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 Dwight
Peck's nostalgia gallery
Leysin,
Switzerland, and its wonderful mountains (1)
Here's
a wheelbarrowload of pix of the mountain scenery all round Leysin. Verbier
had the skiers, Gstaad had the movie stars, but Leysin has always had the cutest
mountains.
The
Leysin Six, from left, La Riondaz, La Berneuse (behind the tree), the Tour d'Aï
and Tour de Mayen in the center, the long hump of the Truex, and the Tour de Famelon
on the right.
The
Tours d'Aï and Mayen, from the village of Vers l'Eglise (July 2005)
The
Leysin Tours from the far side, atop Rochers de Naye, in September 2003: Famelon
on the left, the ridge of Truex in the middle, the Tours de Mayen and d'Aï
toward the right. The ridge of Aveneyre is in the foreground.
Seen
from near the Pierre d'Aveneyre, July 2006
The
Leysin Tours from above the Lac de Tanay to the west, November 2006
La
Berneuse
First,
every Leysin downhill skier's entry destination, La Berneuse -- now with its fancy
revolving restaurant, but ca. 1979 with its homey chalet style ski station.
La
Berneuse, from La Riondaz, with Tour d'Aï and Tour de Mayen behind. The old
chalet restaurant (directly below the Mayen summit), before the fire.
There
it is, the present lift station and the old restaurant, seen from near Les Fers.
There it is again, the doomed
restaurant, shrouded in mist just under Tour d'Ai, with the lift station to the
right under Tour de Mayen.
And in winter again,
getting closer -- the old chalet restaurant and the lift station just near sundown,
about 1979.
And here's the old
Berneuse restaurant in June 1984. The present narrator was there at 9 p.m.
on an afterdinner run on the evening of the fire, and even looked inside the locked
doors and didn't notice a thing -- at midnight the soldiers in the Hongrin valley
saw the flames, supposedly caused by cooking gear left on by the day staff. This
photo was taken the next evening, when it was manifestly too late to be of much
assistance.
So
now we've got an all-glass turning restaurant!
Descended straight
out of Star Wars. Our wonderful pre-1984 chalet was replaced by a post-modern
. . . event! As a Swiss chalet restaurant
for a convivial fondue, the Kuklos is of course a bust. But as performance
art, as the New Switzerland, the Snowboarding Event of the Tourist Year, the Kuklos
does have a certain kind of cold charm. (And if they could get the turning restaurant
to turn about 100 times faster, they could transform the Berneuse into a theme
park.)
A less
benign side of the Berneuse, a number of avalanches
in the gulley below the télécabine station a short time after ACS
staff members L. Ware and D. Peck had exited at the top late on a May 1983 evening
and exulted in their good fortune.
The
Tours d'Aï and Mayen on the left, the Truex in the middle, and the Famelon
on the right.
La
Tour du Famelon
Here's many people's
favorite Leysin mountain, the Tour de Famelon,
2137 meters high, sitting there like a goofy ship with its prow facing towards
Les Fers down to the right. (Mont d'Or is in the background on the right.)
And here's the Ship
of Famelon from the prow end, from the Chalet des Fers, back before the skilifts
were extended out that way in the early-mid '80s.
And the same, with
the Chalet des Fers (before the skilifts), at dusk, with a nice avalanche scar
running down from the left. The present narrator has been caught in three avalanches
in that same place (some people never learn), in one of which (in 1987) we almost
lost ACS Prof. Larry Ware, and in another of which (in 1992) we almost put away
the narrator.
Another
summery shot of superb Famelon, to lighten the mood.
And a fine winter picture
of Famelon from the back, above Pierre du Moëllé, bound for that long route up
the ridge on the right, the Rochers de la Latte.
Skier
(D. Peck) going up the Rochers de la Latte towards the back of Famelon, late '80s
or early '90s.
La
Riondaz
La Riondaz (1980m),
the small mountain right next to the Berneuse and directly behind Mr Peck's former
residence at the bottom of the Solacyre skilift. There's the summit at
dusk.
A
little closer to the summit, at the end of a long day toiling away in the ACS
Library.
And from the summit
of Riondaz, with the village of Veyges down below and downtown Leysin out of the
frame toward the left.
Tour
de Mayen (center)
The
Tour d'Aï on the left, and the Truex and Tour de Famelon on the right
But
from the far side (the north), the Tour de Mayen is on the left, the Tour d'Aï
on the right (July 2006)
The Tour de Mayen (2326m)
in summer, 1979, with the yellow-trail road contouring across the bottom and the
red trail from the Berneuse snaking down from the upper left.
The Tour de Mayen in
autumn, gone all brown.
And the same mountain,
from the other side, Dessus Corbex above the Combe de Bryon, a stormy early evening
in 1980.
The
Tour de Mayen looking pretty inhospitable, on another rather stormy evening, 1984. (Mr Peck and Mr Ware went up there on crosscountry
skis one blustery day in 1985 and had more fun going up than coming down. In the
absence of a real rope, Mr Peck belayed Mr Ware on an avalanche cord.)
And
the Tour de Mayen in better weather, from behind the Tour d'Aï.
The
farm and buvette near Lac de Mayen, 1979.
Truex
Sur
les Truex (2194m),
the summit sign anyway, after some digging out. (The Truex is that kind of summit,
a big long pile of rocks with a summit that only surveyors and geologists can
be sure about. Mr Peck once spent the better part of an evening in a blindy snowstorm trying to find it, digging about in all the lumpy snowy humps looking for the summit sign, and succeeded, and then made a mistake getting back off
the top part, descending rapidly and ungracefully and doing something terrible
to his knee, and had to crawl home to the village all through a very snowy night.)
Tour de Mayen to the
left, the Truex to the right, and a nice ski-line put in just as nighttime closes
in. (Care to see who created this splendid ski-line, headed for a camp-out in
the Col de Famelon in 1982 - click here.)
Chaux
de Mont and the Tour
d'Aï (2331m) on a winter evening (Tour de Mayen behind on the
right), before all the ski installations were put in.
La
Tour d'Aï from near La Riondaz, with the Berneuse turning restaurant on the
right and the Tour de Mayen in the background, January 2005.
Index
of Leysin local mountain photos
 Feedback
and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative,  .
All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 1997, revised 9 May 2008, 11 March 2014.
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