Skiing in Schladmin- Austria.
Ultimately, the best thing about any holiday is the people your going with. This year, I spent a week in the beautiful country that is Austria, with my father, brothers, auntie and cousin. We drove there from England, with a coach company called Johnsons.
I have to say I did feel sorry for my auntie. I think those expectations of being at the top of a mountain, with such beautiful sights and the whitest untouched snow surrounding you, swiftly swooping around the curling corners and reaching speeds of 40mph, were all soon to exceed her untrained capabilities.
For of course, all us skiers have been there and done that. All of us must have fallen of a ski lift before right? You know.. The rope ones.
So after a few minutes of waiting in a queue; its you. Your time is up, your turn. You pass the pretty hot looking ski attendant and grab the rope seat and put it between your legs, you sit down and wait for it to softly pull you along and take you to your stop.
After a long 2 seconds it yanks you off your patch and hauls you up that mountain. That's if you've succeeded to gain balance, if not.. I guess you'll meet your friends at the bottom of the mountain sooner than expected. Annd you probably wont be dating that hot ski attendant after you've wom bombed him in the face with one of your skis.
Any skiers familiar with the old snow plow technique?
How hard can it be? You point the tops of your skis inwards, towards each other, not over each other, making a kind of triangle. Which slows you down to stopping point.
No. It is more than likely that new skiers, one of them being poor auntie Steph, will get them crossed, panic, lean back to undo your mess, and end up in an even bigger mess at the bottom of the mountain once your skis have gotten all tangled. Leaving you to re-attach your skis and head on over to your favourite rope lift. Mean whilst laughing and instant that your enjoying yourself.
Never, have you ever, realised how much you miss your comfy converse. These snow boots make you walk like a robot, they are hardly cosy to slip your foot into and they take about half an hour to do up.
It is not all doom and gloom. Your fellow skiers will assist you and help you on your way, until you have at least 10% confidence. Which is enough. Or will do. For now.
You slowly do get the hang of it, and you kind of realise after falling over 40 times, that it doesn't hurt at all, the snow is your friend. You've been eyeing up those Glass lifts, they are not so difficult to get on. You simply walk in, sit down and enjoy the view for what can be up to 10 minutes. Yes, they are nice, you will go onto one of those. What's the worst that can happen? You've experienced the worst, C'mon, get your monies worth.
Mobles are the worst that can happen. They are for the advanced skier. Basically, they are lumps of snow at the top of the mountain, and are there to sort of zig zag around. Oh and also the mountain is almost vertical at this point, and if you don't throw yourself at the ground, your going to die. Or, reach the speeds of 80mph. So you end up kind of rolling down the first half of the moutain, which is time consuming to say the least.
Then, once home at your warm lovely lodge, you may look forward to the next day-
where you can do it allllll over again.
PS. It really does get better.
