SWITZERLAND – To reach the top of the Waldspitz sledding run above the village of Grindelwald in the Swiss Alps, I hike 90 minutes into the backcountry, dragging a small runnered sled by a rope to roughly 2,260m.

Above the tree line, the snow – a brilliant fondant whiting out granite ledges and filling meadows – lies deep on either side of a 1.2m-wide sledding path.

When I reach frozen Lake Bachalp, I turn around, straddle the sled and dig my heels into the unyielding snowpack to keep myself from ripping down the mountain.

I take a last look at the panorama of milky-blue glaciers clinging to skyscraping peaks, then brace myself for the more than 9.7km descent. Releasing my heels, I immediately rocket towards a blind turn and roll my ride into the depths off-piste to keep from sailing off the mountain.

Sledding – a recreation I had experienced in the United States as walking briefly uphill, sitting on a plastic saucer and letting gravity provide a laugh – never struck me as a skill.

But sledding in Switzerland, where it is called sledging in English, is different.

Here, locals heading to ski mountains tote lightweight, ash-framed mini-sleighs on trains alongside those with skis, snowboards and trekking poles.

For visitors, ski shops rent sturdy touring versions to access ski areas that maintain networks of sledding-specific runs often classified by their difficulty, like downhill ski slopes.

Although sledding is an old tradition here – exhibits in the Grindelwald history museum trace its development in the 19th century as both transport and entertainment – the pandemic gave the activity new life.

“During the pandemic, everyone wanted to come to the mountains, but not everyone knows how to ski,” says Mr Bruno Hauswirth, director of Grindelwald Tourism. “So they tried sledging.”

Today, the activity attracts families, ageing skiers and winter enthusiasts like me seeking variety during their ski holiday.

A sledding hub

I first encountered the joy of Swiss sledding many years ago on a ski trip to Les Diablerets in the western Vaud region, on a tipsy descent from a mountainside chalet after a dinner of fondue and Swiss wine.

Wearing a head lamp, I wiped out repeatedly, finding myself on my back surveying the stars on a run to the village.

In February, I returned to Switzerland’s central Jungfrau region to visit Grindelwald, which claims the longest sledding run in the world – the more than 14.5km Big Pintenfritz, named for a 19th-century mountain hotelier known to sled to town.

After a 30-minute climb by train from Interlaken, my husband Dave and I arrive in Grindelwald to find peak-hugging glaciers surrounding the village of roughly 4,000 residents. Chalets line the main street, which takes about 15 minutes to walk end to end.

Above the town looms the infamous north face of the 3,970m Eiger mountain and other giants, including Wetterhorn and Mettenberg.

Nineteenth-century climbers popularised the region, begetting mountain resorts and, in 1912, a railway that tunnelled through Eiger to reach Jungfraujoch, a glacier-filled saddle between the peaks of the Bernese Alps. Reached via Europe’s highest train station at more than 3,440m, it remains the region’s biggest tourism draw.

On the far end of town opposite the Fiescherhorn peak, we check into the new Hotel Fiescherblick, a classic chalet with Swiss-modern decor run by fifth-generation hoteliers, brothers Matthias and Lars Michel.

Blending tradition and innovation, the Fiescherblick attracts the local yodelling club one evening for drinks and spontaneous singing, and also serves elegant shaved beet salads and trout in pea-miso sauce in the Nordic-chic restaurant.

Exploring by sled

The surrounding mountains host three ski areas – Grindelwald-Wengen, Grindelwald-First and Murren-Schilthorn – collectively known as the Jungfrau Ski Region.

Grouped on one pass (75 Swiss francs, or about S$115, a day), they are mapped with both skiing and sledding runs and connected by bus, train and tram lines, all included with the pass.

Reaching the runs at Grindelwald-Wengen is a thrill all its own aboard the 26-seat Eiger Express tram that sails towards Eiger’s north wall from town, part of a US$470 million (S$626 million) investment by Jungfrau Railways that opened in December 2020.

From the tram’s terminus at the Eiger Glacier, sightseers transfer to the electric train that leads to Jungfraujoch – Top of Europe – for stunning views over the nearly 22.5km Aletsch Glacier.

Skiers and sledders begin their descents just below the craggy ice.

Dotted trails on the resort map, often paralleling the ski runs, mark sledding paths that web the mountains, providing vertical thrills and touring routes to remote villages. These include Wengen, famous as the end of the Lauberhorn World Cup ski race.

With a rental sled from the ski shop Intersport (17 Swiss francs), I leave the tram station, set off on an intermediate slope and panic straight into a snowbank. Plenty of accomplished sledders – including a woman with a pug in her lap and a grandmother with two toddlers aboard – whizz by confidently.

Following their leads, I right the sleigh, jab my heels – serving as both brakes and rudders – in the snow and learn to yank on the reins to pull up to a stop while throwing my weight right and left to bend around curves. I trust the snow to cushion my crashes.

As a means to explore, sledding in my warm, pliable Sorel boots is more comfortable than in ski gear. Setting a course for Wengen, I coast through forests and fields, walk on flat stretches and share the trail with occasional winter hikers in the hour it takes to reach the car-free village.

There, a gondola conveniently returns me to Mannlichen, another mountain within the rangy ski area, and I close the loop by plunging from the summit back to Grindelwald, in time for an apres-sled Eisbier (ice beer) at the tram terminal.

Sliding in the dark

If daytime sledding teeters between joy and terror, night sledding tips to the latter.

Within Grindelwald-Wengen, a roughly 3.2km stretch of the Eiger Run – rated easy by Swiss standards – is lit for night riding (from 19 Swiss francs). A train shuttles back and forth roughly every 30 minutes between the top and bottom for convenient laps between 7 and 11pm.

At the start of the run, Dave and I wait for more experienced riders – mostly families and small groups of friends – to set off before launching ourselves downhill.

The route begins gently by descending in a wide snowfield, then narrows to a series of hairpin turns that switch back like a roller coaster amid the dark pine forest, ultimately expelling sledders onto a broad ski slope.

Pinballing through the turns and unable to see what lies below, I hold my breath until we hit the open run and give in to gravity with whoops of glee.

In slaloming finishes, we nearly collide with the chalet Restaurant Brandegg at the end of the course, where, after a few exhilarating laps, we park our sleds with scores of others and join a frenzy of Swiss high-schoolers on a winter break warming up over gooey pots of melted cheese.

Catching the last train to Grindelwald, we ask our waitress how she plans to get home. “I always bring my sledge,” she says with a laugh.

Adventure sledding

The longest sledding runs in the Jungfrau region amp the adventure with high-alpine starting points riders must hike to.

From the gondola atop Grindelwald-First ski area, which faces Eiger across a narrow valley, we hike as far as we can towards the Big Pintenfritz start, only to find it closed for insufficient snow. (It opened the day after we left.)

Barred from Switzerland’s longest sledding run, we settle for its runner-up, the 10km Waldspitz route, setting off on a precipitous ride that I occasionally interrupt to regain control by rolling the sled into the deep snow off track as an emergency brake on a rollicking five-hour round-trip.

From sections seemingly cut into cliffs to forested inclines to flats that run past shuttered barns of dark wood, Waldspitz follows a seasonal road to highland pastures.

Once the snow melts, dairy cows spend their summers grazing these slopes. Many of the barns we pass are used to make cheese the old-fashioned way, over open fires.

As far from civilisation as we feel, peering over rock falls and gazing at mountains draped in hanging glaciers, we round one bend and coast directly into the Gasthaus Waldspitz mountain chalet.

Piping alpine music on the open deck, the chalet serves rosti – Switzerland’s celebrated hash browns – and sausages in a dining room trimmed in red-checked curtains and blonde wood tables straight out of the Heidi novel in my imagination.

After lunch, the sun has softened the snow, making it easier to control our sleds over the long run down through evergreen forests and open meadows, switching back frequently and, at one point, speeding right through an outdoor cafe that has seating on either side of the run.

On the outskirts of Grindelwald, a bus fitted with snow chains on its tyres and racks for sleds returns us to town.

If sledding is not thrill enough, Grindelwald offers a higher degree of difficulty in the velogemel. The bike-like vehicle with wooden runners instead of wheels was invented by a local mail carrier in 1911 to take the place of the bike he used in summer.

Now, Grindelwald holds a velogemel world championship each February.

I meet Mr Peter Kaufmann, a Grindelwald local, piloting a velogemel as he trains for the competition. Loaning me his brakeless snow bike for a trial, he cautions me on speed.

“We don’t wear a helmet to sledge,” he says. “But we wear one to bike.” NYTIMES