X-treme

Before the terror set in...My first two years of school were spent at Ithaca College. These two years were enough to make me never want to see snow again. Add to this my general hatred of any winter sports, and I have no explanation for why I chose to spend a weekend in Interlaken, Switzerland. Interlaken has named itself the extreme sports capital of Europe. Besides offering the regular winter sports like skiing and snowboarding, they also have skydiving, hang gliding and cliff diving. I chose to bypass all of these activities and choose the safest option, night sledding. I pictured a relaxed evening sledding down a bunny hill and sipping hot chocolate inside the ski lodge. Night sledding was not what I expected. The first thing that tipped me off was the mandatory rental of huge snow boots. We were then handed a 45-euro gondola ticket, and taken on a bus going straight up a mountain. At the top of the mountain we received a free fondue dinner where they urged us to buy plenty of drinks. Thank goodness I chose to not take their advice because I am not sure if I would have made it off the mountain. It turns out sledding was really an hour and a half trip down a mountain on a small plastic sled with no option to stop. The only way to slow down or to stop is to stick your feet out in front of you and stick them as far into the snow as possible. A piece of string sticking out of the front of the sled was the only way to steer. The first hill is a straight shot down and I have zero confidence in my ability to not fall straight off of the mountain. In fact the first hill was terrifying. Almost everyone fell of their sled, and several people collided. One girl busted her knee within the first two minutes of the sledding experience and needed to be dragged down the mountain by one of the guides. Another girl scraped the entire side of her body, which made moving extremely uncomfortable. I did fall off my sled, but only suffered from a face full of snow. During the second hill I learned how to keep the sled going as slow as possible, but I never really figured out how to control the direction I was going in, causing several collisions. After an hour and a half of pure terror, we made it to the bottom of the run where we were served hot mulled wine and were allowed to get back on the gondola and back on flat ground. It turns out my un-extreme sport was a lot more extreme then I had pictured, and I had some really gnarly bruises to prove it. Although I am glad I left my comfort zone, I would never, never go night sledding again. Instead I would suggest renting bicycles and taking a ride around Interlaken, which I did the next day and enjoyed much more.