Ski
Trip 2002
School ski-trip Diary
22nd
March
Today
was our last day of skiing. All week we had wanted to go up the
Zugspitz, and bad weather had prevented it. I had taken five films
of photos by now, and was very tired, particularly after yesterday.
This morning we had the option of going up to the Zugspitz anyway
just to look around, or go to Lermoos straight away. When we found
out that the wind was too great to ski up on the Glacier, some
of us, along with Mr. Sutton who had gone earlier in the week,
decided to go straight to Lermoos. Others, myself included, thought
it would be nice to go up and have a look anyway. We therefore
boarded the Tiroler-Zugspitz Bahn and ascended through the air
into Germany. The ride up was cool. You got a huge view of the
surrounding area, which was thick with snow, real snow!, which
had fallen the night before in the higher areas. It was just our
luck to have snow right at the end of the week, but it was better
than nothing. It got quite a lot cooler as you ascended, and you
were definitely glad to be wrapped up as you got off the cable
car at the top. There was powdery snow everywhere, and the Zugspitz
at the time was right in the middle of a blizzard. There was a
small building at the top, which had a museum of mainly information
on who had climbed the Zugspitz before, but it also had pictures
of old wooden skis that looked so rickety and dangerous compared
with our modern ones. I wondered how anyone could have survived
rocketing down a slope with only two planks of wood tied to their
feet. There was also a restaurant, where I bought a miniature
bottle of "Schnapps" and a Zugspitz cap for my brother.
We tried this weird huge dumpling called a "Gairmknodel"
which was sooooo sick. It was monstrous with what looked like
cigarette ashes sprinkled on top and some kind of revolting jam
in the centre. I tried a bit, and then gave the rest to other
people.
We then went up to see if we could even get out onto the glacier,
but the blizzard gave you absolutely no visibility at all. We
had a big snow fight in this totally enclosed corridor that had
literally piles of powdery snow in it, and when everyone had about
two tons of snow down their necks, we went outside for a bit and
stumbled around in huge snow drifts trying to feel our way around.
There was more snow there than any other place we had been, and
it was brilliant to just crawl around in this soft very fine powdery
texture.
We went back down towards lunch, and caught a train to Lermoos
ski resort. It had fresh beautiful snow there, new slopes and
new dangers. We skied there all afternoon, for me down red and
blue slopes (I decided not to risk a black slope on the last day,
as I had not learned how to do a hockey stop and had been told
that they were essential to survival there) and it was a totally
new feel in skiing on the fresh snow. There were big boulders
of it right in the middle of the track and varying gradients of
the slope, which made the skiing great crack and the more enjoyable.
When it was finally time to stop, I felt really sad that it was
over, but was exceptionally glad that I had learned how to ski
and had experienced the exhilaration of racing down those slopes.
It was, as always in the anticlimax of a trip, quite depressing
to hand back your skis in the ski shop and pack most of your stuff
up on entry into, for us, ahd been home for the week.
On Friday evening we all went to a disco in Lermoos town, though
it was quite small and really more of a bar with a few disco lights.
We all sat around looking awkward, but gradually loosened up and
most of us ended up dancing. I didn't like much of the music,
so found it hard to really get into the mood. I got a drink of
bitter lemon. It was still bitter. I danced for some of the tunes,
and Walter and Florian showed up. It was the last time we would
see them, so naturally Allanah and co. were sad almost to the
point of tears. Myself, I quite enjoyed the night, and though
it had its ups and downs, it was the last activity of our long
and brilliant ski trip. When we returned to the hotel for the
last time, we were, as usual, wrecked.
