My first ever day’s skiing (as a menopausal woman with irrational fears)

For as long as I’ve known him (which is a very, very long time!), my husband has been desperate to go skiing. Personally, I could have happily lived the rest of my life without it, but it was his dream. In January, at the age of 51, his dream finally came true.

And me? I was mainly nervous and only very slightly excited.

I was nervous about one or other of us having an accident. I was nervous of the cable cars and chair lifts. And I was just generally nervous of the unknown. I’d seen photos and videos of people skiing, but I really couldn’t understand this whole other world in the mountains.

Before we went, I’d had a couple of lessons at Milton Keynes Snozone. I could have done with more, but Milton Keynes is a long way away. I wasn’t terrible, but I wasn’t very good either. And I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t  love it.

We’d had lots of advice from people.  My husband’s cousin told us to get private lessons, so we wouldn’t be held up by other people. (I’m sure those other people would have been very glad to have not been held up by me!) His wife told us to get thin gloves to wear under our ski mitts and his son told us to ski in Avoriaz, rather than Morzine where we were staying. Most importantly, my husband’s colleague told us that his wife hated her first few days of skiing, but then something clicked and she loved it.

We’d invested in lots of warm skiwear. At the Snozone it was -5C and I wore normal leggings, a normal Tshirt and a normal quarter zip jumper under my ski suit. On my first day in Avoriaz I wore thermal base layers (top and leggings) and a thermal fleece under my ski suit. And the weather was well above freezing and sunny.

It was a bit of a trek to Avoriaz. We were meeting our instructor at 9:30am on the mountain. There are lots of free buses running around Morzine and Avoriaz. We needed to get the U bus (four minutes) outside the hotel. Then I had to go into the ski hire shop because the boots I’d hired were too small. Then we had to get the A bus (15 minutes) to the base of the Prodains cable car. Then just a five minute cable car ride up the mountain. Breakfast was at 8am and we were on our first bus at 8:20.

I’m claustrophobic and I really don’t do cable cars. I got on and it was full to the brim with 30 people. I panicked. I did my Paul McKenna breathing exercises (Paul McKenna’s claustrophobia download combined with a small dose of Diazepam is the only way I’m ever going to get on a plane). Then I looked at photos on my phone until we were at the top.

And it was stunning! Snowy mountains and a beautiful blue sky.

Our instructor, from Freedom 2 Ski, was very good and very patient. Although the first thing we did was get on a chair lift. Another thing I don’t do. For me, claustrophobia isn’t just about being shut in places, it’s about being unable to escape. So I couldn’t possibly get on a cruise ship because I’d be stuck in the middle of the sea. A chair lift is being stuck in the air. Even tight clothes and too many layers make me claustrophobic.

We started off on an ‘easy blue’ run. I remembered what I’d learned at Snozone and turned slowly from side to side. But it wasn’t long before I fell over. Falling over doesn’t hurt, but it’s hard to get back up again, even with a very nice instructor talking me through it, and it knocks my confidence a bit. But I was OK for a few minutes. Then we got to a steeper, narrower bit. The instructor told us this was the toughest bit we would encounter all day. There was a group of tiny children having a lesson. And I accidentally got up speed and couldn’t slow down. I was literally screaming as I went down, trying to correct myself. And of course I fell over. It was even harder to get up this time.

After that, the instructor stayed right with me. He talked me through everything and I was talking it through in my head. We crossed over to a green run, which had always been his intention. The green run was nice. Just a very gentle slope. I skied down that happily. I got my confidence up and didn’t feel like I would fall. I still talked myself through every little move in my head.

Then there was another chair lift and another one. One of them stopped unexpectedly, which always freaks me out (I panic if a tube train stops). There was more gentle green slopes. I didn’t dare go fast for fear of getting out of control.

I’m not a normal menopausal woman, in that I’m not always hot. In fact, for eight or nine months of the year, I’m cold. But I was boiling. We had a few sips of water at 11am, but we really didn’t stop at all until the lesson cam to an end at 12pm. I would have loved to take photos, but we just didn’t have time. Just before the end of the lesson, there was another slightly steeper slope. I managed that, with the instructor talking me through it. Then I turned for a final short run and I fell over.

I was mentally and physically exhausted. Totally drained by the whole experience. I was hot, I was thirsty and my goggles were pressing on my glasses and my nose, so it  felt like I couldn’t breathe. Juggling poles and ski mitts was getting tiring. Everything was getting tiring.

We stopped for lunch at a bar which reminded me of one at Fistral Beach in Newquay. We’d inadvertently stumbled on the party bar, full of cool young snowboarders. Not 51 year old women drained by their first ever day of skiing on a mountain.

After lunch, we’d planned to cover the same ground as we had with the instructor. There was even talk of skiing back to Super Morzine – to a cable car just above Morzine – saving the Prodains cable car and the 15 minute journey on the A bus. But we were disorientated. We hadn’t landed quite where we’d started. We couldn’t find the way back to the first chair lift.  We half walked, half skied back there. It was getting very hot, so I had to remove my fleece. I was done.

When it comes to physical things, I’m not a fast learner. Words and general knowledge, I’m great at. I’m useful on a pub quiz team. But learning new sports? Not so much. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I wanted to keep going, because it was my husband’s dream holiday, but I had nothing left.

I’d been following Sally’s skiing journey on Instagram. She’s just a year younger than me and recently went skiing for the first time. She’d posted something about falling over three times and crying twice and I thought ‘that will be me’. I didn’t cry, but I was so close to it. Having to talk myself through every move, trying not to fall over, feeling hot and uncomfortable in all the gear. It was a lot to deal with.

So I decided to leave it there. My husband kindly got the cable car down with me (it was empty this time, so much nicer!) before heading back up. He did ski back to Super Morzine and said he nearly sh*t himself at the end and it definitely wouldn’t be suitable for me, even after several days’ lessons.

Maybe the next day I would manage a full day? And hopefully I would suddenly start to love it. You can read about that here…