Ski
Trip 2002
School ski-trip Diary
19th
March
When
the alarm went off on Tuesday, Colm and I got up and went straight
to the balcony to see what the weather was like. Unfortunately,
overnight the weather had worsened and it was raining. Rain is
the worst thing that can happen when you are skiing, short of
a windstorm. It thaws out the snow. Already we could see that
a lot of the snow, which had been there last night, was not now.
I took my ski suit off the balcony where I had hung it, got dressed
and went downstairs. The question on everyone's lips was "were
we going to the Zugspitz?" The answer came shortly after
half past nine. No. We caught the bus to Ehrwald and wondered
what it would be like. It wasn't too bad, though there was ice
in places and it was overcast. However Carsten took us straight
down the slope we had done yesterday. And what a difference we
were to the bunch of petrified, desperate novices we had been
the day before. Now we got straight down to the chair lifts within
half an hour. That morning we continued to go down the blue slopes
and improve our skills, and by lunchtime my fear of them had completely
vanished.
I experimented at lunchtime and got this huge big Bratwurst sausage.
I was asked by the rest of the lads was I compensating for something.
I told them to 'go away'. Later in the lunch hour I went off with
Phillip Stokes and Alan Milne for some more skiing. One thing
which had annoyed me previously was that other groups had been
moving faster and getting more opportunities than I was at trying
new things. Walter's group had already learned how to para-ski
and hockey stop, so when Stokes and Milne told me that they were
going down a red slope again and offered to take me down, I accepted.
We went down the normal blue slope faster and then took the chair
lifts up to the top. The silence of the chair lift as you ascended
the mountain and looked at the sheer slopes underneath you was
stunning. When we reached the top we got off and made our way
to the left, down a steep snowy slope to a ridge which overlooked
the red slope below us. My God. Maybe this wasn't such a good
Idea I thought. The hill sloped fiercely down, and I knew that
if I lost control and went down straight, I had had it. They took
off, and I followed going from side to side and pulling the hardest
snow ploughs I could to keep myself from rocketing off the side
of the mountain. Every time that you turned and brought yourself
in line with the slope gradient, you almost lost control, leaning
hard to retain your balance. I was quite apprehensive as a staggering
drop fell away on one side of me, and it took every ounce of energy
I had to keep my cool under the speed that I was going down the
mountain. But I survived without falling and got to the bottom
in one piece. It was down to old Stokes who had guided me all
the way down that I hadn't died up there.
In the afternoon we continued to get faster and better controlled
on the slopes, and I was really enjoying myself, skiing afterwards
with people from higher groups and keeping up most of the time.
The ski instructors let us go off because there were no more lessons
due to crap weather. I had been bugging Carsten to take us all
the way down to the end of the mountain, but we were unable to.
Instead we did "Small group skiing" where you had to
stay in groups of three but could go wherever you wanted as long
as you only did the slopes that your instructor had led you down.
Mr. Sutton took me and Ms. Storey for a bit and I learned a load
off him on how to para-ski rather than snow plough. In the end
I wanted to go all the way down to the bottom of the mountain
but the only people who were left were Walter's group. He offered
to take me down and God was it brilliant. I went faster than I
had ever gone before and the exhilarating feeling of sheer surreal
speed was excellent. It was brilliant.
That evening we went swimming in the pool of the main Alpen Hotel
building. It was brilliant. The water was nice and most people
went. There was a main pool area, which curved in a weird shape
and to one side there was a little inlet with a bridge over it
which led into a small circularly enclosed Jacuzzi area. We had
great crack with the squeezy float toys, bomber jumping into the
pool, the Jacuzzi, more bombing, doing hand-stands and other water
acrobatics, and bombing.
We also got a lot of relaxing time in the lounge area, which was
scented with these tree leaf hanging things, and which had loads
of comfy chairs and a big T.V. I watched loads of films that Brian
the tour guide had brought, and I always enjoyed coming in from
a days skiing and
