More Skiing!

After last week's adventure, I was a little wary about going skiing this weekend, particularly since the weather looked like it could be questionable. But luckily for me, the lifts on nearby Jura at La Faucille were open, and so one of the CERN fellows was willing to organise a trip up there and also teach me how to ski.

So we meet up for half a day on the slopes at 11am at CERN. There are five of us all together, three experienced skiers, one beginning snowboarder and me. We pile into two cars and head on up there, taking the back roads through the Swiss and French villages along the way to avoid the Saturday morning traffic.

It's a small resort, and low by European standards at around 1300m, but it has the advantages of being really close, like we were able to get up there by noon, and has a magnificent view of the Alps, which I was unable photograph as I was worried about dropping my camera on the ski lift and then at the top, the safety barriers were in the way. Not to mention, since I can't really ski, all I need is a green or blue slope to practise on, and there was a fairly easy blue slope open, of which this is the start of:


So I learnt how to parallel turn, which was so much easier than snow plough turns, but am still not very good at controlling my speed, and tend to fall down randomly, though I've since figured out that that is because I have my skis too far apart and my weight backwards. But yeah, it was great fun and I want to go again soon! Thanks heaps to those who were so patient in teaching me! You know who you are. *smiles*