The Awakening of the Lanes
High above the valley, where the last patches of snow cling to northern slopes like crumpled linen, the Mountain Bowling Club emerges from its winter slumber. The clubhouse, a sturdy log-and-stone structure built in the 1920s, has weathered another season of howling winds and deep drifts. Now, with the spring equinox barely a week past, the shutters come open, the oak barrels are rolled onto the veranda, and the green—that singular, impossible rectangle of manicured turf—begins to breathe again. This is not the flat, predictable lawn of a lowland village. This is bowling at two thousand metres, where the air is thin, the light is crystalline, and every roll of the jack carries a hint of alpine audacity.
A Green Between Sky and Stone
The bowling green itself is a marvel of stubborn horticulture. Sheltered by a natural amphitheatre of weathered granite and larch, it catches the southern sun from dawn until late afternoon. A complex system of under-soil heating, fed by a nearby mountain spring, keeps the frost at bay during the fickle nights of April. The grass is a dense, velvety blend of creeping bent and fescue, mown to a precision that would satisfy a billiard table. But what truly sets this green apart is its tilt—a subtle, almost imperceptible gradient that runs from the high end near the clubhouse down to the lower boundary. Local bowlers call it “the slide,” and mastering it requires not just skill, but a kind of geomantic intuition. In spring, the ground is still damp from meltwater, making the bowls run slower and heavier, a condition that rewards patience over brute force.
The Ritual of the First Roll
The opening day is a ceremony as old as the club itself. Members gather not in the usual whites, but in tweed jackets and stout boots, for the path up from the cable car station is still slick with mud and scree. The tradition is simple: the oldest active member—this year, an eighty-four-year-old former ski instructor named Elara—receives the honour of the first roll. She steps to the mat, the jack in her leathery palm, and sends it skittering down the green. It wobbles, catches the slope, and curves elegantly to rest near the lower edge. A round of applause echoes off the stone walls. Then, one by one, the bowlers take their turns, not in competition, but in greeting. Each bowl is a handshake with the season, a way of reacquainting muscle memory with the peculiar physics of altitude. The sound of wood on wood, the crisp click of a successful end, rings out like a tuning fork for summer.
Spring’s Quirks and Challenges
Spring bowling here is not for the faint of heart. The weather can turn in a matter of minutes: a brilliant azure sky can suddenly spit sleet, and the mountain wind, funnelling down from the peaks, can alter the trajectory of a bowl mid-roll. The club’s seasoned players have developed a repertoire of countermeasures—weighted bowls with slightly off-centre bias, a lower delivery arc, and a peculiar side-foot stance that anchors them against gusts. There is also the matter of the meltwater streams that occasionally weep across the lower edge of the green, creating a patch of unpredictable “fast” grass that can send a perfectly aimed bowl veering into the ditch. But rather than frustration, these quirks inspire a kind of joyous fatalism. As one member puts it, “You don’t beat the mountain; you negotiate with it.” And in spring, the mountain is in a talkative mood.
Beyond the Scoreboard
Yet the Mountain Bowling Club is about more than points and ends. It is a social anchor for a scattered community of guides, innkeepers, artists, and retired alpinists who spend the dark months in relative isolation. The spring season is their reunion. Between turns, they gather on the veranda, where a large cast-iron stove now glows against the lingering chill. Mugs of spiced tea and glasses of clear, cold schnapps circulate. Stories are swapped—of avalanches narrowly avoided, of marmots that stole picnic baskets, of the phantom bowler who, according to legend, still rolls a ghostly wood on the misty evenings of May. The scorecards are kept with a lazy pencil; the real competition is against one’s own previous form, against the treacherous slope, against the sheer, dizzying beauty of the panorama that stretches from the green to the horizon of jagged peaks.
The Return of Light and Play
As the weeks progress, the transformation is palpable. The days stretch longer, and the afternoon sun warms the granite benches until they are comfortable to sit upon without a cushion. The bowls themselves, which felt leaden in early April, begin to run truer and faster as the green dries. New members—younger, often from the valleys below—arrive with bright new woods and a hunger to learn the mountain’s secrets. The veterans watch them with amused, benevolent eyes, offering quiet tips about the “slide” and the wind lanes. By late May, the club hosts its first friendly tournament, the “Snowmelt Open,” where teams of four compete in a round-robin that lasts until the sun dips behind the western ridge. The prizes are modest: a jar of honey from the club’s own hives, a hand-carved wooden mallet, a bottle of apricot brandy. But the true reward is the shared laughter echoing off the cliffs, a sound that seems to push winter further into retreat.
And so, spring at the Mountain Bowling Club unfolds not as a single event, but as a slow, generous season of renewal. It is a time when the hard edges of winter are softened by companionship, when the ancient game of bowls becomes a dialogue with the elements, and when every well-rolled wood feels like a small victory over gravity and frost. As the last snow melts from the highest crags and the first gentians bloom along the path, the club settles into its rhythm—a rhythm of wood on grass, of friends greeting friends, of a mountain that, for a few precious months, gives up its hostility and invites play. Long may the jacks roll true, and long may the spring light linger on that splendid, slanted green.
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