As the sky was a brilliant blue and the sun was glaring off Saas-Fee’s
glacier, this was unlikely. So she persuaded me to try winter walking. Or
nordic-fitness winter walking, as she neglected to tell me it was really
called.
In fact, it was brilliant. No nasty rigid boots, just my comfy Brashers, a
pair of poles hired at £3.50 a day and a fair bit of stamina. There is a
strange technique to it, involving an odd release-and-grab routine with the
poles, and for the first two-hour lesson I did feel like Lee Evans. But the
next day, after we strode confidently along well-waymarked paths, up through
the forest into the high sunlight, en route to a coffee on the terrace at
the swanky Fletschhorn hotel, Sandra told me that if I gave her a week, “you
would be the second-best nordic-walker in Saas-Fee”. Nice offer, Sandra, but
the problem was, I had developed a secret addiction.
The addiction was my way of getting some adrenaline into the equation; much as
I liked the walking, I had to admit it lacked anything to quicken the pulse,
other than the size of the bill at the Fletschhorn. So my next routine was
simple: after dropping the family off at the rookery, I would walk up to the
restaurant at Hannig, a steep ascent that took about two hours, give or take
(the give being dependent on the size of my hangover). There, I would find
my sledge (£4 hire) waiting for me, having arranged for it to be sent on
ahead by gondola. I would then wahey the 5km back down to the village.
One day, I walked to Saas-Grund, the lower, and sunnier, village, following a
series of small stone chapels that marked the path. I had been hoping to
sledge Saas-Grund’s longer 11km run, but the sunshine had melted the upper
slopes and only a shortened 6km version was available. I took it, thinking
it would be a doddle, and was cut up by a brother-and-sister outfit called
Buster and Beatrice, a 9-and 10-year-old with a pathological cornering
technique. They left me crumpled on an icy bend.
Another afternoon, I tried the Gorge Alpine, a traverse along the Fee Gorge
and over the river with a mountain guide, using fixed ropes, ladders,
cables, pulleys and hideously vertiginous suspension bridges that someone
had forgotten to put sides on. Scrambling, climbing and swinging past frozen
waterfalls and ice-encrusted rocks, you are clipped and roped all the time –
it onlyfeels like a suicide run.
Of course, it’s hard to convince anyone who skis or boards that doing
something other than going up and down the mountain is a viable alternative
for a holiday, but my wife agreed on one point: I saw a lot more of the
village and its surroundings than they did. I got to know the Saas Valley –
and its very nice wines and restaurants – pretty well.
They got friendly with a button lift, a T-bar and a couple of gondolas.
All in all, I felt I had a pretty good week of it. But would I go back to
Saas-Fee? Yes, I would. It is a pretty perfect family destination.
It maybe suffers a little from having to compare itself with its flashier
neighbour, Zermatt, which, of course, has the Matterhorn and a railway
station and a far higher profile. Sure, it might not have an iconic
mountain, but it has a spectacular crown of them, and the view from the
revolving restaurant at the top of the Mittelallalin is breathtaking (it’s
at 3,500 metres, after all).
The glacier, too, is endlessly fascinating, shifting in colour between
menacing steely blue to coolly opalescent to a glowing orange fire, like an
old-fashioned gas mantle, as the first sun catches it. Saas-Fee is an
intimate, friendly village, devoid of designer shops and designer skiers,
with its rural origins not yet swamped by development.
So, I would return. And, yes, following another small family coup d’état on
the train on the way home, I might even get back on skis and into those
damned boots.
Travel details: Inghams (020 8780 4444, www.inghams.co.uk)
has a week’s half-board at the Hotel du Glacier (00 41-27 958 1600, www.duglacier.ch),
including flights from Gatwick to Sion with Swiss and transfers, for £694pp.
Six-day adult ski and boot hire costs from £110; five-day ski school is from
£96. A whole-area lift pass costs £169, a local area pass is £158; under9s
free.
