SUSANNE: Skiing – my secret passion

I love skiing. Since the age of seven I’ve been skiing at least once a year, so I can’t imagine a winter without going to the mountains. Now, when the cold season is beginning, I’m eagerly looking forward to the first snow and the next skiing holiday. You can’t imagine the incredible feeling of carving through the powdery snow while you have the spectacular mountain panorama in front of you, the sun shining in your face and the glittering snow particles spraying into the air in front of you.

It was in the 70s when we, that is, my parents, my brother and I, went to the Alps for the first time to try this upcoming sport. I remember the fashionable equipment: a Norwegian woolen pullover, an anorak, leather ski boots up to the shins, large heavy skis and neither a helmet nor special ski glasses. After a couple of hours we were dripping with sweat or, what's worse, if it was snowing, we were soaked to the skin. Compare with today’s functional self-breathing skiwear! What else has changed? Skiing has become a mass sport: Each year thousands of people travel to the popular ski resorts and try to gain a free track on the crowded ski slope, so they have to find accommodation, eat and shop in the formerly cute mountain villages. If you go skiing in the high season, expect queuing at the ski lift and in the restaurant. Apropos restaurants: In those days, fast food didn’t exist in ski areas, and we had lunch in kind of little Alpine cottages which were run by their owners. I especially remember one where a busy old lady offered her delicious home-made crepes. On the other hand, now you have the comfort of artificial snow-powdered runs that guarantee easy downhill descents to the town below without scratching your skis.

The above mentioned and other collateral effects of mass tourism make me increasingly worried about nature in high mountain areas (and that also fits with our topic, as you must remember the “sacred balance”, don’t you?). But I admit that it would be hard for me to abstain from skiing, although there might be a sustainable way of practising this sport, as the first video below "Ski for Nature" demonstrates.  Do you notice that the people ski in a different way? It’s an old form of skiing, the telemark style, which is enjoying a revival in recent years. 

Then I’d like to show you how beautiful skiing can be: The first video is an advertising clip from Atomic, a well-known ski manufacturer.  

The second, a teaser trailer from the film Claim ("the greatest ski movie ever"), shows some daring extreme skiers in their element. 

I hope you enjoy the clips and, maybe, they will encourage you to try out this wonderful sport. 

Hi,  it's me again! I've found a short video that promotes respect towards mountain areas. 

Thanks for the lovely nature-oriented post, dear Susanne. I can see you're a keen skiing fanatic and rightly so. I mean, I've never practiced the sport myself but my children have, well, on and off, and I know it's great fun. Actually, my daughter is going skiing (snow permitting!) to Andorra only next week with her secondary school mates.

Now that I think of it ... I "kind of" skied twenty-five years ago, when I was a budding young teacher in Leon, the year before I passed my competitive exam ... may I reminisce the anecdote? Mariano, one of my students and an inveterate skier, invited me to join him and his wife for a weekend in the popular ski resort up in the north, San Isidro. He provided me with the whole (branded) gear: the warm clothing, a pair of skis, glasses, gloves ... the lot! I looked like a real Fernandez Ochoa, ha ha!

But to cut a long story short, believe me, it was frustrating. However hard Mariano tried to teach me the rudiments of the sport, I felt my legs weak and kept stumbling on the immaculate white snow, much to the hilarity of the able kids around. And to cap it all, my delicate white complexion got severely burnt under the winter sun as it got reflected on the sun like on a mirror. I was a staggering "tomato" on skis! So that was in a nutshell the one time I kind of experienced the pleasure (!) of feeling the soft white blanket under my feet - again. Long gone had been my childhood days in Germany when there were knee-high snowfalls and I would go downhill on my sleigh ...