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Once in a lifetime kinda ski day today 💙
Powder day in Rendl, St. Anton am Arlberg, Austria
April 2019
Jam Baxter - The Stump
Too cold to not wear a hat indoors haha
Awesome ski day today. We had a little lie in and didn't go out until nearly noon and were planning to have a short, easy day but had such a good time we ended up skiing until last lift. The snow is difficult - we're definitely spring skiing here 🤣 but once again I really surprised myself with what I was able to do. So much fun and so much trying hard.
In a weird way I almost feel guilty for all the progress I've made downhill skiing this year because it feels like I should have been doing other things - I got into all this with the goal to combine skiing and mountaineering, to do big tours and climb mountains, and what I'm doing right now is sort of a tangent from that. But... maybe it's okay for goals to change? And to enjoy what I enjoy? I always feel like I'm running out of time for the things I want.
We started the year off with skiing in France, which was pretty epic.
After Christmas (which I spent in Germany with my mum), Ben came to visit me there and we had some really nice days - I showed him around my hometown, we went climbing and to see lilly a few times, and he met my mum (big moment woo haha). It's not always easy because he doesn't really speak German yet, even though I'm v proud of him for working on it, and my mum's English isn't great, but it worked quite well anyway :) we spent NYE with my best friend and her family which was lovely too.
Then we took the train to Bourg the next morning - a very stressful day because half our trains were cancelled because of the strikes, so a lot of running around train stations made more interesting by two sets of skis, boots, etc! But we finally made it to our air bnb.
We had the first two days of skiing to ourselves which gave me some time to get used to it again - I started when I was 5 but I've had more years off then on recently, including missing two full seasons, and have never had more than a week at a time. Ben on the other hand had a full two month season in 2014 and has been skiing every year since and he's incredibly good!! I was really proud to find I can keep up on slopes regardless.
After that, three of Ben's friends joined us for the weekend - they live in grenoble and ski on the weekends living in their vans which is pretty awesome. Following that, two other friends arrived as well and we moved into their air bnb for the rest of our ten days. On the biggest day, there were ten of us skiing in a group :'D they were all pretty fun but it was also exhausting keeping up with all the banter in a group of very colourful personalities who've known each other for years haha so I was often more tired from socialising than actually skiing.
It was still great fun though and I learned loads following them around. We didn't get much fresh snow the whole time so conditions weren't perfect, but I still had my first proper off-piesting experiences. It was terrifying in the beginning but then really fun, even though I ended up like in the second picture more than once.
The health issues mentioned in the last post put a damper on a lot of this, but I still made the most of it and it was still a great start to the year. Excited to learn more so I can maybe maybe do ski mountaineering one day?!
(Also I'm aware that skiing isn't exactly the most environmental sport... That's part of the reason why I haven't done it much in the last few years so please don't lecture me on this, I'm just a person and skiing is something I love and missed a lot, so I'll do it from time to time.)
