My first time skiing

This post is going to be rather short because my first time skiing was rather short lived. Since Roy hired some ski's for the season, he's been super keen to hit the slops and try them out so on the weekend he convinced me to come along with him and one of his work friends. They researched the various ski slops close by and found one that is aimed towards families and has a baby slop for beginners. Roy and I headed to Martigny to get me some ski's to hire for the day. The shop was super busy with other people trying on different boots trying to find the perfect ones. I wasn't all that sure on how ski boots were supposed to feel but I soon found some that seemed to feel pretty comfortable. We lugged our gear from the shop to the train where we met Roy's friend and hopped on the train to take us to Les Marecottes.

We got our ski passes, hopped on the cable car and zoomed up the side of the mountain to a small ski town which luckily wasn't all that busy. We donned our boots and then the teaching began. Roy gave me some pointers on the fine art of snow ploughing (the key to every beginners ski adventure). We were on a part of snow that wasn't even officially a piste, just a small slope near the local restaurant. I was ploughing ever-so-slowly down the slope and Roy and his friend Chris were encouraging me to go a little faster. The key to stopping in a snow plough is to lean forward which seems rather strange to a beginner. To me, it seemed that if I leant forward, I would go faster.. but in fact, it's true what people say.. you are supposed to lean forward to stop. So while I was going faster and faster down the tiny slope, I neglected to take everyones advice and I didn't lean forward which caused me to go faster than I had cared to go. My strategy to stop was to sit my bum down which wasn't really working so I had to pull out the big guns and fall on my side to stop myself before I went down a rather large hill.

By this time my feet were killing me. It seemed that I had chosen the wrong boots. I gave it another go, ignoring my aching feet thinking that it's normal for my toes to go numb and tingly in snow boots. Once my feet started to cramp I decided that I'd had enough and swapped them for my cosy pair of hiking boots. I used to think that my hiking boots were cumbersome! But after wearing a pair of ski boots, my hiking ones were like wearing pillows. I decided that it would be best for me to sit this one out and let Roy and Chris do their thing on the slopes. I practiced the art of snowman making and I also made a stock pile of snowballs to attack Roy and Chris once they came back from zooming down the mountain.

After lugging my ski's and boots around for the day, I'm starting to consider snowboarding just so I have less to carry. They are HEAVY!