Well, I am back. Back from wonderland.
This past week I have been staying the D'helios Apartments in Flaine (pronounced 'Flen') In The Alps. I went for a week with my Dad and Brother where we spent the entire time skiing down glorious mountains, enjoying excellent 'Alps Coffee' and layering up like I've never layered up before.
At -15 degrees, you really did have to pack on the layers just to feel human. I really have never felt cold like it before. The incredible thing was, although it was completely freezing, it stayed glorious and sunny the entire time.
So this week, I am bringing you a little series on the blog called 'Sentiments From The Slopes'. A little update, each day on my trip, how I got on with the whole skiing thing and also what we got up to (spoiler: A lot of skiing). Also, I'll obviously be sharing many pictures from the trip and I actually filmed a lot on my GoPro, so once that's edited, I'll share that with you too.
So let's kick it off with Day 1 shall we? Well, the apartments we were staying in were 'Ski door to door', which as you can probably guess, means that you can ski straight out of the apartment and onto the slopes, you don't have to get a bus to the slope like a lot of ski resorts do.
So we popped out of the apartment, and onto a green slope. (For those who aren't up on the whole skiing thing, slopes are graded on level of difficulty. It goes, green, blue, red and black) So out we go onto a green slope, then straight onto a blue. At this point I had skied for a week, about 10 years ago and then for about 4 hours in the past month... so not much.
Onto the blue slope and I coped with that okay, a little steeper but nothing I couldn't handle. We then move on a little and come across a red slope, which sure enough, my Dad and Brother take me down. At this point, shitting myself.
I manage to navigate this red slope okay, slightly enjoying myself, mostly just shitting myself. We then get into a chair lift and make our ascent up the mountain. I would say at this point we were more than half way up the mountain, so pretty high. It was early morning, the sun wasn't yet on this part of the mountain, so it was freezing. And now it's time to try and get down...
Getting down this mountain was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, literally. The slope we took, decided to alternate between blue and red. Now for a nearly first time skier, this was a pretty hard task. Near vertical drops, sharp corners, steep slopes and a load of skiers. Yep, this was pretty much hell at this point.
Adopting the 'Snow Plow' position (google it), I made my way to the bottom of the mountain, with a lot of cursing and shouting. At this early stage of the holiday, I really wasn't enjoying myself and doubting why I even came on the trip.
Upon reaching the bottom of the mountain, my legs were shaking with pain and I was in dyer need of a coffee. We sat down to enjoy our drinks in the sun and I made the decision to head back to some smaller, more 'me' appropriate slopes for the afternoon. Luckily, Dad saw the funny side of my little 'mountain tantrum' and brushed it off.
So needless to say, Day 1 of the trip wasn't all sunshine and flowers, it was more sunshine with a lot of snow and screaming. But don't worry, it get's a lot better!
Join me back here tomorrow for part 2 of Sentiments From The Slopes to see if and how my skiing improves!
| Harrison |
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