Skiing holiday to Morzine and Avoriaz part 2

I recently went on my first ever skiing holiday – to Morzine and Avoriaz in the French Alps. It might be just me, but skiing for the very first time at the age of 51 isn’t easy, even if you are physically fit. My first day was extremely tiring. So how was the rest of the holiday?

It was snowing a bit on day 2. On day 1, I’d overheated in my fleece and sworn not to wear it again. But the weather was very different on day 2, so I braved wearing it again. I’m pleased to say I didn’t get too hot!

We got into the skiing much more quickly with our instructor. I made it safely past the two points where I’d fallen over on the ‘easy blue’ run (Proclou). My husband had wondered how the instructor was going to get me from snow plough (basic skiing move which helps you turn and stop easily and safely) to parallel skiing. Well he introduced it to me within half an hour on day 2! Did I fall over on first parallel turn? Yes, I did. Did I fall over again on a parallel turn a few minutes later? Also yes. But the falls felt very tame compared to my falls on the first day.

In the instructor’s words: “You’re not as bad as you think you are”. He told me about two ladies he’d taught for five years and they absolutely refused to move from the snow plough to parallel skiing.

I’d been looking forward to the bit where we crossed over onto the green run, which is almost flat. But we didn’t do that. We stayed on the blue run until the end.

I was still pretty much terrified, but I was under more control. The instructor even urged me to go a bit faster. Ironically, when I’d had my lessons at the Milton Keynes Snozone, I’d gone very fast. I enjoyed it. But I felt a bit out of control. It’s OK on a short slope in the Snozone, but I needed to control my speed on a proper ski slope. So I possibly controlled it a bit too much.

On the plus side, I didn’t have to talk through every single move in my head any more. Both the instructor and my husband said I’d made a lot of progress and weren’t expecting me to fall over any more.

And I felt able to carry on after lunch and just ski with my husband. We did the Proclou three times (although on two of them we crossed over to the green run towards the end). I did fall over on my third time and I was ready to quit at that point, but pleased I’d made a bit of progress.

But on the slopes and in the restaurants, I had this overwhelming feeling that people were looking at me (they weren’t, I know). I was too old. Too rubbish. And I was too old to be so rubbish. Not rich enough or posh enough to be skiing. I didn’t fit in.

Day 3 started with hideous torrential rain in Morzine and my enthusiasm for skiing was rock bottom. By the time the bus got to the cable car at Les Prodains, the rain had turned to sleet. And when we stepped off the cable car in Avoriaz, heavy snow was coming down. It was beautiful. But the visibility was almost zero and it was quite scary. We couldn’t even see where we were supposed to be skiing.

The instructor was trying to consolidate what I’d learned about parallel skiing the day before. Some of the time I got it, most of the time I didn’t. I still felt terrified nearly all the time (made worse by the lack of visibility), but I only fell over once during my lesson.

He also tried to get me to do something called (I think) a side slip, which was horrendous. I had to stand sideways on a steep bit with my skis parallel and slide down the hill. I’m way too clumsy and uncoordinated for that!

After lunch, I skied the Proclou with my husband again and had a particularly dramatic fall. We switched over to the green run and it was quiet, peaceful and beautiful, with soft, fresh snow. It was the most relaxed I’d felt all week. I’d have been much happier just walking through that beautiful snow rather than trying to ski and feeling terrified all the time.

When I’d had enough, I went back to the hotel and my husband went adventuring on his own. This is the best of both worlds. He gets to share his dream holiday with me, but also gets to ski without me holding him back.

Although massive credit to my husband and his endless patience with my ineptitude and neediness. I couldn’t even do my boots up myself, so he did them for me. He also went down on the cable car with me before going back to ski on his own because I get nervous, and stacked my skis and poles for me outside restaurants.

Day 4 was beautifully sunny, but quite windy, so even though it was definitely warmer, I didn’t overheat in my fleece. It was another big learning curve for me. I hadn’t realised, but the Proclou run had become my comfort zone.

The instructor started by taking us on a different chairlift, to a point higher than Avoriaz. I struggled getting through the gate and ended up getting left behind and having to do a chairlift without my husband or the instructor. This scared me! On day 1, I wouldn’t have believed I could have done that.

As it was our last morning of lessons, we were going on an ‘adventure’ to Les Lindarets. As it was an unfamiliar blue run, the instructor didn’t push me too much with the parallel skiing. But he did keep pushing me to keep my skis flat! My left turns weren’t as good as my right and my right ski always seemed to be slightly on edge (a bit like me). He also kept telling me to relax my arms. When I’m skiing, I feel tense ALL THE TIME.

There was about two minutes where I thought ‘I’m enjoying skiing!’, then we got to a really steep bit. The steep bit went on for longer than I was comfortable with. Inevitably, I fell over. It was probably my worst fall so far. A bit later, I clipped my husband’s ski and we both fell over.

Les Lindarets is absolutely stunning – much more beautiful than Avoriaz. It almost made up for the treacherous ski to get there. Almost.

Then we took another chairlift to a green run. In parts, it was almost flat, which is my favourite thing. At one point, I was told to not turn, just ski and get the momentum up. I literally screamed the whole way because I was convinced I was going to have a horrific collision. But then it went uphill, so I could see why I needed the momentum. And that was the end of our lessons!

We did the green run again in the afternoon and I didn’t fall over and didn’t scream, so I’m counting that as a win.

Day 5 was our final day of skiing and our only day without a lesson. I’ll be honest, the temptation to stay in the hotel reading my book was real. But I was on a skiing holiday, I needed to put my big girl pants on and get out there. It was a properly warm and sunny day. We started skiing at Les Lindarets rather than Avoriaz. Clearly, I wasn’t going to ski to get there, so we had to get the bus. We got our usual U into town, then switched to the A for a couple of stops. If we hadn’t have been wearing ski boots and carrying skis and poles, we would have walked that bit. Then we caught the M out of Morzine to Ardent, where we could get a cable car to Les Lindarets.

From there we caught the chairlift to the start of the green run we’d done the previous day. I’m not a fan of chairlifts and this is my least favourite. The views are stunning, but it is high, long and slow. To make matters worse, my husband got his pole caught in the gate, then got half knocked over by the chair, so they had to hit the emergency button to stop the whole thing until he was sorted.

Green runs should be easy, but our instructor described this as a ‘hard green’. It’s pretty steep in parts. The whole time I was skiing, I had two monologues running in my head. One was telling me what to do  – ‘keep turning’ and ‘keep your skis flat’ – and the other was just saying ‘I’m so scared, I’m so scared’ over and over again. But I did it again. My husband said I looked confident and in control, with no sign that I was terrified. He persuaded me to have one final run.

And it clicked! I didn’t tell myself I was scared, I didn’t feel out of control and I actually went a bit fast. Finally, I was starting to understand why people love skiing (and aren’t frightened of it).

After lunch, we got the chairlift back up to our old favourite ‘easy blue’ run – the Proclou. Parts of this had terrified me on days 1 to 3 and I’d had a few falls on it. Suddenly it wasn’t scary any more. I did it three times and felt more in control each time. My turns were smaller, but I knew to make them bigger if I wanted to slow down, and I was going faster. I didn’t fall over at all on day 5!

On my way down I saw something I hadn’t seen before – adults who couldn’t ski, in a wide snowplough, looking terrified. Even though I didn’t really feel it, I realised I’d come a really long way in five days. I actually wasn’t the worst person on the slopes any more.

I think I’m going to go skiing again next year…