It’s Snow Problem At All ⛷❄️

 

Well, I’m a bit behind (as always) when it comes to blogging! It’s hard for me to keep up with posting on real-time events because so much happens every day! (Sort of. Not really. I’m mostly just swimming or at the grocery store.) But that’s beside the point — this post is strictly about skiing.

As of yesterday, I’ve gone skiing four times (3 times this past week!), which is already more than I’d ever been in my life before this point.

Even though it’s already over a month ago, I thought I’d start at the very beginning and tell you about my HILARIOUS first day of skiing in Vorarlberg back in December…and by hilarious I mean I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE.

On a Friday afternoon I rushed home after work to get ready to be at the train station by 1pm (or 13 UHR if you’re on Austrian time) and meet another teaching assistant, Zach, who was going skiing with me.

All I can say is, I felt pretty conspicuous waiting at the train station with my ski gear and wearing my bright red ski suit (it’s a wonder I didn’t see any of my students hah), but then I reminded myself that I’m in Vorarlberg and it’s not unusual to see skiers on trains and in buses. (That doesn’t stop everyone from staring, though! And the other day as I was leaving the train station with all my ski gear some bums shouted at me, “HOI wo warscht du schifahre?” 😜)

The train was really full, but we managed to find seats, and after some finagling I got my skis and poles to balance in the corner. Let me tell you — lugging all my ski stuff around was quite the ordeal, although I’m finally starting to get the hang of it and look more graceful haha! But on Friday, I was sweating from carrying all my stuff and did not feel the least bit graceful. (At least my skis are lightweight!)

Zach was decidedly more chill since he’d been skiing all of last year and had already been quite a few times this season. I, on the other hand, was terrified. He assured me things would be fine and that he and David (another teaching assistant) had a nice route they’d take me on. And I blindly trusted that Zach and David would take good care of me on my first day of “real” skiing. Ahem. 😝🤪

To put the rest of the story in context, this was the extent of my (Midwest) “skiing” experience–from about four years ago:

That’s Paoli Peaks and it’s not very steep. I don’t know if you can really call it skiing, because those Midwest slopes are like the bunny slopes in Montafon.

Anyways, we took the train to Bludenz and transferred to another train to Schruns. On the train to Schruns, we put on our ski boots (this is the system). My shoes are small, so I’m able to fit my shoes, water, and chocolate (always a necessity) into my timbuk2 messenger bag. I have to say, I much prefer the method of wearing tennis shoes to the train station and changing into the ski boots on the train, rather than walking to the train station in ski boots. I don’t know how those people do it, because it’s hard to walk in trains and buses with ski boots on.

 

Getting psyched in the 13 min ride up the mountain.​

​Now, before I go further, I do have to add that Zach and David are both great guys, and what I’m about to say about them in the rest of this post is really not reflective of my opinion of them. Ahem.

That said…. THEY ARE TERRIBLE SKI INSTRUCTORS (sorry guys, but you know I have to give you a little grief about this 😜)

What was this “easy” route they decided to take me on?

Let me show you. This following map is of Montafon and the route in pink is what we did on the first day. (I MEAN, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, GUYS?! 🤦🏻‍♀️)

For comparison, this is the route I’ve felt comfortably challenged doing since then.

We took the Zamang Bahn up to the “Kapellresteraunt.” Then we took route 9 over to the beginning of the Panorama Bahn — I did okay in that first stretch, trying to get my ski legs back (not that I ever had much “ski legs” to begin with). We rode the Panorama Bahn all the way up to where it says “Kreuzjoch” on the map, then down route 10 (OH MY WORD IT WAS SO STEEP I THOUGHT I WOULD DIE).

Although my stomach was churning with terror on the inside, I’ll admit that the view was pretty spectacular at the top.

On route ten, I must have fallen a dozen times and flew off the route into the deep snow and almost hit a wooden pole and spent about 15 minutes trying to dig myself out. I’m sure it was hilarious to watch. (At least, I was laughing.)

Then once I got down that slope, I was so RELIEVED and thought we were DONE because I was exhausted from falling and pulling myself up. I was like “Phew! I’ve made it to the bottom! I am SO DONE.” Zach and David looked at each other and uh, informed me that nope, that was only half of it. And the only way down was….down the rest of the slope.

At that point, we may have had a conversation something like this:

“Can I take the lift down?”

“I mean, no one does that.”

“Can I just scooch myself down the rest of the way?”

“No.”

“Can I roll?”

“No…”

“Okay. Oh my god. Please give me chocolate.”

So we went up the Hochalpila (I think) and took route 1a back down (which was also very steep at certain points and icy). We did get to go through the longest ski tunnel in the area and that was pretty cool.

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But it was a loooong way down. And I kept falling. By that point, my entire body was jelly from pulling myself up from the ground and my confidence was completely shot.

Unfortunately, I don’t have many more photos from the day because we were kind of in a rush to get to the bottom before the last lift left. But Zach did take this photo of me towards the end:

I spent most of the day thinking I just was a terrible skier and feeling really embarrassed about how much I was falling down. But after looking back at the route, it was incredibly long for the first day skiing (real mountain skiing!), and I didn’t get to practice on any gentle slopes at the beginning just to get the feel back for turning and “pizzaing.” I’m happy to report that since this December disaster, I have only fallen twice. 😅🙌🏻

Zach and David were real champs and stuck with me the whole time and made sure I got back safely. So while they might have been a bit overzealous with the “beginner” route, I will say that they were incredibly patient and encouraging, and I can really only dock one star in my imaginary yelp review. 😉 At any rate, it’s made for a very memorable experience and certainly didn’t dampen any of my enthusiasm for skiing.

In my next post: level 5 avalanche warnings and the tale of the hot Austrian ski instructor who was actually a good ski instructor. 😜

More later,

Sarah