Indoor Skiing

Next weekend Mary and I will be heading to Zurich for her company's Christmas party which places us quite near the alps. We've discussed learning to ski in the past but never quite pulled the trigger, so this seemed like a good tome to do so. That said, it also seems absurd to get to the alps having never put on skis before. Enter the Snow Centre (their spelling, not mine.)

The Snow Centre is an indoor skiing facility a bit north of London. Indoor skiing! This seemed like it could kill two birds with one stone, in that we could learn the basics in a lower pressure (and cheaper) setting and also get to say that we've skied indoors. Win win! Sadly we did have some issues getting there as our Google directions assumed that it would take no time to make one of our transit connections. Thanks Google! We ended up taking a cab for a shocking cost and just barely arriving in time for the lesson. From the outside, the place was unassuming and looked like a slightly upmarket big box store. It reminds most of the old Home Depot Expo stores, which Mary and I actually miss quite a bit. Once inside there were areas for registration, rental equipment, and changing, and then a huge cavernous space with the actual snow. Snow! Indoors! We were in a group lesson that started with the putting on of skis and built from there. We learned how to walk uphill and stand on an incline, the proper posture and weight distribution, and humility. Both Mary and I felt great relief when someone else was the first to fall, since we knew it was just a matter of time before we each did.

After the basics we got working on coming down the smaller hill in a controlled way. It's not a very natural posture, and because of my height I had very long skis and struggled a bit with the 'snowplow' technique. Once we were reasonably comfortable with that we moved on to stopping and then, finally, to turning. All in all we both had a lot of fun. On the way home we got to discussing who had the most spectacular wipeouts, though I think that I won that contest given that I managed to take out half do a fence. Twice. Same fence; same half; I rest my case. Thankfully the ride home was drama-less and we actually took a single train the entire way. Thanks again for nothing Google! We are both a bit sore but had a sufficiently fun time that we will probably give it a go this weekend, though the Swiss toddlers zooming down the hill with confidence may cause us to wimp out.