get going on full staff with every room let, at the very beginning of December. As it happened St. Moritz was almost the only place in Switzerland which at that time had any reasonable depth of snow.

We chose the week of 8th to 15th December and joined some American friends at the Hotel Kulm. The choice of hotel was wide and varied from an all-in fee of Sfrs 400 per person for a double room with bath in the luxury hotels to Sfrs 274 for a room without bath in the cheapest hotel.

The road from Chur to St. Moritz over the Julier Pass is open all the year round so we made the journey from Gstaad by Volkswagen, an invaluable car for the mountains in winter, no cooling water troubles and easily handled with snow-tyres on snowy roads. Even so with the very cold night temperatures, about — 25 °C, which prevailed outside the hotel during the week the acid in the battery froze and the battery went flat. The organisers of the courses also laid on escorted parties by train at reduced rates from all the principal towns in Switzerland.

The assembly on the Sunday afternoon and evening was quite the most unnerving part of the whole course; having been shown one’s room one had to collect course tickets, insure against accidents, find out how one found one’s choice of class and the appropriate instructor the following morning and, most important, make sure that ski bindings and boots were in good working order.

It all sorted itself out on the Monday morning; I had put myself down for Class IV as being neither too easy nor too proficient. I was nervous as I had pulled an Achilles tendon in the deep snow of the previous year and I didn’t know how it would stand up to the rough usage of a ski school. At 9 o’clock I became one of a milling polyglot crowd in front of the hotel and in due course somebody called out “Class IV” and asked whether we wanted to be taught in English, French, German or Italian. I chose German as I thought it would be good practice and found myself with one of our American friends, and about eight others including a business man from Vienna, a huge Bavarian from Munich and his wife and a handful of pretty girls from Zurich.

We took the train to Corviglia and then the ski lift to Plateau Nair where we did a little gentle practising before running down. The whole Corviglia district behind St. Moritz is magnificent ski-ing country. In these days it is of course highly developed, with teleferiques and ski-lifts all over it, but the expanse is so great that even with 1,000 skiers on it there is little crowding except when one tries to’ find a seat for lunch in one of the restaurants or when one takes the final path through the woods to the village, along which I unashamedly rode on my sticks.

We had two days on the Corviglia during which our instructor, Balthazar a Porta, from the tiny village of Fetan, near Schuls in the Lower Engadine, gradually increased our speed and the steepness of the slopes down which he led us. On the third day we piled ourselves into an omnibus and were driven 12 miles up the valley beyond Pontresina to the Dia-volezza. A telerifique took us to the top of this mountain, just under 10,000 ft. from which there is a magnificent view of the Bernina range and Piz Palu. The sun shone, the air was crisp and cool, the snow was superb. On the way down we passed a group of six chamois scratching in the snow and eating the frozen grass; they took no notice of us.

We spent the fourth day doing all the runs on the Corviglia and trying to improve our style: —

“Weight on the downhill ski.”
“Uphill ski and shoulder slightly forward.”
“Lean outwards on a turn.”
“Down, up, down when turning.”

and so on.

The fifth day was bright and very cold. It took us some time to persuade Balthazar that the next, and last, day would be dull and colder so we must go to the Corvatsch today. The top of this fine run is reached by a new funicular which starts from just below the village of Silva Plana. From the top station there is supposed to be a view over the whole Alpine Range westwards as far as the Jungfrau and the other Oberland giants, but already the weather was beginning to change and a biting wind discouraged loitering and blinded the eyes with tears. There was no heating in the funicular and we were very glad of a cup of tea and some chocolate in the little restaurant before starting the run down. This begins with a rather steep and fearsome looking slope which is really quite straightforward. After that the run opens out into one glorious wide slope after another until one is well below the half-way station on the funicular. At this point a ski-lift takes one back to the half-way station. On this day going up on the ski-lift was a very cold operation and we welcomed the warmth of the lunch room and an invigorating “Pflumli” The lower half of the run was as good as the upper, finishing with broad glades through woods where continuous turns at controlled speed had to be made.

Saturday, the last day of our course was, as we had expected, dull with light snow falling. We spent it on the Corviglia but light conditions were so poor that ski-ing was an uncomfortable variation between seeing the ski points suddenly come up to eye-level at one moment only to drop away into an invisible void the next. The most important event of this day was the farewell tea party to Balthazar; we chose a little ‘Gaststube’ called the “Engadinia” where we ate ‘Biind-nerfleisch’ and drank white wine and ‘Pflumli’. Our big Bavarian made a suitable speech of thanks to Balthazar for his excellent tuition and handed him an envelope into which we had each put Fr.10. Songs were sung and stories told.

We enjoyed every moment of this course, it is an excellent way of getting a week’s good ski-ing, with instruction, at a well-known centre before the rush and bustle of the season begins. The 1964 course is planned for Crans-sur-Sierre in the Valais.

The courses are organised by Christian Rubi, Swiss Ski School Association, Wengen, Canton Bern, (telephone (036) 3.47.36.) to whom application must be made to attend. The applicant then receives a form in which must be stated which of the three weeks is preferred, the choice of hotel and of ski class to be joined. A deposit of Sfrs 100 is payable when a definite booking is made.