After a surprisingly traffic-free journey from Switzerland, our team of six arrived to a very friendly welcome at our cozy hotel. Rooms allocated, dinner eaten, we then agreed our plan of action for the next day – bumps, bumps and more bumps. Here we go! ⛷
It being my first ski of the season, I was rather worried my legs would be destroyed after the first half an hour. However, the knee gods were obviously on my side as, once we started skiing, we found there weren’t as many mogul fields around as we had expected (silently breathing a sigh of relief…🤫). But, Kanski is too good at improvising and, not only located all the bumps we could possibly ski, he made an excellent job of giving us drills that we could use for real when we did encounter the bumps, or any other terrain to be honest. Whether we wanted to turn on the top of, halfway up, halfway down (I sometimes overshot the top), or around the bump, Sander has a drill for it. Tips down/heels up - which ever works best for you, long turns, short turns, pivot turns down the T-bar (luckily they weren’t in use at the time...), compress, absorb, big toe, little toe, one leg, the other leg, skis together, torch parade, we did them all and more! Not to mention the wheee! skiing in pairs - a great way to liven up after over-indulging at lunch.😁
Visibility was not the best as I clobbered my way down the invisible bumps on the first day, which seemed to appear out of nowhere like ghostly battleships, ready to take me down at the slightest mistake. However, by the last day, we were all whizzing over, round and through those bumps like they weren’t even there (well almost…) even though we couldn’t really see much in the flat light. But wow, how I improved my poor-viz skiing!
The third day brought us good visibility, and oh we were excited! 🥳 We were treated to some fun off-piste descents, able to implement the tips we’d learned for the bumps. Who knew? Then back to poor visibility on the fourth day but what great snow, and somehow we were all whooping down the bumps and lumpy "side piste" unperturbed by the flat light. Two of the more intrepid members of our group even managed an extra THREE off-piste descents at the end of the final afternoon, after the rest of us had called it a day. Awesome stuff!
Another surprisingly traffic-free journey back to Switzerland, a rare treat until the other ski areas open, and we arrived home tired and happy. Well-armed with a full box of tools and looking forward to the upcoming ski season, whatever it wants to bring us. Thanks Sander, what a great feeling! 😊
Naomi