I remember when my love affair with Switzerland began. It was after a long, gruelling flight from Los Angeles to Geneva sometime in the mid-’90s. Bleary-eyed and disoriented, I staggered through the low-ceilinged baggage-claim expecting a long wait for my ski bag and duffel. But they arrived almost the second I did. Both shocking and endearing, the advent was enough for other sights, sounds and smells of the moment to be emblazoned in my memory: platoons of skiers buzzing with anticipation; French, German and British accents; the tarry odour of Gitanes cigarettes.
Despite being hellishly jet-lagged, I quickly snapped to attention as we grabbed a (tiny) rental car and headed, ski bags threatening the rear window, toward our destination—the ski-resort colossus of Verbier.
My travel companion was Steve Casimiro, then editor-in-chief of Powder magazine, and we were paying a visit—homage, really—to an infamous ski chalet in a small, out-of-the-way alp known as Clambin, from which a catalogue of stunning photos by shooters Mark Shapiro and Ace Kvale—typically with buddy and instructor/guide/model/James Bond stunt-double John Falkiner as subject matter—had been emanating for a decade, helping drive what would come to be known as the freeski revolution. At the time, of course, they had no other label than cool captures of powder explosions and smiling skiers of both sexes from Verbier and a raft of other exotic locales which had, at that point, been a mainstay of Powder for more than a decade. Beyond anything else these shots were now part of the ski-media ecosystem, proof for a generation of aspiring ski bums that it was possible to get paid to live and adventure with friends in a stunningly beautiful corner of the planet.
Experiencing the canvas on which these photos had been rendered was a reality check: the mountains were so much bigger, the slopes so much larger, the scenery so much more over-scaled than what I’d understood from the images. Dropping in on the infamous Shapiro, Kvale and Falkiner partnership of “Team Clambin” just as its members were going their separate ways in life seemed like a key cultural acknowledgement. Also, the skiing didn’t suck. It was early April, but those were the days when you could still go to the Alps in late spring and reliably ski most places. A storm rolled in and dropped more than a metre of snow to help with the already red-lining big-mountain vibe. We skied ourselves silly, then moved on to Chamonix for more of the same.
But it was the Swiss experience that stuck with me. The massive, glaciated mountains and their dizzying overlook of verdant springtime valleys; the postcard chalets, their roofs limned in metres of snow; the rounds of espressos and schnapps with weak tea at small, sidewalk tables; and the rösti, fondue and other heart-stopping delights that I now have to think twice about consuming too much of.
It all added up to an invitation to return. Which I’ve done again and again, some 20 times now on a more-or-less-regular professional rotation, seeking stories and inspiration that have never been hard to find. Staid as their reputation may be, the Swiss are also a pioneering species in many ways, meticulously out in front of all sorts of trends, from multi-lingual casualness to cultural diversity in a mountain labyrinth, from true, headless democracy to respectful community decision-making, from gritty street art to world-leading engineering, and from culinary horizons to
oenological revolutions.
I’ve had a lifetime of experiences in Switzerland and made many a friend, and one of the things I truly delight in upon return is being able to track not only the things that will never, ever change (because, Switzerland) but the titanic and positive changes that have occurred in some locations, forging new futures together with celebrated tradition. Back in the day we didn’t spend much time in big guns like Verbier, even if they weren’t overrun as they are now. Instead we were mostly plumbing the smaller, unheralded places—Little Areas that Rock as we called them. Several of these began in that local freeski backwater category only to transform completely over the years into respected international destination of note. Engelberg would be one that saw an influx of hardcore powderhounds eventually invest in and drive its makeover. And another, for different reasons, would be Andermatt, where I find myself this morning.
When I first visited in the late 1990s, Andermatt was another one of those whispered secrets, known mostly to a few Swiss aficionados and a growing contingent of foreign steep-and-deep seekers for the tram that climbed a jagged peak called the Gemsstock whose avalanche-prone slopes had threatened valley inhabitants for a millennium. It was an old-school outpost that I fell in love with immediately.
A longtime military garrison rapidly emptying out due to redundancy brought on by the end of the Cold War, it was a small alpine town at a literal and figurative crossroads, wondering whether it could make a go of it as a tourist destination. Not only did it manage to do so, but it became the most transformed ski area in the Alps over the past 20 years—one reason it’s now an Epic Pass destination. It’s also a big reason I keep falling in love with this country over and over. Stay tuned to this column for the full story of why you might, too.
Leslie Anthony is a Whistler-based author, editor, biologist and bon vivant who has never met a mountain he didn’t like.
