The world famous Cresta Run at St Moritz opens in January for a surprisingly brief period.
The Cresta Run is not a bobsleigh run or indeed an ice slope for those modern Olympic sports of skeleton or luge, but a slope on which participants slide on tiny metal toboggans at high speed.
Controversially those participants remain 'men only' originally due to reasons of chivalry and spurious and unsubstantiated medical grounds (essentially "women too delicate") but in the modern era with no attempt to give a politically correct explanation.
Along with the Cresta run there's also a separate bobsleigh track which was first created roughly 20 years later, in 1904, the St Moritz Celerina Olympic bobsled was created.
Today, they are the oldest runs in the world and the only ones made entirely of naturally formed ice making them the world's largest ice sculptures.
The St Moritz Tobogganing Club is based in The Kulm Hotel St Moritz (www.kulmhotel-stmoritz.ch) at the top of the runs. This was the very first hotel in St Moritz in the 1850s and is credited as being when the first ever winter sports holiday took place anywhere in the world back in 1864.
This was before downhill skiing had been invented and when the first British guests arrived to winter in St Moritz they looked for ways to amuse themselves until one bright spark came up with the idea of using the natural slope from St Moritz to the neighbouring hamlet of Celerina to create an icy shute, down which they could throw themselves attached to a tiny sled. The Cresta Run was born.
Today The Kulm is ranked as one of the top ten winter sports hotels in Switzerland according to Sonntagszeitung, the country's leading Sunday newspaper, the Kulm achieved its ranking thanks to its consistently high service standards and exemplary management.
The "Cresta Run" package includes three nights' accommodation, plus a lavish daily breakfast and lunch in the Sunny bar, the meeting point of the Cresta riders off the shutes, as well as five Cresta rides over 2 to 3 days including tuition, equipment and a 25-minute massage – essential for easing the pain after a ride! The package costs from CHF 1,515 (approx £1,050) per person sharing a double room. Female guests receive a credit of CHF400 to use in the Panorama Spa in compensation for not beding allowed down the Cresta Run,
Women are, however, allowed to participate fully in the "Bob Taxi Ride" package, which includes two nights' accommodation on a half-board basis, a bob taxi ride (with a certificate and an Olympic Bob Run pin) and a relaxing sea salt bath. Prices start from CHF965 (approx £670) per person sharing a double room.
Tthe Cresta Run is only open from 9 January 2012 to 9 February 2012 (excluding Saturdays) and the bob run is only open from 15 January 2012 to 9 February 2012.