Return to Morzine and Avoriaz

When we went skiing in Morzine and Avoriaz last year, my husband couldn’t stop saying how much my daughter would love it and how good she would be at it. My daughter is an adrenaline junkie, so she would definitely love it. And she’s a dancer and very physically able. She only has to be told or shown how to do something once and she picks it up instantly and never forgets.

Because we’ve never taken the boys skiing, my daughter paid for some of the holiday herself – her flight, ski hire and ski pass. We stayed in an apartment in Morzine, which was cheaper than the hotel we stayed in last year, even though there was three of us rather than two.

My daughter had a ski lesson at Snozone in Milton Keynes way back in August. Nobody wants skiing lessons in August, so it was massively discounted. I was worried she might forget everything she’d learned, but of course she wouldn’t! Halfway through her lesson, the instructor checked that it definitely was her first time skiing. She picked it all up instantly as predicted and didn’t fall over once. At the end of the lesson, you get a little card showing your progress. There are six beginner levels. At the end of my first ski lesson at the Snozone, I’d just scraped into level 3, whereas my daughter had made it to level 4.

I predicted that when we got to Avoriaz, she would have caught me up by the third day. My husband said it would be the second day!

Our first day in the Alps was beautiful and sunny and clear, with thick snow.

As expected, my daughter made a brilliant start. She was as good on her first day as I’d been on my third or fourth day last year. We had lessons with the same instructor we had last year – Luc from Freedom 2 Ski. My daughter made it through her first lesson without falling over, unlike me last year, who fell over several times on my first day. She was starting to parallel ski, something which is still very much a work in progress for me!

I’d assumed that I would forget some of what I’d learned last year. I knew I wouldn’t go right back to my first day of being completely unable to ski, but thought I would have slipped back a day or two. But I surprised Luc, my husband and mainly myself in that I hadn’t forgotten a thing! My husband said it was like I’d just skiied the day before!

I always said I don’t hate skiing, but I don’t love it either. I found my first skiing holiday last year very hard. Yet on my very first day this year, I found myself smiling! I don’t think I smiled once on the slopes last year. I was too busy concentrating and feeling terrified.

Surprisingly, the only person who fell over during our first lesson was my husband.

Unfortunately, my daughter and I both fell over after our lesson as we were heading back to the cable car. Somehow, we took a wrong turn and ended up on a steeper run. It knocked both our confidence, but especially my daughter’s. The first day of skiing is physically and emotionally draining. Trying to remember everything and put it into practise. But also the practicalities of juggling poles and skis and the weight and awkward nature of carrying everything around. Added to that, my daughter and I both found our boots too small, so we had to go back to the shop to change them at the end of the day.

But we’d survived our first day!

On our second day, we didn’t have a lesson. We managed to navigate a full day of skiing with one beginner and one nearly beginner without any of us falling over. We went down our two familiar routes – the Proclou (easy blue run) and the Serrausaix (green run) and down the green route which runs more or less parallel to the Proclou  – the 1ere Glisse, which we’d never skiied before. And we navigated our way back to the Prodains Express cable car without any wrong turns!

On day three, we were back to lessons. My husband went off and did his own thing, so Luc was free to concentrate fully on my daughter and I. We went over some things he’d tried to teach me last year. At that time, I couldn’t even understand them and I certainly couldn’t do them. This time, I understood them and was able to do them at least half of the time. But my daughter was definitely closing the gap on me! I could see she was technically better than me, but I had more confidence to just let go and ski. My little skiing secret, which my family find very funny, is that when I get to the red signs at the bottom of a slope which say to slow down, I actually speed up! I figure this is because my fast is like most people’s slow and, once I’ve seen the sign, I know I’m safe and will be able to come to a stop. I enjoy those few seconds of complete freedom.

We both fell over of our own accord once, plus my daughter was knocked over by another skier (a man). Luckily she was OK, but that wasn’t a nice thing to happen. Day three was the day I went on chairlifts on my own for the first time. In fact, I went on my own every single time. I’m a bit scared of the chairlifts, so being on my own was a shock. Ski schools get priority in the queues for the lifts, but when you’re a group of adults, you just get one seat at a time – hence ending up on my own!

Day four of skiing, and day three of lessons, was the day my daughter officially got better at skiing than me. She was parallel skiing to perfection at all times. I can do it a lot of the time, but definitely not all of the time. It was the day we tackled my nemesis from last year – the blue run down to Les Lindarets. I didn’t fall over, so that was an improvement, but I was terrified nearly all the time and I needed a lot of help from Luc. The best thing about day four? We were skiing in heavy snow!

Day five of skiing was our final day of lessons. I finally managed skiing parallel all the way down the Proclou (twice!). My problem with parallel skiing is that sometimes one of my skis gets ‘stuck’ and I can’t bring it right round to parallel. I was feeling pretty proud to have made that breakthrough, but then somehow managed to fall over twice at the end of the lesson. There’s a slope, which is just a linking slope which runs from where the Proclou chairlift ends down to the restaurants in Avoriaz and the start of the Proclou. It’s impossible to get anywhere without using it, but it’s very busy and steep. I managed to fall over twice right at the end of the lesson – once on that slope. Then I fell over again on that slope when we were on our own, although I’m not sure if that counted as I was knocked over by a man skiing too fast.

I had a bad night’s sleep before our last day of skiing. Skiing was all in my head – and not in a good way. I got on the Proclou and all my brilliant parallel skiing from the day before was gone and I just felt terrified. We moved on to the Serrausaix and I gradually got my mojo back. I skied that three times and the 1ere Glisse once and was happy to stop skiing at lunchtime. I fell over once on the last day – and that was only because someone knocked me over! The final fall count for the week was nine falls for me, six for my daughter and just one for my husband. I was angry that I’d been knocked over twice and my daughter had been knocked over once. None of them apologised, in fact the two that knocked me over skied away before I could even see them.

My daughter did a couple more runs after lunch and my husband skied until late afternoon. Every day, it’s a relief to get the ski boots and helmet off and to stop lugging around the skis and the poles. Dropping them off at the shop was bittersweet. It was sad to know we were going home, but also a relief not to have the discomfort and the weight of them at all times!

Skiing as a beginner is mentally and physically exhausting, but I’m pleased to say it was a great break for my very tired marathon training legs. After a week off running, I was ready to go back and hit the final 10 weeks of marathon training hard!

I’ll tell you all the detail of where we stayed, our lessons and our flights etc next time.