It's all Downhill from Here

In High School I went cross-country skiing with some buddies a couple of times at Lake Mountain. And thats the sum total of my skiing experience, I've never been downhill. I guess it's always looked like an expensive sport to me, especially in Australia, and means long road trips and crowds. At the end of January we're off to Mt Tremblant in Quebec for 4 nights and 3 full days of skiing on what should be a pretty decent mountain. So it's probably a good idea that we all know how to ski. Jo skied when she was younger, as least she can get around, and Jazz had a lesson and one day ski trip with her school last winter. That leaves Abs, Cam and me with no experience on the slopes at all. Jo has booked the two younger kids into a full day lesson at Tremblant so they'll both get some idea of what to do and we get baby sitting on the first day and the chance to actually get some good skiing in. Of course that then leaves me as the problem child with no experience, and there's no way I'm going to a serious hill without knowing vaguely what I'm doing.

The first choice is whether to ski or to board, and it's not an easy one. Depending on who you talk to, a skier or a boarder, one is easier than the other :-). The boarding has the cool appeal but skiing looks closer to skating and since I have a lot more experience with that than say skate boarding (a little) or surfing (none) I've decided to get my basic skills with two planks instead of one, I can always try a board for one day later. So what's the best way to into the sport? I suppose a few lessons would be a good start right? Well yeah, but when you have a mate who offers to give you some tips and take you to the local hill for a go, and you have a Y chromosome and don't ever read the manual, that sounds appealing too. I mean, how hard can it be right?

So yesterday Kent, my buddy from the cottage holidays last summer, took me up to Glen Eden. It's a little hill, about 5-6 runs on a 250m part of the Niagara Escarpment. It doesn't sounds very challenging, and for a good skier it wouldn't be, but standing at the bottom of even the easiest run was making this newbie feel a little... well nervous is not the word but the heart was beating a little faster than normal. The main hill is steeper than I thought it would be, even the easy run was much steeper than I expected. Oh well.... time to die. I get my hire gear, tell them I'm a noob so I get short-ish skis and bindings that release easily. Jacqui and Melanie, Kent's girls and friends of Abs and Jazz, have a lesson in about an hour so before that starts we go for a few runs. The conditions are pretty poor with the early season snow melted and snow-making not really started for the weekend crowds. The surface of the hill is pretty much ice, ice than does break up a bit, but there's certainly no loose snow. This makes me a little more tense, just what I need, a vertical skating rink my first time out. Too late to back out now...

The girls head off on their own, they're pretty accomplished, and Kent and I push ourselves over to the lift on the easy run. I find the skis a little weird at first, being so long, but I'm able to push myself with my poles over to the lift line even though I clearly look like I have no idea. Getting into the chair is easy enough but Jo had told me about a few falls she had had getting out so I'm feeling toey about my own exit. At the top I understand what Jo was talking about, the chair leaves you on a hump of snow and you have to ski off it and down a few meters, resulting in... my first fall. What the heck am I supposed to be doing again? Ok, snow plough, or as they call it here 'The Pizza'. My edges are bitting in and I can use them like skates to slow down, nice this is familiar territory. I can even slow down on a fairly steep part of the hill when my brain tells me that I can't possibly stop and I'm going to die. We take the first run and my hearts beating in my throat, damn it looks steep, how the heck am I gunna get down this alive? But it works out, I fall once, get up, re-attach a ski and make it to the bottom in one piece.

That's the only run that I snow plough on, 'The Pizza' is for little kids and pussies... and people with good judgment. The next run I start to carve with my skis parallel, it feels pretty natural and I look a little less like a tool, just a little. Heck, it is just like skating, all I'm doing is doing a sideways ice skate stop and then switching to the other foot, left and right, making a nice S down the hill. I had it in my mind that the switching from left to right, the 'S' turns, would be hard to pull off with those long things on my feet. With skates only about 5mm of metal from each skate actually contacts the ice so it's very easy to pivot...but even with 1.5m long bits of fibreglass on my feet it's no problem. After a few more runs we move to the next part of the hill and I have a fall or two, one onto my right pants pocket containing my cell phone which leaves me with a mild 'corky', but nothing too serious. Then we're into the trick park where people are flying of jumps with both boards and skis. I take the bug jump and land it after a very small amount of air (it fells like I'm going into orbit of course), but I'm going way faster than I'm used to and bail out rather than relax and slow down, another decent stack and both skis pop off. That's the thing I found the hardest to get, yes you're going damn fast some times, yes the hill is very steep in places, but it's actually really easy to slow down very quickly, even on a really steep section. By the end of the night I was trusting myself to make the turns and the stop. It's a bit of a thrill to hammer down towards the lift line at about 40-50k's and at the last minute slam on the brakes and slide to a stop in a shower of snow. I get it guys. I now know what all the fuss is about. It's an awesome sport. Pity we didn't get into it a few winters ago... Mt Tremblant here we come!

Andy, out.