10 Things About Skiing or 10 Things in March 2010

I published this in March 2010 on FB.

1. 10 Years is a long time

The last time I went for a skiing holiday was 10 years and 3 months ago. A long time ago. Long enough for me to have forgotten almost everything that I had learnt back then. Yeah, so I have put on skis a couple of times and gone down a slope or two in the intervening 10 years. But that was never enough to really test how much and what I actually still remembered, or rather how well I could still ski. Getting onto the slopes again made me realise just how long ten years really is. 

2. 7 days is just right

This trip was for 7 days, or rather 8 days. The first day was only travelling and no skiing. The skiing began on the second day. We started at about 10am and finished between 2pm and 4pm. By the third day, I was aching all over and falling asleep at the dinner table at about 8pm and wondering how I was going to last another 5 days. I did. Barely. By the end of the trip, the same old problem in my left knee was acting up again, I managed to pull, injure or somehow hurt some tendon or ligament or something in my right ankle, I also managed to pull a muscle in my left butt cheek, my right forearm and my neck. Is that my age telling? Sigh... It seems that I just barely survived the trip. One more day of skiing and they might have had to carry me home on a strechter.

3. Turns out I actually really like skiing a.k.a. I worry about everything

Yeah, I always knew that I liked the idea of skiing, but I was always afraid. Every time I stood at the top of a slope, I saw 20 different ways I could injure myself. I worried about everything. About the slope being too steep, not being able to stop, not being able to turn, not being able to slow down, breaking my legs, other people coming too fast and too close from behind, unable to avoid people standing around or going too slow on the slope, falling of the edge, accidentally ending up on a black slope... you name it, I worried about it. But it´s in my nature, I can´t help that. These thoughts come unbidden to my mind, no matter what I do. It´s the same with diving and climbing and whatever. But usually it´s kept pretty well under control. Or I have enough control over the particular sport or activity that the worries are just a murmur in the background so I could carry on and enjoy whatever I was doing. With skiing, I was never sure that it would ever come to that stage. I was never really sure that I would be able to control the fear enough to really, actually really, enjoy skiing. Turns out I could. And pushing myself right to the limit is an exhilaration like no other. Of course, we are talking about my limit, i.e. the limit of a semi-beginner skier who sticks to the blue and maybe a few red slopes... And now, I can´t wait till I go skiing again. Except next time, I would need to be better prepared with bandages and ankle guards and anti-inflammatory medication! ;-)

4. Never again by bus

I will never again travel by bus. Saying this, I realise that I say this almost after every bus journey. But this time, I mean it. This bus journey was a never-ending horror. The journey to involved several hours of delay with us in the bus and being ferried along from one place to another to pick up strays. The return journey also involved several hours of delay, this time with us lounging around in the sitting room and dining room or whatever we could find place to lounge, having had to give up our rooms earlier, while we waited for the bus to arrived.

5. Skiing is like diving

Ok, so it´s not really like diving. But there are similarities. Firstly, there´s all the equipment that you need to lug around. Even though you can rent, like diving (and most everything else I suppose) it´s always better to have your own gear. So you lug everything around. And the long preparation time. From putting on all the various layers of clothing necessary to getting into skis... It takes ages to get ready. And even when you've got all the gear on, there is still all the little fiddling things to do, like all the buckles and straps and masks with diving, there's the getting the ski googles in place, tightened the ski boots, the gloves, the this and the that. 

6. Everything involves alcohol

Of course, there´s the apres ski - to this I have to say that the German apres ski is quite, well... German. I´ll not say more than that, except that even with the drinking, there is a certain efficiency and structure about it. If you´re cold on the slopes there´s schnapps. There were some Swiss skiers who had special ski sticks which were hollow inside and a screw cap on top, that they could fill up with schnapps. No kidding! Then we had some initiation thing, which surprise, surprise involved drinking games... Now why is that, I wonder.

7. Everything is relative

It was so strange remembering the time I climbed Mt. Kinabalu. It was with many, many hours of strenuous climb and aching muscles and gasping breath did we reach 4,000m elevation. Here, it was with a gondola and the Alpin Metro or whatever it was called and a total of about half an hour of travelling time and we reached 3,600m elevation. Reaching 4,000m was such an achievement back then, but here reaching 3,600m was no achievement at all.

The other thing I noticed was how we didn´t really notice the cold. Or perhaps how differently we react to the cold. Minus -10°C or something in the city and nobody wants to stand outside for longer than necessary. -20°C on the mountains plus icy winds (that actually made my breath ice up on the scarf I had wrapped around my face) and all we did was say "damn, it´s bloody cold" as we headed off for another run down the slope. Or in my case, announcing that I wasn´t going to ski anymore because it was too cold, and then proceeding to ski for another two hours - but running to the toilet in between to use the hand-dryers to warm up my frozen fingers...

8. I love seeing wildlife

I saw mountain goats, which thrilled me to bits. Of course they were perched on a small bit of jutting out rock surrounded by a sheer drop on three sides, and vertical rock on the other, happily chewing on some small tuff of dried up grass that somehow managed to avoid being covered by snow. How on earth they got there, baffles me. And why they absolutely had to go there and chew on that particular bit of dried up grass when there´s so much more grass in much easier to reach places, baffles me more. Still I was thrilled to see them. I was, of course happily hanging in a gondola and therefore not required to exert any effort to get within sight of that small bit of jutting out rock.

I also saw deer. Two of them came right behind the place where we were staying. I happened to glance out the back window one night and I saw them walk through the parking lot and disappear of into the dark. :-)

9. Camera-shaped hole in the trip

This is the first time I have gone for holiday (and I mean a real holiday, to new place) without my camera. Of course, I have been to Tioman a couple of times without my camera, but then I had been to Tioman so many times, it doesn´t really count. I have, of course, lost my beloved Camera. We have another smaller point and shoot camera. But since that is not actually mine, and I do not actually use it much at all, it was, of course, nowhere to be found. So between the two of us, we didn´t have a camera with us. It was so strange. The whole time I felt like something was missing. And something was. It was just not complete without my beloved camera. Of course I don´t know what I would have done if I did have it with me, because I don´t think carrying the three extra lenses onto the slopes would have been a good idea, considering the number of times I fell and slipped and whatever. No doubt I would have figured something out. But not having that opportunity was actually enough to put a damper on everything, despite the fact that I did have a great time.

Still it might have been a good thing. Because now, I have been able to get photos from various other people on the trip. So for once I actually have quite a few photos of myself on a trip, which would not have been the case if I had been taking photos myself.

10. I love The Lord Of The Rings

Ok, so this is not really a skiing thing, but it was the book I took with me to read on the trip. I finished it for the 14th time on the last day. The last time was quite a few years ago, so I am newly completely convinced of its amazingness. The book is brilliant! And please, do not even think about letting the thought of the films cross your mind at this time. The book and the film can never be put in the same category and should never be mentioned in the same sentence, except perhaps to say how completely and disgustingly inadequate the film is or how the film is in fact an insult to the greatness of the book. The book is BRILLIANT!