The descent of man

It all begins with some dreadful heaving and puffing as I struggle uphill, thigh-deep in snow, sweating in cumbersome clothing. An exquisite moment of anticipation makes it worth the effort as I face downhill on my toboggan, before pushing off. As I gather momentum, pine trees and mountains become a blur past my watering eyes.

Then the toboggan is careering downhill like a runaway Olympic bobsleigh, flying over bumps. Adrenalin dances a jig in my stomach. Ice chips fly, runners hiss and someone whoops - after a moment, I realise it's me. Then my mouth is full of snow and I'm lying face down in the cold, gasping for breath, delirious and delighted.

Winter in Switzerland: just the place to rediscover childhood exhilaration. Time to do something slightly crazy - a long whoosh of descent, snow in my face - just to remind myself I can still be silly in middle age. And Rigi, sitting in a big snowy heap near Lucerne, is just the place to do it. I've already tested the toboggan run between Staffel and Rigi Kaltbad. Now I've graduated to the superb four-kilometre hurtle from Rigi Kulm to Kloesterli, which weaves past pine trees slumped under epaulettes of snow, before bursting out on a panorama of jagged Alps.

What's the point in being in snowy Switzerland if you can't rediscover the child within? I've given skiing a miss - with just four lifts and a few short runs on Rigi, it's strictly for beginners - but I've already taken a horse-drawn sleigh ride and enjoyed a spin on the ice rink at Rigi Kaltbad, where I dodge twirling, pompom-hatted five-year-olds. I must admit, I've even knocked icicles from chalet roofs and made a snowman, leaving behind deranged snow-rolling tracks across the hillside.

There are, however, more sedate pleasures to be savoured on Rigi, starting with the ascent by rack railway. The little red train lurches upwards from Vitznau on Lake Lucerne to 1752 metres, just below Rigi's summit. At the top, passengers leap from the train in delight, stomping their feet and grinning, breath following in cold puffs. Rigi isn't high by alpine standards but it provides one of the most famous views in Switzerland, a 200-kilometre horizon of sunny snow peaks often afloat in a sea of winter cloud below.

Rigi's cogwheel train first ran in 1871, making it the oldest alpine railway in Europe. Almost immediately, the mountain was famous. William Turner painted it in watercolours; Felix Mendelssohn admired the yodellers. Victor Hugo raved about the view: ''The horizon is unreal, the perspective is impossible; it is a chaos of absurd exaggeration.''

In 1880, Mark Twain wrote more amusingly in A Tramp Abroad about climbing Rigi; he so exhausted himself that he slept in at his mountainside hotel and missed the fabled sunrise over the Alps.

These days, hikers can still earn Twain's ''magnificent picture'' the hard way, even in winter. Most prefer to be hauled up by train, which makes the journey from lake shore to summit in just 30 dazzling minutes. But what I imagined to be a quick trip is turning into an all-day snow-fest. I expected to be corralled behind railings on a rocky outcrop but discover that Rigi, unlike many other alpine viewpoints, is a 50-kilometre ridge of forests and meadows, tiny villages and sun-soaked restaurant terraces.

Tobogganing and ice skating are the least of the winter activities. Nordic walking trails are busy with taut young women in lycra and wobbling retirees with determined expressions. Cross-country ski trails swish with long-shanked locals. The sports shop in Rigi Kaltbad hires gear and instructors from the tourist office offer tips on technique. Personally, I think pole propulsion belongs to gondoliers, especially when partnered with tight clothes that make no concession to last night's sausages and rosti. Fortunately, I discover 30-odd kilometres of ploughed walking tracks remain open all winter.