By now you know that we wound up in the Berner Oberland of Switzerland by accident. We’d meant to go somewhere more designed for skiing, preferably close to the Italian border, even more preferably within eye shot to the Dolomiti, our original winter destination.

At this point, I can’t believe my total luck that we’ve wound up here. When we originally traced the skiing possibilities in the Jungfrau region, I worried that only one ski mountain at our back might wind up a bit meager for my skiing family. Yes, lots more all around, but those would involve schlepping.

Boy was I wrong.

This area is rich in possibilities for snow adventures. Our apartment is a 3 minute bus ride from the train station that connects Lauterbrunnen with Wengen, Grindelwald, and other ski hubs. Thanks to that iconic Swiss timing, the transportation runs like clockwork. Literally, the second hand on the digital clock on the bus or train hits zero and you can hear the brakes release. Which makes timing everything a cinch. This translates into hassle free transitions to slopes all over the valley.

What makes this even easier is that ski passes include all transportation. Keith and the kids got 3 week ski passes, so they can hop on any bus, train, gondola, funicular, and lift in the Jungfrau region. This means that Keith can check out webcams for different peaks before settling on the runs with good visibility. Not only that, but since they rented their skis in Wengen, they can keep their gear in the depot there.

All of that is great for skiers—particularly the wealth of runs for every ability— but there’s much more winter fun at our fingertips. For instance, a cross-country track runs right by our condo village. I’ve never actually been interested in cross-country skiing because the hassle seemed to outweigh the fun, but how much hassle can their be to snap on skis and step onto a track and slide out for as little or as long as I like? I’m looking into lessons now.

I’ve also spotted people paragliding out of airplanes. If that floats your boat, more power to you. To me it’s nothing but a demonstration of foolhardiness. But it was, I admit, fascinating to watch, particularly since the day I witnessed multiple paragliders was also the day of the Saharan sand that turned the horizon into a band of shimmering sepia. In the video I show here, you can also hear the creek rustling by. A few minutes after I shot this video, I watched the paraglider shove his parachute into a backpack before joining his wife and two small children who had been sledding in the fields. With rosy cheeks, they all stepped onto the road to Lauterbrunnen calling out, “Bonjour!” to me. As I tried to pick my jaw up off the floor.

But I have saved the best for last. In my humble opinion the winter sport that must be tried in the heart of Switzerland is sledding.

I worried that sledding would be complicated to arrange, but it couldn’t have been a simpler excursion. We drove to Grindelwald, but even public transport is easy enough (bus to train to train to bus), if a little longer when we wanted to sleep a bit more. Sledding routes abound on many of the mountains, but we chose Grindelwald because the family liked the look of the sledding passes when spied from the gondola. So if you’re headed out to sled in Switzerland, check your options based on timing, weather conditions, and proximity.

Once in Grindelwald—an adorable town I’d love to explore, particularly not in a pandemic when shops can be open— we walked into a ski rental outfit and rented four sleds at 18 Swiss Francs each. We carried them up the ramp to the gondola station and bought a sled/walking pass for me, which is cheaper than a ski pass. It only allows you to access the gondolas, rather than the ski lifts, but if you’re sledding or walking (and there were plenty of people hiking and walking as well), the gondola is the only safe option. Can you imagine wrangling a sled onto a ski lift? And you have to be able to glide off a lift, which not possible without skis.

Passes in our left pockets so the turnstile readers can register them, we piled into a gondola to head up First mountain (pronounced Feerst). That part we should have planned better, as we were quite the panicked tangle right as we were airborne. It took us a few minutes to stack the sleds so we could each sit properly on our bottoms, as we used to instruct the kids.

Once we did, that panic became a faraway dream, lost in the enchanted, constantly changing scenery all around us. My fear of ski lifts luckily doesn’t translate to gondolas, so I could experience wave after wave of exhilaration at the snow dusted wonderland all around me. I did regret that the gorgeous snow deprived me of any mountain goat sightings, as the kids had come home each day with vivid stories of the charming goats munching grass that now lay covered. Nonetheless, the Alps, the valleys, the trees flocked with pearly snow… I could barely breathe.

The exhileration, it turned out, was mere prelude to what lay in store.

After the tumbled loading process, we made sure to plan our exit—I’d jump out with 2 sleds, Keith would exit with two more, and then the kids would follow. So were safely on terra firms in short order. We laughed at the amount of runaway we didn’t even use, and took those congratulations to the snow dusted peak, where my words fell away as if evaporating in the blinding white peaks.

I could barely feel the kids tugging my arm, pulling me to the railing for the cliff walk, a catwalk that winds around the overhanging rocks over the valley. Setting my chin, I agreed to try the walk, which none of them had done yet because conditions hadn’t been good enough. Soon enough, I could hear one of my kids, then the other, hint that this was just far enough and that the squealing of the grated surface didn’t sound…safe. When I suggested that either could turn back, one of them murmured, “I don’t want to be a baby.” We took turns ordering each other, “Don’t look down!” I kept my vision squarely on Gabe’s head bobbing in front of me, while ducking around the bulge of the mountain. We stopped at what resembled a shaky bridge, but couldn’t be, over that kind of ravine. I announced to any interested parties that turning back did not mean one was a baby. Turning back meant that our self-preservation gears functioned appropriately. In short, there is an evolutionary advantage to avoiding the edges of cliffs.

She says immediately before she tips the edge of her sled over the mountain. And suddenly realizes she doesn’t know how to sled.

We waited for Keith, who came back, cheeks red, to announce, “Well, that was not not terrifying.” I doubt i was the only one who closed my ears to details as we strolled to the entrance to the sledding route.

Our previous sledding experience is limited to plastic numbers we pick up at the grocery store when the old ones crack during the handful of opportunities we get a year in Charlottesville to sled down a playground hill.

Keith and I did sled in Tahoe back when we were in college and I had a crush on him and he didn’t know it yet. But that was on cafeteria trays. Who is expected to steer on cafeteria trays? Nobody.

One clearly is expected to steer these sleds. After all, they whip around corners, over hill and dale, whatever a dale is. These are also not sleds tossed willy-nilly onto porches, as evidenced by the rather heirloom appearance of the blond wooden sleds with glossy runners we spied locals using. I particularly appreciated the ones with little fur pouches for babies. If people take babies on these things, they can’t exactly be death traps, can they? Then again, locals probably know how to steer. It seems the Swiss have “living in snow” coded into their DNA, as they set up little fondue pots on overlooks to sit a spell and enjoy melted cheese with a view.

We set off slowly, trying to gauge how to use our leaning, our feet, and the reins to control the turns. I will admit, we did a pretty bad job of it. Partly because the slopes were we started were a bit ambitious, but also I think it takes time to learn. I can’t even tell you how to do it, as we all told each other our tricks that were 100% in contradiction with each other. So either technique varies by body size and velocity of the object, or we never did in fact nail it.

In fact, there were some definite tricky moments. The first came when Gabe lost control and went over the edge of the sledding route. Luckily, this was not in a spot where this would be dire, but the snowpack underneath the new fall was ice. Steep ice at that, and he couldn’t get enough purchase to climb back up. Finally, I flung a sled over the edge and he grabbed onto that, while I shoved my feet in the snow and pulled. From there, we had a long talk about what we’d learned about controlling speed, the importance of hugging the side of the mountain and stopping if you get even midday into the run, and what we’d all “learned” about how to steer.

Siena’s flight over the edge was a little more spectacular, as she got some air and took off down a black diamond ski slope. I admit to a shriek as I lost visual, but then I felt nothing but pride at how calm she stayed as she bailed out, holding onto to the sled, and then ordered Keith to not come to her (as he had ditched his sled and had slipped a few feet in his struggle to reach her, I wound up having to pull the same “drop the sled over the edge and pull” maneuver on him, which was a little more perilous than with my rail-thin pre-adolescent son). Siena peered around and noticed that the black diamond slope met up with the sledding slope just a little further on. Keith ordered her not to sled down the black diamond slope, but she shook her head, adamant. “I’ll slide down on my bottom, and I’ll hold onto the sled. I’ll be fine.” When we met up with her around the next turn, her cheeks were rosy and she confessed it had actually been pretty fun. My heart almost exploded at her words. What do we want in this life if not for our kids to turn challenges into opportunities? I thought for sure she’d want to be done and take the next gondola down but no, she insisted she was having a ball.

Winter sports seem a little like that, which is why I’m not usually a fan. There’s all these moments of slog, and worse, these moments of danger. But somehow, like the “hot-cold-hot-cold” we learned about in Alberobello, I can see how the alternating thrill and recovery makes for an experience that settles and resonates and deepens.

I’m particularly glad Siena didn’t want to bail on sledding after that, as here followed the best sledding of the day. We whizzed through the lacy shadows of evergreens and beside chattering brooks and over bridges. The slope fit just right, and I found myself steering as if by instinct, my hands suddenly holding the reins like I once did when I rode horses in college. And like that union of woman and horse, I suddenly felt a union with the snow, with the trees, with the snowflake-scented air. As I zipped over snow filigreed with sunlight and between wooden cabins with carved trim, I noticed a kind of liberation. A freedom from earth’s tethers to fly along the powdery snow.

And just when I finally understood why race car drivers do their thing, I noticed Gabe waving me to stop. I slowed my sled with considerable trouble and discovered that a sudden icy patch had wrested away his hard-won control and he’d bailed, skidding across the embankment. He pulled up his shirt to show me the scrape, beaded with blood. I winced and he shook his head, adamant that it was worse than it looked, he was ready to move on.

Who are these children? How could he have the presence of mind, after just wiping out, to leap up to caution me against the ice?

He was considerably more tentative after that, and the runs, it must be said, were harder and less fantastical, what with their crossing roads, running at a slant that made steering all but impossible, plus that ice. But we found a few more good runs before we arrived, exhausted, into Grindelwald.
We we paused outside a Swiss mountain church built in the 1800’s, I let my eyes drift up, up, up toward the peak of First mountain.

I had sledded down an entire mountain, peak to valley. An entire mountain. Through trees and over rivers. Past houses and farms and one bar that in non-pandemic times offers raclette.

Though my legs felt leaded with exhaustion, my spirt? It felt winged.