At 78 years of age, I can’t keep up with the young shuss-boomers any longer

Gstaad

Once upon a time clergymen saw mountain peaks as natural steeples leading them ever closer to God. Doctors considered mountains the best medicine for tuberculosis, while explorers saw them as rocks never before touched by humans. I thought of those good people while T-barring up the Eggli in way below freezing conditions but in bright sunshine. For some strange reason, whenever I’m really cold I try to think of the German 6th Army trapped in Stalingrad, numbed in body and mind by the cold, while Hitler sat toasty warm back home and ordered them to fight to the death. After that, skiing in subzero weather is easy. Nowadays most skiers wear helmets and ski masks, but at 78 years of age I refuse to look ridiculously like a boy racer — and to hell with safety. The mother of my children ditto. Where did the present craze for helmets originate? Obviously in helmet adverts that tell us how easy it is to get brain damage if one crashes on hard snow. Mind you, brain damage in Gstaad is caused mostly by indoor snow, especially as most people here après-ski. Last week was as good as it gets — the slopes empty, the snow perfect, the sun shining. But it was very, very cold. Snow-capped mountains are a magnificent sight, and when one thinks that an arrowhead from the Bronze Age was discovered by some American tourists not so long ago, one sees Hannibal crossing the Alps as a recent event. The greatest mountaineer alive is the Swiss Ueli Steck, a 38-year-old who has spidered up the Eiger’s North Face alone and without ropes in under three hours, the equivalent of running a marathon in 60 minutes. He is called the ‘Swiss Machine’ by those in the know, and he goes up mountains ‘alpine style’, without any fixed protection or supplemental oxygen.