You can be forgiven for not having come across Maloja as a ski destination, but it was once once of the most feted resorts in the world.
The heart of Maloja for the visiting winter tourists was the Palace Hotel, built in 1884 and equipped with emerging technological advances such as electricity and elevators. It is still in operation today, but its hay day was between the world wars.
Maloja was host to many ski races, such as the 1929 British Ski Championship. It was also a centre for ski touring around the Engadine. The still very active UK-based Eagle Ski Club, which specialises in ski touring and ski mountaineering, was founded at the Maloja Palace Hotel in 1925.
So why have you never heard of Maloja?
The main reason is that it only has a 2km piste served by a solitary surface lift. At the height of its popularity ski runs were neither pisted nor lift- served. The nearby resort of St Moritz was well established and, as ski tourism developed in the area, its better facilities, access and higher runs dominated winter sports activity in the area.
The Maloja Palace also suffered declining fortunes and lost its allure compared to the hotels of other Engadine resorts, such as St Moritz, Celerina and Pontresina – all of which are easier to get to from the UK and Northern Europe.
Maloja was also popular when winter sports represented a very different set of activities than occurred after World War 2. For generations of skiers from the 1950s onwards, the only winter sport they were likely to participate in was a form of skiing dominated by lift-served downhill slopes with prepared surfaces, increasingly at giant, linked ski areas. For Britons, this coincided with increasingly affordable air tickets and package holidays, and a consequent burgeoning interest in winter holidays.
Very unlike the winter sports scene before World War 2.
In the twenties and thirties skiing was at the heart of many controversies. One concerned ski racing, where there was divided opinion between Alpine nations, Britain and the Nordics over the validity of different competitive disciplines. Many purists also decried the introduction of mechanical lits and prepared pistes. Essentially the early development of recreational skiing was associated primarily with something akin to a mixture of cross country skiing, ski touring and ski mountaineering, whilst winter walks, skating and tobogganing were available for the less adventurous winter tourists.
Despite its failure to matchthe expectations of most skiers, Maloja remains popular for ski touring and its cross-country ski trails. It also marks the start of the Engadin Skimarathon, which attracts thousands of enthusiasts every March.
Above Maloja, rain falling on the Pass Lunghin drains into the Adriatic, Black and North Seas.
Over the years I’ve been fortunate to ski in St Moritz several times, but it is a few years since my last visit. If you are planning a ski trip in mid-December this limits you to a handful of resorts, and – faced with that prospect – I plumped for the oldest of winter vacation destinations.
Skiing from the top of the Signal Cable Car
St Moritz sits in the heart of the Upper Engadin, a valley whose river becomes known as the Inn in Austria before flowing into the Danube. The town itself comprises a section known as Dorf and one known as Bad. It’s in a pretty setting and has a small mostly pedestrianised centre in Dorf which is characterised by a couple of very upmarket hotels and a number of luxury goods stores.
St Moritz Bahnhof
The main railway station, with its narrow gauge railway lines of the Rhaetische Bahn, connects the town to Chur, Landquart and Tirana (in Italy). The train to Tirana also stops at Celerina, which has valley runs off the main Corviglia ski area, Pontresina, with access to extensive cross-country skiing, and Diovalezza and Lagalb, which offer limited but worthwhile downhill skiing.
Looking across from Corviglia towards Corvatsch
A reliable bus service connects St Moritz Dorf with the main Signal Cable Car and the Funicular Railway for the Corviglia ski area, as well as the aforementioned ski areas, additional cross country skiing and the Corvatsch downhill slopes at Surlej.
Ovaverva
Another notable stop on the bus network is the new sports complex, Ovaverva. This comprises a number of pools, a spa, a restaurant and a cross country ski facility.
Outdoor pool at Ovaverva
One of the great things about St Moritz is there is so much to do apart from downhill skiing. The town became the first winter tourism destination in the world back in 1864, before downhill skiing became popular, and winter tourists have been able to enjoy a wide range of distractions ever since.
The famous Cresta Run
Aside from the world famous hotels such as Badrutt’s Palace, the Kempinski and the Kulm, St Moritz has a wide range of mid-priced and affordable accommodation. My favourite is the wonderful youth hostel in Bad, on the end of the #9 bus route from the station. It has a bar and a cafeteria and a wide range of rooming options – from dormitory and family rooms through to en suite.
Young ski instructors drinking outside Le White Pub as snow fell at the upmarket resort of Flaine this week were united in the condemnation of the “cult of speed”.
So reports the Times, from behind a paywall, on the reaction to recent deaths resulting from ski collisions.
Already this month there have been two high profile fatalities in the French Alps. A five-year-old British girl was killed in a what an eye witness described as a ‘high-speed’ collision whilst in ski school on a blue run above Flaine. And a famous French actor, Gaspard Ulliel, died when he collided with another skier at La Rosière.
So is skiing an inherently dangerous sport?
For many people, a lot of the pleasure of snow sports is pushing personal limits. However, this is not a solo sport. There is a duty of care to other people. I have too often seen people on the slopes who do not seem to moderate their speed sufficiently on crowded slopes. What are the guidelines?
The FIS has set explicit rules on ski slope behaviour.
They begin by stating that “a skier or snowboarder must behave in such a way that he or she does not endanger or prejudice others”. The rules go on to say that every skier or snowboarder must be in control. “He or she must adapt the speed and manner of skiing or snowboarding to his or her personal ability and to the prevailing conditions of terrain, snow and weather as well as to the density of traffic. ” Pretty explicit.
However I’ve had people tell me that ski accidents “just happen”, that they are a part of the sport. I disagree. I think a lot of skiers and snowboarders go as fast as the best conditions they can expect allow. And then the unexpected happens. There’s an icy patch. A skier ahead takes an unexpected line. A misjudged manoeuvre is taken at the limit of the skier’s competence. The decision to push your limits is a choice you can make, but not if you are sucking a stranger into sharing the consequences.
And the more people on the slopes, the higher the likelihood of a misjudgement impacting other people. I often ski at off-peak times. There is nothing more enjoyable than hurtling down a pristine slope as soon as the lifts open, with an empty piste ahead of you. But on a busy spring afternoon, I am often aghast as I see someone weave through a crowded throng of mixed ability adults and children as if there was nobody else about.
The FIS rules make clear the responsibility of the uphill skier or snowboarder to people downhill of them. “A skier or snowboarder may overtake another skier or snowboarder above or below and to the right or to the left provided that he or she leaves enough space for the overtaken skier or snowboarder to make any voluntary or involuntary movement. ” An overtaking skier should always allow for the downhill skier to do the unexpected.
To be able to ski fast on crowded slopes, some skiers choose a narrow line along the edge of the piste. I wonder if that was the circumstances of the little girl’s death? By all accounts the skier was very experienced, a local volunteer fireman. The little girl was possibly nervous about making a turn and the uphill skier may have already anticipated where he expected her to turn. I can only conjecture. But I have no doubt it was completely avoidable.
The importance of personal responsibility towards downhill skiers and snowboarders is emphasised by the FIS: ” A skier or snowboarder coming from behind must choose his or her route in such a way not to endanger skiers or snowboarders ahead “. In other words, when you overtake you need to have evaluated the situation such that you can eliminate the likelihood of collision and are sufficiently in control to complete the manoeuvre safely.
I can’t count the number of times I have seen people approach lift queues too fast and crash into the queue. Why does it happen? Usually from a failure to appreciate that the snow conditions near a lift may be different from the snow conditions on the slope above. And approaching a bunch of people far too fast.
Other FIS rules requires skiers and snowboarders to respect all signs and markings, enter or cross a marked run carefully, look behind before setting off and avoid stopping on narrow places or where there is restricted visibility. I see these rules broken all the time. I remember well my four year old daughter getting wiped out, fortunately without harm, by a skier who thought a no entry sign didn’t apply to him.
Because skiing is a sport that only requires an investment of money to participate in it, there is little opportunity to ensure there is a common understanding of the “rules of the game” or how they should be interpreted. Should they be better publicised and policed. I like that rules are not enforced in a heavy-handed way, but don’t the resorts carry a responsibility to ensure their patrons ski safely?
The Times makes some observations on addressing the dangers of the ski slopes:
There are now calls for more speed cameras and “traffic lights” to be installed on busy slopes, with complaints that high-capacity ski lifts and the construction of holiday accommodation has led to dangerous overcrowding on some pistes.
Should there be speed cameras and traffic lights? I am not so sure about speed cameras. My preference would be to have more “slow slopes” and informal controls, such as have ski instructors remind speed merchants to moderate their speed. I remember when I skied in Vail they had barriers with a spotter behind them encouraging people to slow down. That seemed to strike a reasonable balance.
Traffic lights could either be at the top of a slope or at the lifts, the latter being the most practical, even if it is somewhat of a blunt instrument. Limiting the number of ski passes issued at times of high demand would be unpopular, but effective at reducing crowds on the slopes.
There are times when some ski slopes are simply too busy to accommodate the volume of people on them, especially given the level of indiscipline and excessive speed of some skiers and snowboarders. If resorts choose to allow skiers and snowboarders to have passes issued in such number that the risk of injury in the prevailing conditions is greater, I think they carry responsibility for mitigating the consequences.
The skier who killed the little girl has now been charged with her manslaughter. I do ask myself whether the resort shares some culpability by not doing enough to create a safe environment. Is it to be considered part of the sport that excessive speed around children is acceptable?
Although I have been skiing for over 50 years, I don’t have a great sense of it changing much since I first tumbled down a Scottish mountain. OK, we did wear some uncool ski outfits back then, nobody snowboarded and there were a higher proportion of surface lifts. But I don’t remember it being so different. Largely the same resorts and the same vibe in them.
Track back another 50 years, and what was often called ski running involved very long wooden skis, one stick and a pair of stout leather ski boots. And it was by no means the major attraction for people visiting the Alps in winter.
I’ve been reading “Things Seen in Switzerland in Winter”, written by Charles Domville-Fife in 1925. He writes that interest in visiting Switzerland was divided between those for whom it was termed “The Playground of Europe”, and those who went hoping to recover from tubercolosis.
Until 1946 there was no effective medication to treat tubercolosis, a disease that killed as many as one in four people in England in the 19th Century. Swiss mountain air and sunshine achieved a remarkable recovery rate in the clinics that sprung up in hitherto sleepy hamlets like Davos and Arosa in the late nineteenth century. And the therapeutic benefits were enjoyed as much, or even more, in the winter.
St Moritz had also become a popular destination for its winter sun and the many diversions organised in the sophisticated hotels there – the hotelier Badrutt taking a lot of credit for popularising winter holidays in the Engadine. In 1873 for the first time St Moritz recorded more winter visitors than summer ones.
One English visitor to Switzerland in the late nineteenth century was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who stayed in Davos where his wife was recuperating from tuberculosis. Ever impatient to be doing something, he imported some skis from Norway (where skiing had long been a practical means of transport) and became the first person to ski from Davos to Arosa – still a popular back country route. In 1893 he wrote an article in the English press of his experiences and helped popularise what was to diverge from Norwegian ski techniques to become what we now know as the sport of downhill skiing.
Skiing was by no means the only winter sport that became popular in Switzerland. Domville-Fife records that skating was introduced as a winter sport in 1876 (from England), curling (from Scotland) in 1882, tobogganing (from Canada) in 1884, ice hockey (also from Canada) in 1992 and the quaint sport of skijoring (from Scandinavia) in 1906.
In the second half of the nineteenth century Switzerland benefitted from a growing electrified rail system, opening up destinations such as the new sanatoria in Montana and Leysin, and new winter sports destinations like Klosters, Celerina, Grindelwald, Wengen, Murren, Gstaad, Villars, Engelberg and Andermatt. Adelboden later emerged as both a health centre and a ski destination, with the world’s first winter sports holiday package organised by Sir Henry Lunn in 1903. Outside of Switzerland, Chamonix and St Anton – both with rail links – were early adopters of sport skiing, St Anton claiming to have founded the first ski club in 1901.
Most of the new winter sports were introduced by the British, but soon became popular with the Swiss and visiting Germans. The opening of the cog railways in winter in Grindelwald, Wengen and Villars are attributed to British requests that they be available outside the summer timetable.
It’s noteworthy that, at this time, British tourists tended to come over only in December and January, and what we now largely associate with the peak winter sports period was left to the locals. Domville-Fife declares that “at nearly all the best known resorts the predominance of British people during Christmas and New Year festivities is usually so great that even the Swiss themselves are scarcely seen. It is during this period and for about five weeks afterwards that a sojourn at any of the winter sports centres becomes one of the most delightful experiences of life”.
Domville-Fife, writing in 1925, doesn’t mention a single ski destination in the canton of Valais, now probably the pre-eminent ski region in the world. Champéry, in the Portes du Soleil did not have its first lift access to the slopes until 1939, Verbier’s first lift arrived in 1946, Saas-Fee a popular summer spa destination did not have road access until 1950 and Zermatt, although it has had the Gornergrat cog railway since 1898, was primarily known as a summer destination for climbers, and did not open the railway to the summit during the winter season until 1941. Only Montana (later Crans-Montana), had adopted skiing by 1925, following the opening of the funicular railway in 1911. However the village was still mostly popular for its sanatoria and, from 1906, for golfing.
Skijoring, meanwhile, has its adherents but has achieved only a limited popularity. Although my Swiss mother-in-law recalls skiing to school on skis, I don’t think it looks anything like this today at Aiglon College!
