Today was all about the skiing. The last time I’d checked
the forecast it had said to expect snow, so I was expecting overcast and tricky
conditions. So I was pretty damned happy when I looked out the window and saw the
sun shining on a gorgeous winter tableau.
Everyone seemed to have had a decent night’s sleep and so
rousing them and getting them moving wasn’t too much of an issue and we were
organised and ready to hit the slopes nice and early.
When the kids were young and learning to ski, one of the
less enviable tasks was helping everyone with their ski boots. I’d have thought
that by now that it wouldn’t be an issue anymore, but I still find myself on my
knees smashing the occasional boot clips closed and age and inflexibility
certainly isn’t helping with reaching my own!
There’s six of us and the space in the ski locker is pretty
small so there’s simply no way for all of us to get through the process at the same
time. That meant that the boys were out the door and left to their own devices in
the snow. Not sure if you’d recall or not, but this was the result last time I did
that two years ago:
We emerged to the sounds of adult children regressing to
their childhood and bounding in the snow. They extracted themselves and we were
about to head down to the lift when Michael wondered aloud if he’d left his
phone in his room or lost it in the snow. Some frantic digging ensued but no
phone was found, so he went back in to check the room, which of course required
de-booting and the like. He emerged from the lodge to declare that his phone
wasn’t there which meant it had to be in the snow. Commence more frantic
digging and searching. Of course, this wasn’t just, by the side of the road
snow, this was ‘I jumped off the path into the virgin, untouched, several feet
deep by the tree snow’. Miraculously the phone was both found and still works.
Rather than get angry I just thanked him for giving me something to write
about.
Like I did on our last trip, I’ve been telling myself in the lead
up that I need to get a couple of easy runs in before we get too adventurous so
that I can find my ski legs, check the skills etc and make sure that I’m still
capable before staring down the face of anything too stupid. That was the plan,
but with the weather being as spectacular as it was, Caroline announced a
desire (that I shared) to get to the top of the mountain early so that we could
get photos before any weather closed in. That required us to navigate a couple of
chair lifts as we explored our way to the top.
That’s where we met the chair that I like to call Bum’s in the sky. I’ve not ever really
seen a single person chair lift before and certainly haven’t thought about how
such a thing would look, but when we lined up for this one, it wasn’t what I
expected.
Now considering that Emily isn’t all that keen on heights,
the fact that she sat on this to the top of the mountain was quite astounding.
The announcement that she was NEVER EVER
going on it again wasn’t so unexpected. At least the views were worth it.
The next trick of course was getting back down the mountain.
I’d seen a run that didn’t look too bad on our way up (other than being quite steep)
and didn’t see many alternatives that didn’t involve black diamonds (as this
one was). So I briefly checked with everyone before head over the side. Well,
maybe I should have looked a bit harder for another way down. It wasn’t the
worst run I’ve ever been on, but it was steep, there was powder and we really hadn’t
skied for two years. Not to mention that we were supposed to be trying to preserve
Caroline’s knee. We all navigated it and survived, it just wasn’t quite the
enjoyment level that I (or Caroline) were looking for.
Given we haven’t skied for two years, the legs were getting weary
pretty early in the day so we decided to seek out some lunch. Michael had a
restaurant in mind that he wanted to go to so we worked out the best way of
getting there without hiking for miles in our ski-boots. We found what we
thought was the restaurant (it was only labelled in Japanese) and went inside. By
the time that we had the menus and were considering ordering, we’d realised
that we weren’t in the right place, but decided to just go with it. It turns
out the restaurant speciality is okonomiyaki (In the Hiroshima style), but
better than just getting to eat it, we were able to sit and watch it be
prepared. It was the highlight of the day!
Fed and somewhat rested, we hit the slopes again. I avoided
any crazy jumps (that is anything over about 5cm) and remembered that steep
descent from first thing in the morning and so kept pretty conservative (I only
maxed my speed at 82kph) for the most part. Michael, Sam and Thomas had all
explored through the trees a bit (which is something Madarao is known for) and
Emily decided that she too would like to give it a go. After she’d done it once
the pressure came on. You can do it Dad,
it’s not that bad, you’d be fine in there. Now I’ve never really liked mixing
trees and skiing unless its off to the side of a gentle green run and I can see
what I’m getting myself in for. This run did
not fit that category. But I got sucked in. I entered the trees, fumbled
around a bit and then found that where the kids were going dropped away steeply
in a fashion that meant I couldn’t see where it was going.
I bailed. I skied along the top and back out to the safety
of the groomed run. Sanity prevailed and I finished the day in once piece.
I have to send a nod the way of one guy I saw on the slopes
today. He was snowboarding and had a shield-sized stuffed tortoise shell
strapped to his bum and two smaller versions, one for each knee. He looked more
than competent, but maybe he was trying new tricks or something. It was awesome
regardless. Unfortunately I didn’t nab a photo.
Michael’s Dumpling count: 43
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