Swiss Bliss

Andrew Shandro and Wade Simmons working for another 7,000-foot descent near Verbier.

On this day, Panchard has a capable crew-who understand the unclaimed treasure that envelopes his very existence. We find ourselves high above the glitz of Verbier. Earlier that day we traversed narrow, derailleur-claiming cow trail through alpine hued by an August dawn, descended to a decommissioned road, through winding, dipping singletrack as it runs beside a medieval aqueduct. Wandering across a steep, forested slope, we then climbed 3,000 feet on gravel road high into the alpine, to a cross, and a hike-a-bike up a steep path that tops out somewhere near 9,000 feet. And here we sit, fairly blown.

The starting point of our ride, a quaint stone and log hostel near the top of a ski gondola, is barely visible across the valley. We sit, eating cheese and sausage and chocolate, marveling downward at 7,000 feet of vertiginous relief to the Rhone. Panchard readies his home-fashioned helmet cam. He has a crazed look, like we're about to ambush unsuspecting prey, absolutely certain we're going to get away with it.

It seems like hours go by until we stop. Steep singletrack melds to wider, more rhythmic trail that rails through sub-alpine meadows with ground cover that is brick red, mustard and rust. Rotors sizzle. Eyes cake with dust. There is a collective tingle when we notice the Rhone is still an age away; its patterned vineyards and orchards and roads barely enlarged from the vista of before. And then into forest, where the trail widens even more, and berms and jumps emerge with regularity as flow and speed and the clang of cow bells and bright green and cramping fingers and aching feet and rattling biceps and blurred forest and focus and elation rush upon you in a single wave of sensation. At the bottom, you don't know what to say...so you say nothing.

After 12 miles of solid, uninterrupted descending, we whiz through vineyards to a village where we buy beers and cappuccinos and sandwiches. We load our bikes into the trailer, crowd into our van and drive an hour up the mountain-walled Rhone Valley to another neat little gondola, two at a time, up to a mountainside village. We spin through the narrow streets where cute blonde children wander amongst shiny little sports cars and stilted houses from the 1300s. We stop at a grocery store where the CamelBak is stuffed with wine and cheese and more sausage and bottles of weak European beer. Then it's off to another gondola, this one smaller than before-a ski lift, up to a modern little hostel tucked above the bullwheel. On a sun- draped deck we indulge with Lowenbraus and views of glaciers and ragged peaks and lush green valleys. We drink and eat and try to recall the thousands of spectacular intricacies of the day, and the day before that, afraid we'll forget because there are so many worth remembering.

Shando and Simmons sample a mere fraction of the region's 37,000 miles of singletrack.

This goes on the next day and the next until it's a blur of rightness. Flow comes easier. Over the course of eight days we ride an average of 25 miles, 2,000 feet of up and 10,000 feet of down per day. We begin to feel like animals, traveling wide, far and long, each mile the bike becoming more an organic extension than a piece of metal, plastic and rubber.

The locals ask us why we're lazy, why we don't ride up the road like all the other cyclists. Panchard rambles in French that we like to ride downhill and that we're Canadian, and the lean, weather-wrinkled old men with felt hats slap back disapproving looks. But they don't know. No one here seems to.

In Zermatt, a picture-perfect ski village in the Upper Valais, we cruise like a pack of wolves through streets lined with geraniums and Rolex shops. We've got these five-and-five suspension bikes with stuffed day packs and we're not wearing spandex and we haven't shaved in days. People stare a lot. In the train station, littered with glitz and leather and wealth, we stand out like sore thumbs. We look like rogues that are up to something. We're not cross-country riders, they've seen those before. We're not boisterous British climbers, they've seen those, too. We pile our bikes into gondolas and funiculars, speak bad French and laugh overtly. We're here to take their treasures without them even knowing what their treasure is.

We ride the apogee of Swiss ingenuity, a train up to Gornergrat, a lookout at 10,270 feet, where a four-star hotel stares out at views of Europe's highest peaks-the 15,200-foot Monte Rosa, right there. The Matterhorn, in your face. Mega glaciers close enough to refrigerate you.

We wait until the people with Tilley hats and graphite walking poles finish their business. The sun begins to set and the hikers and the trains have all gone. I fall in behind Simmons and Shandro and submit to a path that is more a living, pulsing vein than a trail. We are cells coursing to a preset destination, our direction already known, already pre-programmed. We travel in unison and only react to the subtle turns and dips and switchbacks of hard-packed earth. The moment is otherworldly. Instinctual.

Minutes from the four-star digs of the Gornergrat, 5,000 feet and one little red trail above Zermatt.

We spend the night in a chalet, high above the shimmering opulence of Zermatt. The Matterhorn fades through the window and someone says we may as well be kings. And there is a feeling that we've found it: Raiders who have sailed forever and finally landed on that dreamed-of shore. The one that was promised to you, that made you take all the risks to get here, a place of copious treasure, too much to even conceive and there is no one to fight it from, no rush to hoard it. And now we're here. In the land of perfect singletrack. Not in a single stretch, but in a trail that goes and goes...and then goes some more.

Maybe perfection is the addition of the infinite-built by the foot and exhumed by the tire. It's hard to tell. But I ask you: What will your little stash in the woods look like if you padded it down foot by foot? And you and your kin and their kin did that for 500 years? And there would be lifts up to the top of each one. Energy efficient, self-loading lifts and upward monorails, gondolas and pretty little red trains. Not because you are lazy. It's that these rides are so huge, the relief is so damn big, riding from the bottom would kill most mortals. You toss in convenient villages and cafes to refuel. Lay down a complicated network of glacially-fed runoff to dug out logs so you could stay hydrated. And benches with views and, oh yes, character-rich chalets at the top of each one so when you wake, the alpine is right there, your trail is right there. And then, one day you snip the ribbon. Open up all the trails to be ridden by you and yours for the rest of all the days. Could this be perfect singletrack?

"Yes," you say. "Yes it is."

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Big Mountain Freeride Bike Adventures will run its "Cloudraker" Swiss Alps Tour twice in 2004. Duration of the tour is 12 days, 11 nights, with nine or 10 days of riding, and one day spent in Geneva. Dates: August 12 to 23 and August 25 to September 5. Land cost (includes transportation, breakfast, dinner and all lift passes): $2,100. For more information visit www.ridebig.com or contact them directly at 866-894-0220 and info@ridebig.com.

Airfare to Geneva, Switzerland, starting point for the tour, can be organized through Swiss Air, Air Canada, British Airways, KLM, or a number of other international carriers.

It's suggested you bring your own bike, ideally an all-mountain full suspension, at least two sets of brake pads, tubes, tools and extra parts.

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