Went skiing for the first time in 14 years today at the Ackers dry ski slope in Birmingham. Work colleague and fellow biker Chris invited the girls and me along, as his family was going.
Turned up at 10:00 and all was fairly quiet, except for a group of learners on the slope. Chris and family turned up shortly afterwards. Murron and Philippa headed for the toboggan slope next to the ski slope with Emma, Chris’ girlfriend, Becky and his children.
I’d brought my ski equipment along (anno 1990, bought during my time working in Davos, Switzerland) and managed to remember how to put everything on. First of all I headed up the nursery slope, herringboning up to the top of the slope and doing a couple of test runs, just to ensure I still ‘could’, before I took the button lift to the top of the main slope.
It took me three or four runs down to get into the swing of things again, but it all came back very quickly really. The last time I had skied was on a glacier at Les Deux Alpes, France in July 1993, whilst studying at Grenoble in France.
By the end of the hour session, I was thoroughly enjoying myself and I have definitely got the bug again. My parallel turns were back in order and I was trying to fit more in each run. Unfortunately, Emma didn’t manage to video any of my runs (I wanted to review my technique once I got home), but I managed to record a run down the slope from my viewpoint and then got Chris'[ run down.
Chris did quite well – it had been a few years since he last went skiing.
The kids all thoroughly enjoyed tobogganing, although Philippa came off towards the end of the session and scraped her cheek on the horrible Dendex stuff they use on dry ski slopes. Fortunately, by the time we got back, both she and Murron were looking forward to going back again.
Cool! But why didn’t you go to a snowdome?
Chris had already planned to go to the Ackers with his girlfriend’s sister, (who was refused permission to ski, because they wanted to assess her skiing ability before they let her on the slope and there was nobody available to do so!). As it happens, it’s handy for Chris and not too bad for me. It cost me £10 (I think for one hour’s skiing). Not sure how much the Snowdome is, but I believe it’s more.