Having spent Day 2 of our Alps holiday snowboarding for the first time, I realised that snowsports could become yet another of my thrilling and unaffordable interests. I could happily have boarded for another day (as Ryan did, having done both before) but I wanted to try skiing too. We’d swapped my board for skis the previous evening, so we were wrapped up and back on the slopes bright and early.
Mounting and dismounting the lift for the first time on skis was much easier than on a board. I was still a cumbersome creature but at least I effectively just had two extremely long feet, rather than a clunky slab of wood being dragged around by one foot. We started on the blue run we’d whizzed round the previous afternoon, beginning at the top of the Chattrix ski lift and finishing at the end. It had a good mix of steep, twisty, open and forested sections, and although not ideal for an absolute beginner, I’d probably have got bored with more suitable slopes.
Skiing was much easier to pick up than snowboarding. Skis give you two independent points of contact with the ground, whereas having both feet strapped stiff to a snowboard mean that if you start going over, there’s no intuitive way of counterbalancing. Having thought about it, I won’t write about this too much as I’ll do a separate post comparing the two.
Once I’d got the hang of snowploughing my way down the Chattrix run, we went down the first blue run of the previous day (much more successfully), up the Croix du Christ lift and down the long blue run with the gentle but sheer-sided section. It was along here that I realised how much quicker skis are than boards as I lost Ryan very quickly, which was a shame as he was trying to film me.
I found the poles helped a lot with keeping speed on the gradual slopes and balancing generally, but I still managed a few fairly dramatic, snowcloud-inducing crashes on the steep sections. I preferred crashing on a snowboard as the long skis made me feel giraffe-like; at least on a board you land directly on bum or knees, whereas skis jabbing into snow threaten to bend knee and hip joints in ways they shouldn’t be bent.
Back at the bottom, I tentatively mounted the button lift that had given me so much grief the previous day, back to the top of the Chattrix run. Annoyingly (but to my relief) it was perfectly straightforward on skis. We nipped down the blue route, noting the thickening sky, and back to the cabin for a warming lunch of soup and baguette. It was only then that I realised that I’d been learning to ski with two straps undone on each boot.
The afternoon was spent doing laps of the Chattrix blue run and we both loved it. Occasionally I hated it, but that was only when I was reminded that I wasn’t very good at skiing by all the skiiers flying past making parallel skiing (if that’s what it’s even called) look as effortless as sipping an apres-ski mulled cider. The weather had deteriorated throughout the day and by mid-afternoon powdery snow was laying delicately on the slopes, making it increasingly difficult for this cumbersome infant giraffe to ski at a sensible speed and in a controlled manner, so we gave each other the mutually understood “time for a drink” look and abandoned slope.
We returned the gear to the shop and continued along the road away from the cabin to the nearby village of Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce to pick up some supplies, namely a bottle of gin. The village was very quaint, situated halfway up the valley side with an elaborate chapel, big wooden chalets and a beautifully presented but small shop, which was crammed with all sorts of fascinating (to two uncultured English louts, anyway) tins, jars, packets, meats, cheeses and bottles.
Unfortunately we couldn’t justify spending €42 on gin, so we settled for c.€20 vodka and some snacky snacks. We walked the half hour or so back to our cabin, cooked improvised pea and ham soup with leftovers and spent the evening drinking far more than intended. The phrase “we’re on holiday” was getting a great workout. 10/10 would ski again, although on balance (and despite being more difficult) I’d pick up a snowboard first.
curiousgnome 