Wow, we have had a fun packed week. Training began on Monday and as there had been some snowfall overnight it was straight into off piste, between the trees and through moguls. The instructors call it “terrain assisted learning” but really it’s so we can all have fun. We were so glad that we had found our legs and made ourselves ski some smaller moguls the week before. As there are 16 on the course we opted to be in different groups which means we have something to talk about when we fleetingly see each other during lunch breaks and in the evenings.
We are now fully stocked up and into the student meals way of life. Complete with food stores in our wardrobe.
On Tuesday and Wednesday the temperatures plummeted to minus 25 degrees Celsius.
It must have been cold – Pete added an additional t-shirt to his layering and said he had cold toes (missing his toasty snowboarding boots) One of the girls wore two thermals, one hoodie, two down jackets and a shell jacket and said she was still cold! I may have resorted to eating my lunch in the bath one day, just to defrost my toes and bottom in time for the afternoon session.
By Thursday the temperatures allowed the layers to reduce once more and we were both loving the training. The standard of the group has allowed our instructors to work on our higher performance skiing with carving and short radius turn which is so much fun when you feel the forces working.
Also the focus has been on huge moguls and some off piste stuff which has included the odd cliff face that looks like you are going to launch off the edge of the world. Unfortunately we had a second person, Cameron, break a wrist on Friday but hopefully he will be able to carry on skiing and complete the course, with his plaster on and just one ski pole, in the same way James has been doing.
With training finished for the week we decided on Saturday to demo some big, fat powder skis and head into Taynton Bowl to find the off piste powder and see what the correct types of skis felt like.
Rather than hike the whole way up we treated ourselves to a ride in the Monster x piste basher. We felt so lucky to be doing it and then got to the pick up point to find a mum and 3 small kids (youngest about 6 years old) and apparently it wasn’t their first time!
Anyway, we got dropped at the top and set off down a “run” (read forest of trees) called Get Out.
It seemed so alien to me that you could go “anywhere” and there was no “run” to follow so I made Pete go first and followed him. It was ace! We put in our own tracks, made our own way down and most importantly – didn’t crash once. The fat skis make it much easier to just float on the powder – more like snowboarding on it.
As we got back onto familiar territory lower down we decided to head off again through trees to find more powder and suddenly Pete yelped as he tried to avoid a massive drainage ditch. I turned the other way to avoid it, suddenly found another ditch which ejected one of my skis and then I found myself on my bottom with my feet above me in a third ditch. Thank goodness for soft powder! I couldn’t get out so had to wait for Pete to stop laughing, take photos of me and then drag me out by my jacket hood. And then I crawled around like a toddler to try to get my ski back without sinking waist deep with every step. What a laugh!
Then a night in the T-bar with the “kids” (yes we are old enough to be parents to every one of them) developed into a rather messy one with shots, tricks with shots and an after-party in the common room.
Sunday consisted of us signing up to go heli-skiing in two weeks time (can’t wait) and then loads of us going skating on Lake Windermere which has the longest skating trail in the world -31km of it!!!
The surface was quite bumpy in places and had some cracks in it so felt a bit like roller blading along Douglas Promenade (before the epic project) – watching out for all the bumps and seams in the surface. We also had very twitchy hockey skates rather than the longer figure skates we are more used to. There were people skating, practicing their hockey moves, Nordic skiing, walking, running, getting pulled along by dogs, towing kids behind quads and electric bikes, ice fishing – you name it, they were doing it. It was ace! Then we had a bbq on the lake in the sunshine while admiring all the snow covered mountains around us.
What an amazing place to live! All those winter activities and in the summer you have the beach, swimming, SUP, kayaking, canoeing, fishing etc etc. My idea of heaven!
Anyway, back down to earth – we finished the weekend off with soak in the thermal hot pools to try to get ready for another physical week of training ahead. Can’t wait!
