Ski Trip: 18 January

Finally a day when our efforts of putting on our ski equipments were not a waste. The weather was still bad, but much better than before. The most important thing was that the wind was not too strong to force the télécabine to stop working. By then I didn’t really care about the weather condition anymore because all I wanted to do was to ski. Even if we got up to base camp and weren’t able to get back down in the télécabine, I would’ve happily skied to the bottom.

One of the most interesting trails we did that morning was a trail sponsored by Milka, a very well-known chocolate company in Europe. Besides the main trail, there were also a few outer-trails that went through the forest. However, these trails were usually small and bumpy. If somebody falls in front of you, most likely you would fall too because there’s no space for you to dodge. And that’s exactly what happened to me as I excitedly hopped on the little bumps all the way into the forest and prepared myself for a beautiful left turn when I ran straight into a Sophomore boy, who had fell because he ran into the girl in front of him. It was like a domino effect but luckily I was the last one in line. The instructor of another group followed but she was quick enough to stop herself. She even helped us up and hollered to her group to not come into the forest. Then we were good to go and I even tapped on a bell which was hanging at the top of a wooden stake beside the main trail with my ski poles. The sound was crisp and clear, resonating through the forest.

The weather condition

Eating chocolate on the ski lift is kind of a habit of mine

On the way up to the Milka trail

However, in the afternoon I started to get a huge problem with my ski goggles. Apparently I didn’t know that there were different types of goggles for the changing weather conditions. There were shaded ones for sunny days, and clear ones for snowy and windy days. I only brought one with me, which was a shaded one. Plus the fact that I forgot to take it off my helmet the night before and let it dry properly, my goggles kept on fogging up on the inside and I literally couldn’t see anything while skiing. I had no idea what awaited me on the trails and all I could do was follow the vague figure of whoever was skiing in front of me.

The scarier thing was that I almost left the group to ski with our school teachers that afternoon. The sports teacher had said that they would be skiing a black trail and I wanted to go with them. However, at the last minute Seb said it would be better for me to stay because we were getting evaluated. With my fogging goggles, it was a huge relief that I didn’t ski with the teachers.

We passed the evaluation with the Confirmés, the superior group. Our task was to ski down a slope, starting with five big turns, then five small and more vertical turns, if possible. I went last and managed to nail it though I was skiing blind.

Thursday was a day of fun trails, just very unfortunately we had the weather like that. We took a drag line (poles with little round seats that pull us up the slopes from our butts) that spent twenty minutes to bring us to the end – a point where we were supposed to be able to see the Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps and in Western Europe. But with the tail of the blizzard still sweeping through the valleys, we saw nothing in the void of white.