Photo: Les Houches, Louise’s iPhone, February 2024
This February, we took three of our children from our blended family of five on a short skiing trip to Les Houches in the French Alps.
First, for full transparency, this was not my first time skiing. I had a cross-country skiing lesson in my early twenties in Kandersteg, Switzerland. I say lesson; it was more of a demonstration of how to use the skis and then we were sent on our way. Then around 15 years ago, I visited Villars in France for a few days with family. Here, I had a (not particularly successful) first lesson in downhill skiing on the nursery slopes ending in a blazing row with my (now ex) husband. And no, I can’t remember what we argued over.
Happy times.
I am therefore still counting myself as a complete beginner.
For further context, I am in my mid-forties, enjoying the brain fog and tinnitis that comes with perimenopause, and living with the knowledge that when I fall over it hurts. For a few days.
Today’s Substack piece is a more personal journal than I usually write here, but I hope it’ll inspire you to try skiing if you haven’t already, no matter your age. Or perhaps this will be a cautionary tale as to why you might want to stay on firm ground in your walking boots instead.
Where possible, as always, I’ll share all of the links to where we visited, where we slept and where we drank copious amounts of coffee.
Onwards.
Photo: Les Houches, Louise’s iPhone, February 2024
Lessons Day 1: ‘These boots weren’t made for walking’
My heart sank almost immediately after leaving the ski hire shop in Les Houches. Just walking whilst wearing ski boots and manhandling a pair of skis, poles and a helmet was proving nigh on impossible. I’m not a coordinated person at the best of times, and carrying all of this equipment without dropping it made trying to pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time seem easy. Never mind then crossing the road without being hit by a ski bus, staying upright and keeping an eye on the equally un-coordinated teenager with me.
By the time we arrived at the gondola at La Prarion to ride up to the nursery slopes for our lesson, I was seriously questioning my life choices. Again, significant levels of coordination are required:
There’s a need to stay upright, walking in tough plastic boots whilst avoiding treading on small children.
You’re carrying your skis over your shoulder and they’re quite heavy.
You need to navigate a narrow barrier and wave your pocket (containing your ski pass) at a bar code reader. Whilst carrying your skis.
You then have to step onto a revolving platform in your ski boots. Whilst doing so, you need to place your skis in a hole on the outside of a moving gondola and then jump in.
You have to do this all again in the opposite order when you get to the top.
Anxiety levels are high by this point, and I haven’t even got to the ski slope yet.
Five minutes later we are at the top, and it’s as easy to find our ski instructor from ESF Les Houches as it is to find a bright red needle in a bright red haystack. It is heaving up here with ski school children and instructors dressed all in red.
Between the five of us, we have two who have had beginner lessons before, last year in the same resort. Another, the youngest of our group, had dry slope lessons several years ago. Then you have myself and one other, who are complete beginners. I imagine to myself that our instructor looks at our group and sighs.
This is going to be a long four days, I am certain he is thinking.
We pick our way carefully across the slopes, with skis flung across our shoulders (which isn’t as easy as it looks.) Then he gives us a (very) brief demonstration of how to clip our boots into our skis, takes our poles away from us (but aren’t these for keeping me upright?!) and sends us up a narrow conveyer belt, ‘the carpet’, flanked by very young children who appear to have only recently learnt to walk.
Within a couple of minutes, I am staring down what appears to be a near-vertical slope, with a queue of people at the bottom waiting for me to hit them (not really, but to illustrate the level of danger present). Our instructor, bless him, takes us each down one by one. It soon becomes very obvious that Mark and his eldest daughter are quite capable on their own, and my teenager is not far behind. That leaves just two of us, the true beginners, waiting patiently at the top of the slope each time for our instructor to come and pick us up, and gently nudge us back down to the bottom again.
I learn to snowplough (that’s how you put the brakes on) and I start to make very slow, painstaking turns. I may just be getting the hang of this!
The instructor asks me to stand on one leg while crossing the slope to turn, and I laugh.
Photo: Les Houches Nursery Slope, France, Louise’s iPhone, February 2024
Lessons Day 2: ‘Peaks and troughs’
Day two of lessons starts well.
Walking in my ski boots is 10% easier. Catching the free ski bus whilst wearing a helmet and grappling with poles and skis is 10% easier. Getting onto the gondola and placing my skis in the holder is 10% easier. Even clipping myself into my skis at the top is easier.
The more proficient amongst us are able to ski straight over to the nursery slope and promptly disappear with our instructor to learn to navigate the longer blue runs. Mark’s youngest and I keep practicing on the carpet, up and down, up and down. This is getting a little boring. At least it is now Saturday so the carpet is quieter without the hordes of school children. I start to build up some confidence in turning and stopping.
Until things take a turn for the worse.
It was time to try the chair lift and ski back across the blue run to the nursery slopes.
Surprisingly, the chair lift is relatively straightforward and I manage to disembark at the other end without falling over or clipping skis with my neighbour.
But as we ski across the steeper blue slope to get back to the carpet, I accidentally build up too much speed (I must be going at 60 or 70 miles an hour at least!) hit the brakes very clumsily and scare the s**t out of myself.
From that point on, any tiny ounce of confidence that had slowly started to build disappears. I’m back at the top of the slope, stuck, needing to be escorted down the nursery slope again while small children whiz past me.
I know I am getting inside my own head, and that I’ve got the skills to do it alone, but mentally everything shuts down and I cannot get past it.
Over and over I get to the top of the slope, willing myself to go down, and then get stuck in my head again. I stop, hesitate, and then wait there for our instructor to ski down with me.
Close to tears, and even though I can clearly see that the only thing stopping me is my anxiety, I am already planning my escape route for the next day. Perhaps skiing just isn’t for me. Tomorrow, I’ll make my excuses, get my book and find a nice, safe cafe.
But two things happen that rescue the day. First, I realise that if I don’t manage to make it down the nursery slope alone that day, I will find it very difficult to get back on the skis the next day. Second, I watch, envious, as Mark’s youngest son (who is equally the beginner) makes it down the slope on his own for the first time.
If he can do it then so can I.
So, on my next journey up the carpet, I set my jaw and grit my teeth. I slide onto the top of the slope, don’t allow myself to pause and slowly snowplough my way gently down to the bottom. I did it, and I did it on my own!
Photo: Les Houches, France, Louise’s iPhone, February 2024
Lessons Day 3: ‘Slow is pro’
If you’re expecting a story that ends with ‘and the next day I bounced out of bed, raring to get back on the slopes because I’d beaten my anxiety from the previous day,’ you might be disappointed.
Instead, I wake up on day three with thoughts racing through my head about losing control, turning in cinematic slow motion and sliding backwards down a black run.
We head up to the ski slopes early and spend half an hour going up and down the nursery slope until it is time for our third day of lessons. Today, we have a new instructor (perhaps our original has given up on us?) who takes the three more proficient skiers off on the longer blue run slope while the two of us find ourselves again heading up and down, up and down the nursery slope.
I am at least doing it all by myself now, and even enjoying it just a little.
Now that I am feeling a little more in my comfort zone I’m able to relax and enjoy the views a little more. With it being Sunday, the slopes are still quieter without the hordes of schoolchildren. I travel up and down the carpet, by now whizzing (in my mind at least) past the fresh newbie skiers on their first day.
This is better, I think to myself. For the first time all weekend I am able to look around, people watch and enjoy the mountain scenery. My legs though are tired, so very tired, and I am starting to make little mistakes.
My body is not in peak condition, and three days of skiing is starting to take its toll.
Halfway through the lesson, our instructor takes us up on the chairlift for the second time. This time I really focus, because on the previous day I had been feeling so stressed that I hadn’t registered things like when to push the metal bar back up to get off, or where to go once I ski off the lift.
Actually, getting off the chairlift isn’t too bad - I slide off and manage to avoid all of the loitering pedestrians waiting like sitting ducks at the bottom of the lift. We ski back down, encouraged to slowly ski backwards and forwards across the larger slope, avoiding the intermediate skiers heading straight down.
We head to the chairlift again before the end of the lesson and navigate our way across the slope and back to the mountainside cafe for a well earned coffee and some apres-ski relaxation. In my head, as I ski my last section of the trip, this is how I look:
The reality, I suspect, was a little different.
Sitting in the shadow of the Mont Blanc range watching the world go by with a cafe au lait in hand, I think to myself, I could get used to this skiing thing.
Photo: Les Houches, France, Louise’s iPhone, February 2024
A few more trip details
Our little Airbnb in the centre of Les Houches was perfect for five, but would be a squeeze if we were six. There was a good sized Carrefour round the corner, as well as a little bakery selling the most delicious Croix de Savoie and coffee.
Our ski lessons were provided by ESF Les Houches and our ski equipment (skis, poles and helmets) were from SkiSet Les Houches.
Les Houches is a popular resort for beginner and family skiers, with quieter facilities and good blue runs. That said, you’re only a fifteen minute drive from the bigger and busier resort of Chamonix if you need a change of scene and the ski bus runs between the two towns for free.
Photo: Back in my comfort zone, Les Houches, France, Louise’s iPhone, Feb’ 2024