Skiblog, day 6
Well, if Thursday was memorable, Friday was actually epic. The snow kept falling all night, and into the next day, and the wind got up as well: when we went outside the hotel, it was gusting strongly enough to nearly blow us over. Now, that's more likely to happen than usual when you're wearing ski boots, but on the other hand, this was at the foot of the valley, and the skiing happens up the mountain: the winds are going to be much stronger up there - we saw reports later that they were about 40 mph up the slopes, and 60 mph on the mountaintops. That doesn't necessarily stop you from skiing, but it does make chair lifts, cable cars and even drag lifts very dangerous - so it wasn't very surprising that they were all closed first thing. But there is a standard policy/scam for ski resorts: they always try to keep at least one lift open, because that way they don't have to refund your ski pass for the day. In this case, they started to open a few of the runs after a couple of hours, and in particular the funicular railway that was another route to the runs we'd done yesterday: reasonably enough, since it goes through a tunnel. So we decided to go up that after a fortifying lunch, and maybe do the blue route down. Well, it was that or not ski at all.
When we got out of the building at the top, we were on a bare mountaintop in a snowstorm. Visibility was twenty feet or less, and the wind was blowing ice crystals into our faces hard enough to sting. Although we were on a blue run, it began with a slightly steeper drop: normally, it's not a problem, but in these conditions I wasn't sure I could manage it without being blown over. So I started off by sideslipping cautiously down the slope - and promptly misjudged the slope and slipped over - feet down the hill, head into the snow, ice up the nose. Just as I stood up, David slid into view like an angel, uttering these words: "If you do one turn, you'll be facing away from the wind". Very wise: and after I'd done one turn, I thought I might as well do another, and then another, and then I was off, and down the steepest part. Friends of mine appeared and disappeared in the gusts of snow downslope.
After that, things got a little better: still pretty arctic conditions, but the slope wasn't as steep, and we formed a loose crocodile that skiied/slid down the rest of the run. There were a few more falls, but snow is soft. I didn't fall myself again, though I did do one spectacularly bad turn where I thought three times in five seconds I was about to fall over, but somehow I didn't. "Your skis were flailing in the air!" said Caro cheerfully afterwards. (She was the only witness: everyone else was too busy minding their own skiing.)
Further down the slope, we got some shelter from the wind, and Anne took this picture of me:
This is my favourite ever picture of me. I think my face really was that red, in the parts exposed to the wind. Note also my lovely warm jacket, and the ice in the beard.
It took us an hour to get to the bottom, but the last twenty minutes was below the treeline, and hence quite civilised in comparison. We retired to a bar for hot drinks (another hour!), and then Anne and I got a bus back to the hotel, and most of the rest of our group went off to have another go. That's not quite as mad as it sounds, as the weather had continued to improve, and the wind had dropped. But I was tired enough that another run would have exhausted me.
It was quite extreme, but it did feel like an achievement to have got down. And it left me with a buzz for the rest of the day.
When we got out of the building at the top, we were on a bare mountaintop in a snowstorm. Visibility was twenty feet or less, and the wind was blowing ice crystals into our faces hard enough to sting. Although we were on a blue run, it began with a slightly steeper drop: normally, it's not a problem, but in these conditions I wasn't sure I could manage it without being blown over. So I started off by sideslipping cautiously down the slope - and promptly misjudged the slope and slipped over - feet down the hill, head into the snow, ice up the nose. Just as I stood up, David slid into view like an angel, uttering these words: "If you do one turn, you'll be facing away from the wind". Very wise: and after I'd done one turn, I thought I might as well do another, and then another, and then I was off, and down the steepest part. Friends of mine appeared and disappeared in the gusts of snow downslope.
After that, things got a little better: still pretty arctic conditions, but the slope wasn't as steep, and we formed a loose crocodile that skiied/slid down the rest of the run. There were a few more falls, but snow is soft. I didn't fall myself again, though I did do one spectacularly bad turn where I thought three times in five seconds I was about to fall over, but somehow I didn't. "Your skis were flailing in the air!" said Caro cheerfully afterwards. (She was the only witness: everyone else was too busy minding their own skiing.)
Further down the slope, we got some shelter from the wind, and Anne took this picture of me:
This is my favourite ever picture of me. I think my face really was that red, in the parts exposed to the wind. Note also my lovely warm jacket, and the ice in the beard.
It took us an hour to get to the bottom, but the last twenty minutes was below the treeline, and hence quite civilised in comparison. We retired to a bar for hot drinks (another hour!), and then Anne and I got a bus back to the hotel, and most of the rest of our group went off to have another go. That's not quite as mad as it sounds, as the weather had continued to improve, and the wind had dropped. But I was tired enough that another run would have exhausted me.
It was quite extreme, but it did feel like an achievement to have got down. And it left me with a buzz for the rest of the day.