Out & About July 2017

ontinuing the recreational sporting

theme from previous articles on

cycling and table tennis, this

month’s topic is skiing.

I first caught the skiing bug while on a

university trip to La Plagne, France, in 1979.

Most of the group were total beginners and

after some helpful École du Ski Francais (ESF)

ski school lessons, by the end of the first week,

we were able to snow plough down blue and

green runs.

We didn’t ski particularly fast and we definitely

didn’t ski with style, but we made it down the

mountain.

The sense of accomplishment, spectacular

mountain scenery and alpine food and wine

provided a thoroughly addictive high-altitude

combination.

There have been a number of subsequent

skiing holidays, (and quite a few more ESF

lessons), and while the distance covered

under the skis has reduced as the years have

progressed, in contrast, the overall enjoyment

and sense of camaraderie have increased.

One particularly memorable moment was

skiing in fancy dress in Courchevel, France in

the early 1980s.

Being one of a group of a half a dozen people

skiing dressed in black tie was somewhat sur-

real, but thankfully the sun was shining,

so it wasn’t particularly cold and mercifully

no-one fell over that day.

Writing this has prompted me to dig out the

photographic evidence from the attic, above.

Another highlight was skiing the 17km Vallée

Blanche route in Chamonix, Switzerland.

Starting out with a professional ski guide from

the Aiguille du Midi cable car at an altitude of

3,700 metres, you then stride out along a

narrow arête or ridge on the crest of the

mountain, carrying your skis with one hand

and the other firmly gripping a tethered single

rope.

The views from the top are simply

breath-taking, as is some of the skiing on the

2,700 metre vertical descent into the valley.

At the start, it really seems as if you are skiing

on the roof of the world and it’s also the only

place where I have, albeit temporarily,

experienced complete silence. Highly

recommended.

In early January this year, a group of three of

us – my 20-year-old son, Edward, a university

friend of his and I – joined a mixed chalet party

of 14 in Les Arcs, France.

Despite some very patchy snow cover, around

50 per cent of the pistes were open and skiing

conditions, particularly higher up, were

remarkably good.

Although there was a wide variation in age

range – from late teens to early 60s –

everyone got on well together and there were

some memorable evenings out, including

bowling and pool at the Sport Bar and a

hilarious quiz evening at Whistlers.

One of the best runs in Les Arcs is the 7km

succession of pistes down from the L’Aiguille

Rouge.

A mixture of black, red and blue runs descend

from a height of 3,226 metres to the pretty

village of Villaroger and a welcome stop for a

reviving vin chaud or two.

For those looking for some après ski on the

slopes, the Arpette restaurant in Les Arcs is

famous for hosting DJ sessions on Wednesday

afternoons.

Beware!

If you’re planning to dance on the tables in

ski boots – as many people choose so to do –

prior practice might be advisable.

In summary, Les Arcs and the neighbouring

resort of La Plagne offer more than 425km of

skiing – more than enough for most people.

Now I’m off to practice my ski boot dancing

before my next visit.

Did you know

The word “ski” comes from the Old

Norse word skíð, which means a piece of

wood. Ancient carvings unearthed by ar-

chaeologists in Norway suggest the locals

started skiing many thousands of years

ago, with one rock drawing thought to date

from 4000BC.

While skiing as a sport is widely ac-

cepted to have originated in Norway,

tribesmen in the Altai Mountains between

China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Russia

may have been practising a form of skiing

even earlier than the Scandinavians. Part of

a primitive wooden ski, thought to be 8,000

years old, was found near Lake Sindor in

Russia. A tribe in the Xinjiang province of

China still makes skis by splitting spruce

trees and wrapping them in dried horse

skins, which they use to climb slopes as

well as slide down them. Unlike modern

skiers, however, they have only one pole

– they need the other hand for hunting elk.

In 1965, Sherman Poppen from

Michigan, made a snowboard for his

daughter by binding two skis together to

create a sort of skateboard without wheels.

He called it a “snurfer” – or a surfboard to

use on snow. About a million “snurfers”,

which were steered with a handheld rope

and had no bindings, were sold over the

next 10 years.

Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur

Conan Doyle discovered skiing when

he moved to Switzerland in 1893 – the

mountain air had been prescribed for his

wife’s health. There he found two locals,

the Branger brothers, skiing at night to

avoid fellow villagers’ derision. With them

he made the first pass of the 8,000ft

Maienfelder Furka mountain passage. He

was also, according to the

Telegraph

, the

first Englishman to write of the thrill of

skiing, saying it took you “as near to

flying as any earthbound man can”.

Most passenger cars are designed to

reach speeds of around 120 miles an hour.

But speed skiers, who throw themselves

down super steep slopes at the maximum

speed possible, can go a lot faster than

that. The current world record, held by Ital-

ian skier Simone Origone, is an incredible

156.2 miles an hour!

... going downhill is not such a bad thing