Flashback: 16-19.03.1999-Skiing, Vals

Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 21:14:12 +0100
Subject: Vals, skiing, and such :D
Hi everyone!

How are you? I have SO much to tell you about from the last week or so! I spent last Wedsneday in Bellinzona and the weekend in Lugano, both of which are in Ticino, the Italian-speaking canton of Switzerland (and incredibly beautiful!!). Then, this week I visited my friend Sandra at home, in Ilanz, Graubünden. She and Sibylle and I went skiing for 2 days, then yesterday we went to the thermal baths in Vals, which is only about a half an hour from where she lives!

If you don't mind, I think I'm going to talk about everything in reverse!

First of all, Sandra is a really good friend of mine, probably my best, or one of my best friends in Switzerland. She and Sibylle and I had so much fun the whole time! The two of them gave me a stuffed collie for my birthday- as we were sitting on the train between Zürich and Ilanz. It is adorable, and looks so real! ....especially when Sandra makes it bark and wag its tail and everything. (I told her she has to come visit me at home someday...she would understand our crazy household completely!) The dog's name is Lassie, yeah, real original, I know, but in Switzerland it sounds more like "Lessie". The three of us were playing with Lassie the whole time!

On Wednesday we got up bright and early and took the train to...a little town between Sedrun and Oberalppass (I forget the name right now, but it starts with a D.) We spent the day skiing on the slopes between there and Oberalppass. It was so completely spectacular! Clear blue sky, so much white snow, big wide slopes everywhere (we were well above the tree line, so there was nothing blocking them) and rocky alpine peaks all around us!

When Mom and Bren and I took the Glacier Express from Engadin (the valley between St. Moritz and Zernez in Graubünden) to Brig, our train went right along these tracks, and we had looked up and all around us at the pure white snow-covered peaks and valleys. Oberalppass is the highest point along the Glacier Express, and yet there we were, skiing on the slopes, looking down at the train tracks far below us, as they entered into a tunnel and continued off into the distance!



We could see the massive dam to Lake Toma, at the very beginning of the Rhein River, which I had also marvelled at in December. Even though it really is huge, it is dwarfed by the two mountains, into whose steep valley it is so quietly tucked.



I kept realizing that just a few months ago I was sitting on the train, riding through here, gawking at everything around me and snapping pictures left and right, and now here I was, skiing on these very slopes! What a thrilling, yet still almost disconcerting thought! (I still catch myself sometimes not quite believing that I'm living in Switzerland!)

The skiing was fabulous. There was so much snow everywhere, kind of warm, almost melting in some places ("sulzig" auf Deutsch...would that be granular in English?) and more powdery in others. The sun was so warm and bright (I have a bit of a tan on my face now!) :D :D and the snow just glistened! In Switzerland they use a lot more t-bars than chairlifts, which was a bit different for me at first, but I kind of liked it, bc it's not as cold and windy next to the ground as it is dangling far above it. Everytime up it I marvelled at the icicles sparkling just to my left. The snowbank there was much higher than I am tall.... maybe 2 meters or more in some places. And with the sun shining down on it everyday some of the snow had melted and formed the most beautiful array of icicles, glittering along the whole ride up the slope. They reminded me so much of a stage set for an ice palace or something. They were so exaggeratedly (?) sparkly, they almost didn't seem real! To the right, beyond the next slope the land dropped off into the steep valley, and the view opened up to more and more mountains, some jagged and rocky, others so laden with snow it was almost as if someone had dropped a huge down comforter on them. And there I could see the dam and the clean curved lines left by some skiers who had climbed the mountain, then skied down it (there are no lifts there.)

Sibylle and Sandra are both really good skiers. Sibylle started when she was 3 or 4, and considering Sandra lives only a 10 minute postbus ride away from a ski slope, I'm assuming she probably has been skiing for about as long. I think they both must have had to have had a ton of patience, bc they always had to wait for me at the bottom of every slope! But at the same time they have such a comfortable, relaxed attitude towards skiing: rather than trying to make as many runs as humanly possible to be sure they get their money's worth from the lift ticket, we skied for a while, then stopped and had a nice lunch, skied some more, stopped at the snow bar, then skied until the lifts stopped running at four and I had to return my skis. Even this stuff I thought was great: rather than having a lodge at the bottom, with a cafeteria with greasy hotdogs and hot chocolate, plenty of picnic tables and a fire to warm up next to, the ski resorts here have restaurants- either at the top or bottom of a slope- where you can sit OUTSIDE if you like, enjoy the sunshine, and relax with not-so-greasy food! It was warm enough- especially since there was no wind- that we were quite comfortable sitting outside. It just seemed so luxurious to me! And these snow bars seem to be pretty popular, too. They are right on the mountain somewhere, often at the top or bottom of a lift, and you get something to drink, and listen to music, take a break for a few minutes. I tried Rivella, which is a Swiss soft drink, actually made with some part of milk, but its clear, so it must not be the creamy part! Not bad stuff! (but apparently Rivella blue, the nutrasweet version, is pretty nasty!) Oh, and the lift tickets have magnetic strips on them: at every lift line there is a computerized card-reader and turnstile you have to go through- that way noone has to stand there all day and check for lift tickets! Not a bad idea, but it was always a bit of a hassle to untangle the card from the elastic cord it was attached with.

At the end of the day we were all so exhausted, and after dinner just crashed in front of the TV.

The next morning we went skiing closer to home, in Obersaxon. This is the one that's just a short postbus ride away. We had another beautiful day here. This time there actually WERE trees in some places, because we weren't up quite as high. But still they were mostly at the bottom, and the slopes were just as broad. There was one slope inbetween two mountains where I was sure I was going to die- it was so steep and icy, it took me forever to make my way down it! But we only went down it to get to the next mountain, where the conditions were much better, so I didn't have to worry about tackling it a second time! That is one thing that I thought was really cool here- the ski places in Switzerland are more than one mountain, all connected together with lifts, rather than one mountain, with a bunch of narrow trails traversing the face of one mountain between big patches of trees. Both certainly have their qualities, but I kind of liked this: there was so much more to ski!

And of course, the view is unbeatable: we were completely surrounded with ALPS the whole time! (Can you tell I'm impressed?) ;D

Sibylle had to be back in Basel the next day, so she left that evening after dinner. :( Sandra and I read Asterix and Obelix until we fell asleep, which didn't take long, bc we were so tired.

The next morning we hopped into her red VW bug :) and drove to Vals, which is only about a half an hour south from her house, in the most incredibly steep and narrow valley! The road is so windy and treacherous that she rarely drove more than 50km/hour (30miles/hour).

Parts of the road were covered with a concrete "roof", to protect from falling rocks. Here and there the road bridged across a narrow gorge, with a stream flowing far, far below us. Yet all along these slopes, which had to have been 60° or 70°, there were old wooden farmhouses with stone roofs (like slate roofs, only with the indigenous stone), perched there so treacherously. These people, the Valsers, have lived in this valley for hundreds of years, where noone else would bother, dare, or is crazy enough, to live. Sandra said that the Valsers are a very quiet, reserved people, German-speaking, even though everyone around them speaks Rhäto-romansch. (Sandra's family is bilingual) Apparently they feel deliberately excluded if Rhäto-romansch is spoken in their presence, so people have to be careful to always speak German instead. Last night before I left Mrs. Risch told me that this fall in the middle of the night someone had dropped off a 30 ton block of concrete right in the middle of the town, as a way of saying "they've got concrete in their heads!" Eventually whoever did this was caught, and had to pay a fine, ...bc the concrete exceeded the weight limit allowed on the roads into Vals!!

Anyway, with such steep steep cliffs, Vals is obviously prone to avalanches, and a few years ago half the town was flattened by one! Yet people still live there, which Sandra thinks is so crazy. (then again, I pointed out that people still flock to California to live there, despite all the droughts, floods, brushfires, and earthquakes!! ....huh, Dad? ;D )

But we drove to Vals to visit the thermal baths, which were built by Peter Zumthor in 1996. He is a very famous, very well-respected Swiss architect. His work has such a simple clarity to it that really speaks to you, in an almost mystical way. He had given a lecture at the ETH earlier this year, which I think I had written about already. It has got to be one of my all-time favorite lectures, on Venustas, or beauty, which he had captured so perfectly. I had seen this building in a journal this summer and and thought it was so fantastic. I wanted to see it at some point before I leave in July, but I definitely had no idea I'd go SWIMMING there, with a friend who lives practically just around the corner!

We arrived at the hotel, which owns the baths. It is not a very impressive entrance, I thought. The building is from the 1960's or so, and not all that attractive. We walked in, bought our tickets to go in, and continued down the hall. Everything was very dark and mellow, but with style- the walls were black in the lobby, with a vase of bright yellow forsythia blossoms on the table. When we went through the turnstile the walls were a dark, smooth concrete, with no windows, and the lighting was low. To the right there were taps with water running and flowing down the wall to the ~10cm (4") wide reveal running along between the floor and the wall. It was as if it emptied right out of the hillside into the hallway through these faucets. The sound of the running water echoed through the corridor as the only sound. We entered through a heavy black (vinyl?) curtain into one of a whole series of changing rooms to our left. They were lined with lockers of a rich, dark red stained wood, heavily varnished to a high gloss, with shiny chrome knobs. The floor was also a deep red, but with a black rubber screen-mat, for all the wet feet that come dripping through here. In the middle of the room was a padded, black vinyl bench. There were two smaller, private changing rooms off of this room, but since it wasn't swarming with people that was more of a hassle.

We exited to the opposite side, which was like a mezzanine-hallway, opening right out to the baths. Here everything was of the same indigenous greenish stone, (granite?), built up in layers of thin horizontal bands, slightly varying in width, but with a certain constancy, to create all very simple forms, like massive rectangular columns. Or maybe more like one continuous slab of rock, with a grid of open air, of walkways and of water, carved into it. I didn't have my sketchbook with me, but later on the train ride home I tried to do a few sketches, and so from there I will try to explain how the building was laid out.

Picture this building being a huge rectaungular volume, the wide side parallel to the slope of the mountain. Within this volume are six rectangular masses, which fill the space completely from the floor to the ceiling. They are large enough that they fill up most of the space in the building volume, with only a somewhat narrow passage around each one of them....actually the walkways are still fairly wide, a few
meters, if I remember right. But the whole building volume is tall, so they feel narrow. On the front (the wide side facing out into the valley) there are huge square floor-to-ceiling windows, four panes across, but only one up and down. Six wooden chaise lounges filled the space in front of each of these openings- a total of three, I think. To the left is the hotel, and the hallway and changing rooms are at the back.

Each of the six massive pillars contains its own "world": front(l-r) flower petal bath; music; drinking water. back(l-r) showers; 14°C (cold) bath; 42°C (hot) bath. The space between the four pillars on the left was a cross-shaped pool. The narrow space just behind the hot bath was a pool (36°C in winter) that continued to the right and then through the clear-plastic-mud-flap-opening in the glass to the outside. The back left hand corner opened into a narrow passage that turned the corner and entered into a jacuzzi.

Behind the narrow passageway on the backside of the volume was another narrow strip of a corridor that was the stairs that led up to the mezzanine level. The stairs were low and broad- about 2 or 3 steps comfortably on each step- and spanned about half the length of the building volume. The remaining half was at the mezzanine level, a widening of this corridor passage, also about the width of the stairs.

The changing rooms opened out to this narrow part of the mezzanine corridor, and the wide part, which overlooked the water leading to the outdoor pool, had showers and wc opening to it. Beyond this, further to the right, the the corridor took a sharp jog to the back of the building and continued along behind the mass which contained the sauna.

OK, that should be a fairly good description of the layout.
But this place is much more experiential.

When Sandra and I exited from the changing room, we entered onto the mezzanine hallway, which had only a handrail separating it from the main space of the building. Everything was a soft mellow green, in a dim, soothing light, but with bright daylight streaming in from the huge windows.



The view was the white snow on the slope on the opposite side of the valley, with the dark brown, almost black of the old wooden farm buildings, trees, and risers of the terraces in the land where there were any. The slope was too near and too tall to see sky beyond it.



The sound of water was all around us, running water, pools of water, people splashing in water. We walked down the hall and took quick showers. The shower room was a dark charcoal grey tinted, almost terrazzo concrete, with a sky blue frosted door that from the inside glowed softly with the snow-reflected daylight coming in from the large window opposite it.

We walked down the stairs and looked for chaise lounges in the front to put our towels on. Each of these chaise lounges was of the same deep red-stained wood as in the changing rooms, a series of longitudinal slats, about 2cm x 6cm (1"x 3")in cross-section, all bent to the same body-fitting chaise-lounge form, and held together by thin metal dowels at a few key points along the length of the chair. The legs were of this same metal dowel. They had black vinyl pillows which slid up and down the slats to the right height.

We went into the big cross-shaped pool, which was a comfortable depth: I could stand and have my head still be above water. Above us the concrete roof was punctuated with a grid of small blue square skylights, letting a soft light glow down to us and reflect off the water. The water was a comfortable indoor-pool temperature. Each end of the cross was a set of stairs leading into the water.



Then we went into the flower petal bath. We entered from this narrow doorway on the left, then took a right, stepping down into the bath itself. The water here was warmer- 33°C, and the room was small and dark, with a bench running along the wall in the water on two sides.


There was a soft glow of the only light, underwater coming out from under one of the benches, reflecting off all the little yellow flower petals swirling through the water! The warm air smelled of a soft, sweet perfume, floral, but almost like vanilla. Sandra said it used to be a better, more natural scent, but now it is so sweet that it gives her a headache after a while. We sat there and swooshed our arms and legs through the water and tried to catch the petals. It had such a beautiful, mesmorizing effect, like watching snow fall before a street lamp, or watching the embers and flames in a beachfire. The petals gave the water such an infinite depth, and although right in front of us they glowed yellow, simply with light shining through from the back side, the petals down at the bottom directly in front of the light glistened with little rainbows of color dancing off of them. The walls here were the same layered stone as on the outside, and the floor was concrete, tinted the same color. When I sat along the back wall and my eyes became adjusted to the darkness, the wall on the opposite side of the entrance passageway had a soft glow of the light coming in from the left.

Next we went to the jacuzzi. This one is hidden in the corner, where you would almost miss it if you are not looking closely. The entrance is a narrow gap between the back wall and the left wall (now on our right), more like a reveal than anything else. The steps lead into the water, then it turns sharply to the right, 180°. You enter through this low doorway into a small square room, all of the layered stone, with a brass handrail along the perimeter- originally shiny, but now tarnished with so much use. Three lights shine straight up from the floor beneath the water, revealing just how tall the room is- as tall as the main volume outside, but in so tiny of a room- about 9 or 10 people max can fit in here comfortably- it seems so much taller. The lights bounce through the bubbly water and create dancing shadows and light casts along the walls, some almost as though they're streaming down the wall like a waterfall. And it is filled with a low moaning/singing sound, an echo hovering way above us. At first it seems as though there must be an opening above, where people walk by and try to make it echo. Then it becomes apparent that there is no opening, and that the other people in water are humming! Singing and whistling doesn't echo nearly as well as humming, and it adds to the mystery of it, because everyone looks around at each other as though they aren't doing anything, and yet it these very people who are creating the "music" in this room! Very fitting for people who strike me as being as self conscious as I am, not wanting to have to openly claim that they are making so much noise! Lower tones echo better than higher ones, and it makes for a very meditative drone that is so much fun to join in!

We then went to the outdoor pool. We walked along side the steps leading up to the mezzanine, and then into the water. This was a narrow passage, as wide as the walkway leading up to it, maybe 2m? At the steps we were pressed between two tall walls of stone, the masses of one of these pillar/baths and the stairs/mezzanine. But to the left in front of us was one of these huge window, the center bottom of which had no glass, but plastic flaps like on a freezer at the grocery store. Hot air was pumped down to us there, and steam was rising from the water, inside and out. It was a strange feeling to be outside, and know that it was so cold out, yet not feel it because the water was so warm. All around us were steep snow covered slopes and the walls of the building, with sharp rocky peaks reflected in the windows, yet we were nice and toasty. At one end there were three showers coming into the pool. We swam over to them, and the water was shooting out with so much force that it was like a massage. I stood under one for a while until all the muscles in my back were relaxed. We stayed outside for a bit, then went back in to the hot bath.

This one was 42°C. And it was good we went to the outside bath first- the next warmest one- otherwise the hot bath would have been unbearable. As it was it took a bit before we could sit down in this water- it's like a scalding hot shower. This room was quite simple, a bench on two sides, and the walls and floor of a red-orange tinted concrete, the walls smooth with the holes left by the formwork plugged, the floor a terrazzo. The ceiling was low, and the light was very dim, again, only coming from the water. It gave such a feeling of sweltering heat.


Then we walked across the hall to the cold bath, whose door faced that of the hot. This one was very similar, only no bench, and the concrete was a pale blue. And 14°C is frigid, especially after the hot bath- like Otsego Lake in the early spring when we put the dock in.

We got out of this one quickly, and our legs were a bit wobbly. We went to sit down on the chaise lounges, but found they were taken over and our towels were on a bench next to them. So we walked into pillar where we can drink Valser water. The water from this valley is bottled at a plant just below the hotel and sold all over the country. Carbonated it tastes quite good. But here it is not carbonated, and it tasted really nasty, like water that has been sitting in a metal can for days. The room is pitch black, with no source of light anywhere, except for the vat of water in the middle, which is glowing a bright orange-red. A faucet just above it is running continuously, the water pouring into the vat, creating bubbles in it continuously. It had an almost frightening tone to it, like the brew of a sorceror or something, and the railing running around it with all the cups hanging off it was a silhouette of black against this glowing water. I tasted it with my hand- the cups are kind of iffy- and if it wasn't for the taste of the water, the whole thing was very entrancing.


We went up the stairs to the sauna. The hallway here (just after it jogs sharply to the right) is similar to the one at the very beginning, behind the changing rooms: dark and narrow, with water running down the wall to the reveal between the wall and the floor. But this time the hall was black, the only light coming from the two ends. At the end of the hall we took a left into the first room- the sauna doubles back towards the left again. It was completely black, with an extremely faint dimmed light coming through the steam. The chrome of the two showers was faintly visible, but not much else. We took a left through the black vinyl curtain, into the next room. There was a flat black (stone?) bench on either side, long enough for a tall man to lie on comfortably. In fact, there was someone lying on each one. So we continued to the next room. This one was identical, except a bit warmer and steamier. Everything was pitch black except for the dim light glowing through the steam directly above the walkway. Again it was full, so we went to the third and last room. This was the warmest and steamiest of them all, and we sat down on the benches. There were two other people sitting there as well, but the way the light shone we could only see arms and legs, no bodies, no heads. And even these were hazy and hard to see. It was so dark, that I didn't know how wide the room was. I had to reach back slowly and found the wall was not far behind me. There was a gap between the bench and the wall, but if I sat with my feet dangling off the front and my legs reaching just to the back, and I leaned back a bit, I could lean against the wall. It was such a singular experience. Although there were other people there, because their heads are not visible it is almost as though you are there alone.


The steam was so thick that I found it more comfortable to close my eyes. All that was there then was the smell of eucalyptus thick in the air, and the sound of breathing that was so difficult in such thick warm air. I leaned back, closed my eyes, opening them occasionally and saw the feet of the person across from me, and felt the sweat drip off my forehead.

We left the sauna, stood for a few seconds under the ice cold showers, then went back outside to the rest of the thermal bath. I don't think I had ever felt so completely relaxed before. We found two free chaise lounges and sat down for a while. The ceiling above us was poured concrete, whose formwork was large smooth panels, possibly of plywood, but there was no grain left in the concrete. The formwork was so carefully laid, so that the edges of the formwork panels left a simple, but clear and distinct stepping pattern. The ceiling was not all one piece, but rather several with distinct rifts inbetween, like cracks in ice or stone, but with very clean orthogonal lines. These reveals were skylights, glazed at the top, where it is not visible unless you stand directly below and look up. A soft light filtered through these rifts, only enough to make the rifts clear and noticeable. The lights were thin black dowels or cables, hanging straight down into the space, with a simple black cap at the bottom, like a washer. Below this washer a small light bulb, that looked like it was a compact fluorescent bulb, but with an orangey glow on a dimmer switch. These were hung in a line, above each of the hallways.



And that was the thermalbath. Afterwards I tried to take a few pictures, but somehow it seemed as though the magic of the place could not be captured in photographs. So I stopped. I walked away with the experience of the place, that I will remember always, and that I wanted to share with you as quickly as possible, before it loses its intensity.

Good night, and happy spring!!!!

Love, Cor :)




"There is no joy in possession without sharing." -Erasmus of Rotterdam