Alpine Slide

Alpine slides are not something to pass up.

Out in Switzerland, my friends and I went to a mountain park. There's no other way to describe it. Switzerland does really well with incorporating the outdoors for all kinds of recreation. Part of the park is a woodsy path you walk down with your shoes off, ending in a river of clear, beautiful water to dip your feet in. So simple, but really a great way to spend your time. They also have these things called alpine slides.

These are basically roller coasters fueled by gravity and your own guts. You sit in a car that is pulled to the top of a steep incline. Once at the top, it releases you, and you fly down the mountain. If the slide is a good one, you'll be whipped left and right like crazy. The interesting thing about them, also, is that you control your speed. You hold a release lever in your hands that slows the cart down if you ease up on them. You're expected to brake, but we just held them down the whole time and threw our bodies into the turns to prevent whiplash. Sort of like bobsledding!

My friends and I all did it right in a row. We got off, right in a row. We looked at each other for a moment. And we did it 4 or 5 more times. 

And we got faster each time by using our innate bobsledding skills.


Access: Look, these are all over Switzerland. Interlocken is known for them. There are some in America as well, in Colorado for instance. It's not cheap, but don't let that stop you. Just look up local alpine slides in whatever mountain range you end up in.