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_.
[Illustration: MONT BLANC AND THE AIGUILLE VERTE, FROM BRETAYE]
“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_.
[Illustration: THE DENT DU MIDI, FROM VILLARS]
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?’”
[Illustration: VILLARS: THE MOUNTAINS OF SAVOY]
“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.
[Illustration: VILLARS: A PEEP OF THE DENT DE MORCLES]
“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.
“The second expedition was almost as good as the Porte du
Soleil. In fact I am inclined to give it the place of honour.
Much the same party started off quite gaily for the Bellevue.
We climbed steepish sunny slopes above the hotel for a couple
of hours to a typical little châlet, where we had lunch. One
of the party was something of an epicure, and he had provided
himself with a spirit lamp, and so we had the benefit of hot
tea—a great luxury. After lunch two of us climbed still higher,
to the actual summit. It was well worth the slight additional
toil. The view was lovelier than I had anticipated. The
Bellevue is well placed, as it commands the great giants of the
Pennine Alps. In the west Mont Blanc towered into a stainless
sky. The Dent du Midi showed up well above Champéry, and beyond
on the left the Combin showed terrace upon terrace of dazzling
snows. I fancy we also saw the Weisshorn and Dent Blanche,
but I am not certain on these points. Certainly the chiefs of
the Oberland greeted us from beyond the Diablerets, and my
companion hailed with joy the cone of the Wetterhorn, which
he had climbed in earlier days. At our feet lay the long arm
of Geneva, and we made out with interest Chillon’s snow-white
battlements. The winter resorts above Montreux looked woefully
brown and bare of snow, and we turned with satisfaction to
contrast them with the white slopes of Morgins. We were more
than ever convinced that Morgins enjoys even more snow than a
place of its very respectable altitude deserves. The view from
the Bellevue has the charm of the prospects from those lesser
summits of the Alps that are not too near the greater peaks to
be overshadowed, nor too remote to lose the essential majesty
of the greater giants. The blending of lake and forest, quiet
snow-clad hills, and forest-bound cliffs has a charm lacking in
the innermost recesses of the chain. The descent to the châlet
was very fine. The first hundred feet required some care, but
this was followed by a long slope just steep enough to take
at full speed without any fear of a fall. A gentle swing and
a beautiful piece of snow brought us back to the rest of the
party. We then spent a merry half-hour or so practising swings,
and once more turned to the pass between the Bellevue and
the Corbeau. This brought us on to the northern slopes, and
a perfect dive over steep, but not too steep, gradients led
to an opening in the wood, and by the time we had run through
the forest we felt that we had acquitted ourselves tolerably
well, and enjoyed some capital sport. But there was much good
snow still to furrow. Some long, open slopes of good snow gave
plenty of opportunity to put into practice the swings and turns
we had been performing so gaily after lunch. These ended, the
snow became worse, and the last short stretch into the valley
was not a joy; we had descended some distance below Morgins,
and had pierced the belt below which rain had descended instead
of welcome snow. This short bit was of very brief duration, and
only served to accentuate the glorious running above. At Vonne
we had a cup of tea and some delightful honey, and so home
across the short road pass.
“These are the only two expeditions which I can vouch for from
personal knowledge. But unless the map lies, and unless other
runners at Morgins also speak the thing which is not, there
must be a number of other expeditions up to this standard.
There are fine slopes between Vonne and Chatel, and a jolly
expedition can be made to La Chapelle. The Val de Morgins and
its bounding hills still offer plenty of prizes to the diligent
explorer after new routes, and the pass at the head of the
valley should certainly be crossed. For the mountaineer there
are fine high-level routes to Salvan, Sixt, and Chamonix, and I
fancy that the Dent du Midi would yield to a determined attack,
but I should advise the ski-runner to tackle it from the south
side, and not from Champéry. It is best attacked in winter from
the Salanfe side, though this hardly comes into the category
of Morgins excursions. The rocks of the Dent Jaune have a
southern aspect, and should go quite well in winter.