A first time for everything, including skiing
Taking to the slopes for the first time? has the ultimate beginners’ guide to skiing
My only experience of skiing was, aged 15, when on a school holiday, my ski got caught on a lift, dragging me up a mountain, killing dead any youthful bravado I may have had. The rest of the trip was spent drinking apple schnapps and cough medicine in my bedroom, swearing solemnly I would never do it again.
But last December, I found myself back on the slopes, one of the 30,000 Irish skiers who take the piste each season.
Flying into Munich before being bussed across the border, my head was spun around by the sights, like Austria’s most famous nun-turned-nanny.
As snowy peaks, baroque fortresses and what looked like life-sized Christmas villages whizzed past in a snow-globe haze, our destination, the Gastein Valley, a ski area of 220km, came into view.
Its lifts ascend peaks of up to 2,700m, and a butterfly of nerves hatched in my stomach, flapping fear into my heart, as well as visions of broken bones, emergency airlifts and monumental piss-taking.
Bad Hofgastein started life as a spa town, a geographical muse for Schubert and Strauss.
We’re staying in the four-star Hotel Norica Palais, which has underground access to the Alpentherme spa and thoughts of a Prosecco blanched Jacuzzi filled me with hope that we could say “so long, farewell” to a day of skiing.
But, alas, each slope is equipped with an arsenal of snow cannons, so even if global warming robs the slopes of their powder, the resorts can endow them with man-made snow.
With a sad sort of clanging emerging from my throat, we ascended the mountain to the ski centre at Angertal for my first lesson.
Dyspraxia’s symptoms include poor coordination, low muscle tone and a variety of learning difficulties that make it tough to follow instructions and learn new skills. It’s hard to diagnose, harder to get much useful information on, and impossible to get much help for.
Needless to say, low self-esteem is the cherry on the parfait.
But once you at least know that you suffer from a disorder, it’s easier to accept that tasks that you would have previously given up on can be achieved, just at a slower pace than others.
With skiing, book dates early or late in the season to make sure that there are less people in your class, meaning that your instructor will have more time to help you get the basics down.
They’re pricey (typically €60 an hour), but getting a private lesson or two early in the trip, can get you up to speed so that you are less self-conscious when you graduate from the bunny slopes - where all virgin skiers are deflowered - to the blue, red and black ones.
(If you have time, a beginner’s class in the National Snowports Centre of Ireland will teach you the basics before you have even hit the Duty Free.)
My condition means I often turn simple instructions into complex equations.
Being vocal about it means your instructor knows you aren’t simply moaning or unduly nervous when you say you aren’t prepared to move on as quick as others in the class. When the rest of my class attempted their first full ascent of the bunny slope, I only went half way up until I fully mastered turning.
You’ll need a thick skin. As I went arse over tit, taking two classmates and the instructor out with me, a group of four year olds (age not lowered for comedic effect) fly by, using our crumpled form as practice for flawless turns.
But many primary schools near the slopes have weeks on the piste built into the school curriculum. If you try to accelerate your learning out of ego, your courage will crumble.
Get rid of the polls. They are just one added thing to think about at the start and, without them, you are more free to think about getting your hips in the right position so that you are turning with your body and the skis, not by hacking wildly at the snow.
The most difficult part about skiing in the beginning is trying to get your body to fight its natural instincts.
Bending your knees and leaning forward will help you pick up speed, but also, paradoxically, help you stop easier.
But, while your body is telling you that you are gracefully leaning your whole body forward, your lack of speed and control confirm that you are in fact- in skiing parlance, ‘sitting on the toilet’.
If your tutor is game, float the idea of skipping lunch and instead finish up an hour earlier.
As with the rosary and an tuiseal ginideach, constant repetition will make it sink in, even if your brain still feels like it has no idea what it is supposed to be doing.
Even if you fob off the sporty side of things, Bad Hofgastein has much to offer those who stay off the slopes.
Sleigh rides around the glorious mountain landscapes, snowshoeing through the forests, trekking with Alpacas, or floating 100m above the Gastein Waterfall on rollers, where you let the professionals do all the work. All you do is observe the spectacular views.
Or enjoy one of the Alpentherme’s close to 20 saunas. ‘When in Rome’ rules apply, so lose your kit or risk being pelted with ice by naked Austrians. And if a man appears waving a towel above his head, pouring eucalyptus, honey or beer on the hot stones, don’t sweat it. He’s not lost his mind, rather is engaging in the Aufguss, a ritual where wellness meets entertainment.
It’s increasingly popular
to chase the snow and not just stay in one resort for your whole holiday. So, midweek we up sticks and drive an hour and a half down the road to Kirchberg, home to 179km of pistes, 54 cable cars and lifts, and the notorious Hahnenkamm, whose steep slope makes the schnitzel I had for lunch attempt a reverse ascent.
We stayed in the four-star Hotel Metzgerwirt and, having mastered, or at least managed, a few unassisted turns, I attempt my first blue slope, at the very top of the Gaisberg mountain- 4,226 ft above sea level.
I quickly cop, as our gondola glides through the clouds, that we’re not in Kansas anymore. The basics go straight out of my head and I promptly sail off piste, into a mountain of snow, thoughts of Michael Schumacher and Natasha Richardson imbuing the fir trees with an Evil Dead level of terror.
I brushed myself off and tried again… and again, and after an hour or so – and some spectacular, if painless, tumbles, I discover the joy of high speed skiing.
When skiing concludes at about 3.30pm, you go from piste to pissed. Austria is one of the world leaders when it comes to Christmas Markets and the one in Kitzbuhel is a beaut.
Tired of Gluwein, I treated my taste buds to mulled Amareto and Rum (delicious) and mulled gin (not so much).
Dinner at the Gasthof Obergaisberg is a must, if only for the spectacular views halfway up the resorts legendary toboggan run. Finally, Irish eyes are smiling - or cross-eyed, depending on what time you meet them in Heidi & Peters. It’s all you can drink for €30 from 4pm.
NEED TO KNOW
Caomhan travelled to Austria with Topflight, Ireland’s award winning tour operator, voted No 1 ski tour operator for 23 years. Topflight offers ski holidays to numerous resorts in Austria, Andorra, France and Italy. Caomhan stayed in the four-star Hotel Norica in the resort of Bad Hofgastein and the four-star Hotel Metzgerwirt in the resort of Kirchberg.
Topflight has weekly ski holidays to both resorts, prices include return flights from Dublin, Cork or Belfast, airport transfers, accommodation for 7 nights, 20kg baggage allowance, all taxes and Topflight’s expert team.
A week in Hotel Norica starts from €1119pps (traveling on March 9 or 16) including accommodation on a half board basis and free entrance to Alpentherme Thermal Spa.
Four-star hotels in Kirchberg start from €939pps per week.
Contact 01 240 1700, or see www.topflight.ie.
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