Season Diary - Day 28
Updated: 2 days ago
Wednesday 19th March - Val d'Isere, Flaine
Today's diary is guest written by Rollo Uloth
Why do we ski?
I've been privileged to have two weeks skiing this year and so along with some wonderful snow, exceptional company and two weeks doing the best thing one can do with two planks of wood and an Arc'teryx jacket; I've also had plenty of time to consider what it is I love about the sport.
In my opinion, the best feeling one can have on skis is an endless fresh line of powder. I'm an adrenaline junkie and I hate crowds. Having discovered ski touring a few years ago, I'm looking to pack my skins, turn on my transceiver, confirm our route and start following the tracks up the mountain so we can make our own fresh ones coming back down.
But sometimes, the best days are found in bounds, in between the piste markers and appreciating what - much like the elves did for the Grimm brother's shoemaker - the piste bashers have spent the night preparing for us. So for someone who tries to touch it as much as possible - what can the piste offer us?
This year, at the midpoint of our holiday and with the sun illuminating the crisply blue sky, we left our shovels, probes and other off-piste equipment at home and took to the pistes for a day of tearing up the corduory. Working our way into Tignes, the slopes opened up in front of us and the first trick is:
Find the right places to ski.
Some slopes are always going to be busy - but whatever kind of skier you are; the empty runs fresh with the piste bashers' ridges gleaming in the sunlight is what you want to find. They might not always be the steepest or widest, or prettiest or take you where you want to go - but its the journey with skiing, not the destination.
We reached Val Claret and the queue for the glacier extended far beyond each lift. Why wait when we could ski somewhere else? So a little detour via Tignes and our usual loop via Aiguille Percée was reversed; into Le Lac and back around anticlockwise. We've never skied it before and in doing so we found some superb runs that in over a decade of skiing in Tignes we've seemingly ignored (shoutout to Merles, a red that is not signposted to take you back to the lift but missed out the much busier top half of Lac). As with off-piste skiing, being flexible with your plans will always allow you to have the best fun (while being safe) and last minute plan changes could be your best decision - don't get stuck in the queue because you said you'd take that route - the empty lift will probably have an even more empty run!
Secondly (and this is most important): take a lesson, or embrace an element of skiing you haven't embarked upon yet. Take notes after and consider them when you're next on the slopes. The afternoon prior we'd spent two hours learning the difficult art of slalom skiing and suddenly those short runs from A to B became individual slalom runs. Are my turns too sharp? How am I using my edges? Is my weight far enough forwards? Or too far? The piste is no longer full of people, or just a way for me to find the next powder turn. It's the training field. It's the net session prior to the Test Match or the A Game ahead of the Lions Tour. Not only useful but fun in it's own right.
So why do I ski? Is it the excitement of conquering the climb to a summit? Or the unique feeling of being the only person to touch this pack of virgin powder? Is it the isolation of being far away from the resort enjoying nothing but your group, the snow, sun and sky?
Well yes! But it turns out only partially. Tomorrow we'll be back on our skins but today taught me it's also about better yourself on your skis and focusing on the simple things as well. Can you really say you're the best skier on the mountain until you've focused on your carving turns as well as your powder turns?
Skiing is a sport that is tied to an art. An art has no height to exceed, no score line to outdo, no times to beat. It's just you, your feeling and your own judgement of that.
Embrace it, strive to be better and if you do, you'll have all the more fun for it.
.jpeg)
Comments