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Stereotypes in the snow
The British are the most reckless and the least stylish skiers
I have just returned from avalanche country. I had thought we had managed to avoid it. The village in southern Germany, near to the Austrian border, where I took my son snow-boarding at half term was a long way from the dangerous places we had been reading about. Besides, it was the village of a close German friend, an expert skier, and she said that avalanches were extremely unlikely, even though the snow was the deepest it had been for 30 years. And I felt that if there is anybody likely to take a sensible and efficient approach to the danger of the elements, it must be the Germans. Such are the stereotypes that we live by.
In the event there was a real risk of avalanches. All the cable cars up the mountains were closed for the last three days we were there. There were no disasters and no one was hurt, but there was one avalanche, rather frighteningly soon after a large group of young people had a party in what was to be its path; it seemed with hindsight that that road should not have been open.
So there we were, snowbound. We thought of going home early, but the railway line was closed. This was nothing to do with the snow; a couple of miles down the line two trains had smashed into each other headlong, killing two people and injuring many others; the points had been switched incorrectly.
When my friend and I tried to find out about trains, two days later, we were given constantly conflicting, muddled information. Had we taken official advice, or the advice from my hotel, we should certainly have missed our plane. My stereotype, as stereotypes do on better acquaintance, began to shift.
There is something about skiing that makes one think hard about national stereotypes - perhaps because one is so dependent on local people. One depends on them in the smallest ways and the largest - from advice on the best kind of sock to advice on how to avoid cruising over precipices; in between are hundreds of little transactions about tickets and timetables, of ski hire, restaurant booking and things to do with small children.
The way these services are provided make all the difference to the success, and the safety, of a skiing holiday and, of course, say a great deal about the people providing them. My conclusion is that there's no place like America.
American ski resorts put the European ones to shame. The experience of going to Colorado last year was a revelation. Supposedly sophisticated Europe has absolutely nothing on supposedly uncivilised America when it comes to snow. I had assumed it would all be rather brash and boring: we only went for the snow-boarding culture. I was entirely wrong.
Although it is, I admit, wearing to be told without ceasing to enjoy yourself, there is something very soothing about the efforts Americans make to ensure that you do. In Snowmass, which is not far from Aspen, everything was made as easy for us as could be; at the bottom of the lifts (very fast, no queues) there was usually a charming young man to help you get on. Up the mountain there were more charming people offering free glasses of hot spiced apple juice, and even other charming people called "ambassadors" to ski with you and show you round the mountains, absolutely free of charge. We began to feel that they actually wanted to have us there.
Not so in Europe. In Europe skiers are treated by the locals like a blot on the landscape, which I suppose we are. None the less we are their bread and butter. With all apologies to those many kind and delightful people I have come to know, even they will agree that the treatment you get in Europe's ski lifts and ski schools is all too commonly offhand and grumpy. My Bavarian friend told me that while on a drag lift with someone else, the supporting bar broke off. Being excellent skiers they were able to get back down the hard way and even to retrieve the broken bar. But when they showed it to the lift operator all he could say, curtly, was: "That happens sometimes." To their protests that they could easily have been hurt, he replied that there was a perfectly good hospital.
I can't help admiring this tough, self-sufficient approach. The British tend to have it too; they are the most astonishingly reckless (and the least stylish) on skis. Our soldiers are notorious for heroically throwing themselves straight down the slopes, as absolute beginners. A Bavarian hospital orderly I met agrees; he told me the local hospital is often full of them.
There is something that resists the idea of eliminating all risk and discomfort on the slopes, and taming nature almost completely, as in the American way. But one can't help feeling that the Europeans probably couldn't do it, even if they tried. My impression of the French, in a low-cost resort, was perhaps the worst - cynical, inefficient and rude. The Swiss struck me as equally cynical, but not so rude and considerably more efficient. But all Europeans are quite happy to allow far too many people up the mountains and the figures of injuries in European ski resorts are astonishing. When it comes to skiing, and to manners, the Old World has a lot to learn from the New.
The Sunday Telegraph | Sunday, February 28, 1999
