It's the end of the Summer and if you're not already thinking about your 2011 ski holiday; you should be. I only starting skiing quite late on (28) and, like many others, i found the prospect of my first trip rather daunting. And with good reason: I had never seen big mountains before, I had never seen snow deeper than a few millimeters before, I had never experienced temperatures lower than about -5C, and I had never been more than about 1000m above sea level.
Clearly, given the nature of this blog, and the fact that we have changed our lives to that we can be closer to skiing, we rather enjoyed that first week, and all the subsequent weeks. Therefore I am amazed to find that some people don't enjoy it, end up in tears, or try it once and don't bother coming back. One couple that joined us for a ski week said "we liked it, but maybe we'll only come every second year or so". This boggled my mind. Then it occurred to me that not every one has the same brilliant introduction to skiing that we did. In our first week we made firm friends with "The Phils" who are excellent skiers, excellent teachers, extremely selfless in their skiing (unlike me), and above all, patient. This meant that we effectively had 2 hours of ski lessons each day with a school (which weren't very good), and then another 6 hours with The Phils - which was free!
Now obviously The Phils can't join everyone on their first ski holiday, although I'm sure they'd enjoy that and so would you, but I thought I'd put together a list of ingredients for making sure you have an excellent first week's skiing.
Ski at the end of the season
The first thing ski beginners want to know, before they come out on their first holiday, is "will there be any snow?" and "how good is the snow?". This is primarily because the media, particularly in the UK, would have us believe that the world has become a toxic desert wasteland over the last 5 years and that nowadays you only get snow a couple of days a year in Antarctica, if it's particularly cold. I live in what is considered a low-altitude resort (1000m- 2400m) by Alpine standards. I've skied here every year at varying times of the season for the last 6 years. Two of those years (2008 and 2010) we've lived here for the entire ski season. And I have never been without snow. This year we skied after the resort had officially closed as late as May. Just over a month ago we skied in Tignes at the end of August after what has been a hot summer.
There is plenty of snow. Above 1000m in Alps in the Winter you will get snow. Don't worry about it.
The next question I find ski-beginners asking is how good the snow is. This is the key to this tip. As a beginner you actually want terrible snow. This may be confusing, but let's consider what good snow really is. "Good" snow to a downhill ski champion is extremely icy, slippery, hard-(as nails)-packed, "snow" that is more like a vertical ice-rink. "Good" snow to an extreme skier is huge dumps of fresh, powdery, untracked, steep snow that no one else knows how to find.
Beginner skiers really struggle on icy snow because it's difficult to get your edges in and you feel out of control. When you make a turn, you will pick up a huge amount of speed over a very short distance. Powder is almost impossible to ski on for beginners - and is only found off-piste anyway. If there's a huge dump of powder during the day on the piste, you will spend the day fighting with your misted up goggles, not being able to see your skis in the powder and getting very wet and very cold.
This is why I say go skiing at the end of the season. Sometime near Easter is a good bet - although Easter itself can be very busy. At the end of the season there's a greater chance it will be sunny and you can actually enjoy the mountains rather than being terrified of being blown away in a blizzard. The snow will be warmer and slushier and therefore much slower because the base of the ski will stick to the snow more. This makes making a turn much easier because you will be doing it in slow motion compared to your beginner ski friends who went out in January for the first time. Quite simply, you don't pick up as much speed and therefore you have enough time to think about what you are doing and get the technique right. In your second week, go in March, your technique will be good and so you won't have to worry so much about picking up speed.
The other good thing about going at the end of the season is you get to check out the snow-report well in advance of your trip. When I've had trips planned for early January to get the good cold snow, I was always worried that it might be still raining rather than snowing. You can wait until February to book your Easter-time trip so you can be sure that the snow actually fell in your resort, without being swayed by the media. Of course, don't leave it too late to book and start checking on availability now and asking your potential hosts what the bookings are looking like for Easter-time. The week just before Easter is usually quiet.
Ski in a well-known resort
Our first ski trip was to Scotland. There was snow, the lifts were running and they were taking people up, but apparently because it was cold and windy, they weren't taking beginners up the mountain. Hmmm, whoever heard of a cold, windy, Scottish mountain in the Winter? In France, they will welcome you onto the cable car no matter the weather or your skills, as long as the lifts are running. The theory being that you can always take the car down again if you're not up to it. The moral of the story is: don't waste your time with small resorts. If you go to the major resorts, you will almost certainly get to ski, unless the weather is really too bad, but you shouldn't have that problem because you are skiing in April, remember.
I'm sure resorts in Slovenia, Scotland, and Poland are just, like, totally awesome dude, but you can always go and explore them once you are a veteran. A friend of mine went skiing in Poland to a resort that had two pistes for 5 days. I cannot imagine the intense boredom of being on the same two slopes for 5 days. You may say that two pistes is enough for a beginner, but, no matter how green you are, you will certainly want to see some different scenery each day.
Don't waste your money, it's a false economy to spend £600 in total going to a small, obscure resort which might not have all the facilities you need when you can pay £800 and go to a well-established resort where you know that they will have enough instructors, enough hirable ski-gear, and enough lifts open for you to enjoy yourself.
Therefore, for you first trip, ski the French, Austrian, or Swiss Alps. Le Portes du Soleil (where we live!) is a good resort for beginners. And no, I'm not affiliated with any tourist campaign for this area, I just like it a lot and it's where I learned to ski. Read other reviews and you will see it's generally well-regarded as a good beginner and family ski area. We've skied Sankt Anton, Val d'Isere, and Chamonix and they're great resorts (read my reviews) but I don't think any of them are well set up for beginners. Another good beginner area is Samoёns.
Buy a walking jacket
Lately I've been getting a few queries on what kind of ski jacket to buy. My advice is not to buy one at all. Rather buy a good walking jacket. Ski jackets are different to normal jackets mostly by virtue of the fact that they have snug snow-skirts in them to prevent snow getting up inside them when you fall in deep powder. I have a simple walking jacket with no snow skirt and have fallen in lots of powder. Occasionally that snow has found its way inside the outer jacket but i've always easily been able to shake it out and only got slightly damp. Use a normal jacket, save your money, and only buy what is strictly necessary, such as salopettes (waterproof ski trousers), a good beanie, waterproof gloves, and a thermal underlayer.
Pick the right ski school
The first set of ski lessons you take and the instructor you get will impact how much you enjoy skiing, how much you learn, and could dictate how you feel about the whole week. We've had a wide variety of lessons varying from disorganised weirdos who made us feel stupid to excellent, amazing skiers and teachers that really inspired us to do better.
It's really hard to pick the right school for you, so here are some facts and i'll leave the actual decision up to you. The British and Other ski schools in France generally tend to be more expensive than their French counterparts. The French ESF schools, although cheaper, tend to have larger groups, and although your instructor will speak to you in English, the skill with the English language varies massively. I remember being told that I had to "declenche" my turn. I had no idea what this meant. I found out later that déclencher means "to cause" and is used when talking about avalanches.
Group size is an important factor. I remember my early group lessons. The instructor, at best, gives you 1/n of the group's time and if one of the n people dominates the discussion, you only get 1/((n-1) + n * i), where i is how irritating the loud-mouth is. Having said that, definitely take group lessons. In your first week's skiing you need to ski with a guide/instructor who will show you where you can safely go on the mountain and you will meet other beginners. Skiing in a group when you're starting out is essential. It's a lot less scary in your first blizzard when there are other, equally scared, people around.
If you're going skiing in a busy week I would go with a school with smaller numbers, if you're going in a very quiet week (early January, late March), then a larger, cheaper school might actually have smaller groups - but there's no way of knowing this in advance.
As for the instructors themselves. They are awesome. No matter which school you go to, to be an instructor in France takes a lot of time and effort. It takes longer to become a ski instructor in France than it does to get a university degree. And in order to pass the final test you have to be seriously good. One good, but more expensive option, rather than being with the same instructor all week is to take group lessons for the first part of the week and then one or two private lessons in the latter part of the week. It's more expensive but you'll learn more.
Go skiing because you want to
So many couples end up on ski holidays because one of the pair really wants to ski. The other party varies from not caring to really not wanting to go. A skiing holiday can be daunting and is extremely tiring if you're out all day. If you're not good with heights, skiing even beginner slopes can be fairly terrifying. Being in a blizzard at -25C at 2000m where you can't see more than 5m in front of you can be quite trying on your relationship! You should always try and go out with someone who is at the same skill level as you. If you're partner is already a good skier, go out in a foursome where at least one other person is a beginner. It's not fun learning on your own and feeling you're keeping everyone else back. Alternately, if you're the good skier with your beginner partner, you need to be prepared for a "boring" week on green runs and pack loads of patience if you want to go on more holidays with your partner.
Having said that, the only reason you should spend all that money and go on a skiing holiday, is because you want to. If you just want to try it, go for a long weekend initially rather than committing a full week.
Take an afternoon off
If you've never skied before, it is a unique sport. The only way to get truly ski-fit is to go skiing. A lot. In your first week your main technique is the snow-plough, or pizza shape if you're under 10. This is extremely hard work on your quads, knees, and calves. You're also at 2000m where you will notice the change if you live at or close to sea-level. In a nutshell, you're going to get very tired. And when you're tired, you can't really make a nice snow-plough, and then you can't really stop, and then you fall and it's just generally unpleasant.
I would recommend coming out on a Saturday (night) to Saturday holiday for your first week because the ski-schools, and consequently your lessons, are set up to have you go out on your first lesson on the Sunday morning after getting your gear on Saturday late afternoon/early evening. By about the Wednesday you are basically toast. Take the Wednesday afternoon off. See the sights, go ice-skating, get out on raquettes which are really cheap to rent for the day. Sleep! You will enjoy the Thursday to final last-minute ski on Saturday morning much more as a result of this.
You'll probably have the dreaded skiers-throat by Wednesday anyway. You're not exactly sick, but you don't feel good, your throat hurts and generally, you'd rather be in bed. I don't know what causes skiers-throat, but it's a combination of cold weather, lots of exercise, and spending a week with a bunch of strangers in a house where the windows are permanently sealed closed.
Go to an indoor slope
If you live in a country where they have indoor, artificial snow, ski slopes, you would be mad not to go to one of these places before coming out on your first real-mountain skiing adventure. You only need a two hour group lesson. They will teach you basics like "putting on your skis", "standing up after a fall", "riding a drag-lift", and your first snow-plough. This will give you a huge advantage over the other beginner skiers and you'll probably impress the instructor so much that you'll get bumped to the next class up and your ski career will get off to a much faster start.
Mostly though, it'll just help you feel much less overwhelmed by all the new gear that you will have and all the new information you have to take in.
Get fit
This is the most important one. That's why i saved it until the last, assuming you're still reading. My sister-in-law, Sam, was able to ski the ladies downhill world cup black run four days after donning skies for the first time. She didn't just "get down" it, she skied it, getting almost parallel on each turn.
She was able to do this because of having the right mental attitude to skiing (realising that you're not going to die, or even hurt yourself), but mainly because she was fit. You need two types of fitness. You need good cardiovascular fitness: so go running, biking, walking, hiking. And you need quads of steel. Do lots of squats. Then do some more, and when you've done over a thousand squats, do some more.
You will enjoy your week out in the mountains so much more if you're fit. Skiing gorgeous pristine mountains is like nothing you're ever done before and i'm certain that you will love it, but not if you're in so much pain you can't face making another turn.
I hope that's useful to someone. See you somewhere in the Portes du Soleil in 2011. Bon ski!
