This winter sees St Moritz celebrating 150 years since the first visitors spent a winter holiday there, but Davos too is celebrating a century-and-a-half of wintersports.
The first guests arrived in the Landwasser Valley on 8 February 1865, a date considered to be the advent of the winter sports resort of Davos.
Over the following decades, Davos, perhaps more than any other resort, pioneered downhill skiing, first with locals adapting the Scandinavian Telemark skis, then a relatively new invention, for the steeper Alpine terrain and by the early twentieth century unveiling the world’s first drag lift.
A winter of celebrations of the anniversary is now underway and guests this season can enjoy new winter illuminations, Skyline, installed from the Hotel Belvédère to the Postplatz in Davos Platz.
Davos will also recreate a nostalgic bob-sleigh and toboggan race, first staged in 1883, on 16 January. The first toboggan race was staged on what is today the main road between Davos and Klosters and after more than 130 years, this historic event will once again be the main road between the two famous neighbouring resorts.
Davos has made a name for itself as a toboganning centre ever since and there are nine toboggan runs in the area, and the world famous Davos sledge is still made in the town. A number of different toboggans and bob-sleighs from the past 130 years will line up at the start of the anniversary race.
