The essence of adventure is the unknown experiences on a journey towards an end goal, the destination of the journey often morphs as a result of adventurous experiences, be that destination a physical place, an achievement or mental development. My end goal on this trip was to be able to ski. As with any trip expectations shape the desired destination. A number of my expectations have certainly be met; I expected skiing to be hard, which it was. I expected skiing to hurt, which it does. I expected skiing to be expensive which it definitely is, the reason I’m having a rest day and writing a blog. There has also been a number of things I was not expecting; skiing is hot work. My first ski lesson I arrived far too wrapped up, and ended up sweating as if I was in a sauna. This being my first time in such cold conditions (I’m usually a warm weather pilgrim) I had no idea what an appropriate amount of clothing would be; thermals, salopets, 2 socks, gloves, hat, t-shirt fleece, down jacket, ski jacket way too excessive, I think I would have been warm in the antarctic. I also hadn’t expected to be so scared sliding down steep often icy slopes on essentially planks of wood strapped to my feet.

For me fear is a big motivator, as a shy guy I try to throw myself in at the deep end to avoid wallowing in a routine, which at times I admit I do desire, but life is far too short for that! The deep end for me is often presenting to clients and speeches at work, meeting new people or playing an instrument in front of people (haven’t progressed to the open mic night level, but I plan to one day). Adventurous sports have always been my escape, hiking, climbing surfing and especially cycling both road and off road. Which Is why I found the fear element of skiing the most surprising aspect. I’m very used to go downhill fast on bike on steep terrain, dropping in on a wave or climbing a crag. However my initial total lack of skill skiing caused fear to show its ugly face.

A new bike jump, larger wave (for me 6 – 8ft, I’m certainly not a big wave charger) or new crag, there is of course an element of fear, for me a large part of the thrill is overcoming that fear. With the more experience, that level of fear is much easier to overcome. Skiing being totally new to me I seemed to experience a totally new level of fear that I haven’t had in many years. Resulting in me giving myself little pep talks before each run, forcing myself to tackle the steeper sections of a slope. My desire to be good at skiing at times was also my downfall, rather than trying to perfect the skills on the greens I would immediately try to go faster and steeper. This resulted in a quite horrendous time falling down a red run (read the previous blog for more), which caused a severe blow to my confidence, as well as many other comical fails.

After my red run experiece I had more motivation to overcome the fear, but first to build the confidence back up, this time at a more sensible pace. And so after many more blue runs, time spent perfecting  the turns , and of course a bit more time falling over. A day later confidence was back up, more importantly my skill level had significantly improved and whilst my mates, (more experienced skiers) went off to the higher red runs I continued to practice on the blues. I have a strange and probably foolish habit of enjoying taking on risk alone, I regularly surf and ride on my ow. Alone I feel an extra connection to the environment and nature, be it the hills or on the coast. I also weirdly enjoy as the extra danger of knowing if something goes wrong no one is looking out for me, or even knows where I am. It gives me an extra buzz and determination to succeed. So after taking the same blue run lift to the top, rather than a right turn after the lift I headed left and on to a red. Tentative at first but towards the bottom I was cruising. Five more times and I had it down, no longer the need for brown pants to hide my fear. I was super stoked! Smiling ear to ear! Unfortunately darkness was about to fall so the higher red runs will have to wait for another day, there is even a forecast of snow for Courmayeur, looking forward to some fresh stuff! My goal accomplished a red successfully conquered, and so my destination changed again: now time to tick off all the red at Courmayuer and maybe, just maybe a little black link. It’s ok I have insurance 😀