Miserable in the Mountains
I found this in the depths of my hard drive today… I gave up skiing long ago and, while reading this, I had a giggle remembering why!
*****
Oh no, it’s coming to get me! It’s long, it’s white, it’s freezing, it’s... the abominable ski-season! Living in Switzerland, barely an hour away from the bracing mountain air, the virgin slopes, the challenging black runs andall those sexy ski teachers, I know all about the ski-season. Some people send insulting letters to the weatherman if he fails to deliver snow before Christmas. Not me. I find the entire package a complete and utter bore.
Just think about it. Consider the preparations. All that bulky skiwear, all those sweaters, that thermal underwear, those heavy shoes and boots you have to cart around, and that’s before you start wrestling with skis, poles and snowboards. I have come to dread weekends during the seemingly never-ending ski-season. There’s simply no escape from this conspiracy: everyone gets all psyched up, banging on about the latest in skiing technology, how Wanker Skis are better than Wonker Skis, although Wonker’s new pink and orange carvers are like, totally cool, and whoa, wait ‘til you test the new Snitty-Snotty snowboard! Then there’s the dilemma of what the best dressed skier will be wearing this year, a tricky question since what’s “in” in one ski-station is totally “out” in another; get the wrong outfit and you’re in the dorkzone.
Year after year, you sit in crowded, damp après-ski cafés, soaking in the aroma of sour-sweat, listening to people with chapped lips and stringy saliva relive their ski adventure of the day, comparing ski paraphernalia and bragging about how they conquered Mount Too-Bloody High’s north-facing, bone-rattling mogul-field during the blizzard of the century.
It’s all supposed to be clean, healthy fun. And skiing can be fun: in March, on a weekday, when it’s warm and sunny, when there are not thousands of people bombing about on equipment they can barely control. Danger doesn’t lurk; it zips by, cuts you off, knocks you over. Migratory habits are one thing in the summer when the entire Northern Hemisphere heads for the sun: once the choice destination has been reached, everyone just lies down on a beach. But in the winter, those very same people all decide to be Tomba La Bomba on the same mountain, all at the same time.
Personally, I’m a cautious skier. I can control my speed, hardly ever fall and am famous for never choosing a challenging slope over an easy one. This chicken-livered strategy has proved invaluable over the years, ensuring that my technique has never improved. I am therefore never expected to rise at dawn, quivering in anticipation of being the first person to breathe-in the teeth-grinding, metallic reek of the telecabines. Warm and smug under my duvet, I let the ski-desperados squabble over being the first to carve perfect parallel turns in fresh powder.
Hours later, I finally venture out to meet my husband and his friends, miserably crippled in those impossibly uncomfortable contraptions called ski-boots, sweat droplets making their way slowly but irrefutably into the gusset of my underwear, struggling to keep my skis and poles from maiming chic ladies in sheepskin coats promenading dachshunds. Then I find myself muttering expletives while trying to remove my ski-gloves without the inner-lining coming out, in order to pay Weasel Man in his funny little wooden hut the ridiculous amount of money he demands for the ski-pass. By this time I can barely contain my excitement at the thought of what lies ahead: QUEUES !
All those interminable queues get to me. All those strangers who cuddle up to you, congealed snot and squeezable blackheads in Panavision, their rancid breath sending you scuttling down your turtleneck in search of your own comforting odours. When you finally elbow your way inside one of those flimsy, suspended, metal contraptions called “eggs”, you are rudely confronted by the etymological source of the name: skiers breakfasts die-hard.
So, I take a deep breath and emerge further up the mountain red-faced and light-headed, wondering how most people manage to look like the sleek characters in James Bond movies when I feel like a Bette Midler comedy. Determined not to be a grouch, I put on my best ski-bunny face and spend the rest of the day out of breath, trying to keep up with the other bum-waggling members of the party and desperately dodging the hoards of manic snowboarders, the out-of-control, flown-in-for-the-weekend, hung-over from too much partying slope-terrorists and the crash-helmeted mini-champions who hurl themselves from all sides, oblivious to one and all.
For a cautious skier like me, making my way down a bottlenecked intersection towards the end of the day feels like tackling mega-spaghetti junction in the rush hour with a wonky clutch. Timing is all: launch your skis a split second too soon or too late and you risk, at best, being the recipient of a stream of insults, or, at worst, fatal injuries from head-on collision. But when you’ve gotta go you’ve gotta go. Stall long enough and you’ll be flagging a ride under the stars from Weasel Man’s best-buddy in his snow-caterpillar while everyone else is consuming copious amounts of cheesy concoctions, ingesting white wine and wondering where on earth you got to.
So, this year I might just let them wonder. If my wallet won’t stretch to behold-my-bikini-time in the Bahamas, I’ll have to find another solution. There’s supposedly a new aqua park opening on the road to snow-city. It boasts tropical temperatures, giant waterslides and Margaritas by the pool. Cheesy? To each his own fromage.
(written in 2000)