Le Deuxième Fois! A Skiing...Success? Je Pense...

Even after a near death experience, and even with plenty of mundane tasks begging to be completed on the home front, and even though my muscles - particularly those of the left arm - had just finished recovering the previous day, and despite the fact that I remain a novice skier relatively devoid of anything beyond the most basic of skiing abilities henceforth guaranteeing large amounts of pain and suffering and fear, these were not sufficient excuses to prevent me from joining some friends (Sarah, Alyssa, Jason, Nathaniel, and Carlan to be exact) from the unadulterated glory of the Alps this past Saturday.

And glorious they were. 

The day was saturated in sunlight. The canopy of blue above blazed brilliantly. And the all-surrounding, panoramic view of mountains and mountains and mountains every which way you turned and as far as the eye could stretch was truly a sight to behold!

Plus I had a good deal of encouragement going in from some very dear friends (friends who also happen to be more or less Olympic level skiers) who chanced upon this most fascinating ski run known as the "Kath Run" (for those who are unaware of this fact of life, my very close friends and family all call me "Kath"). I spent a good deal of time relishing in the fact that the Kath Run was a more difficult level, until I realized the actual meaning of a more difficult ski slope in relation to myself, that is...

Yet fortified with these images in my mind, and carrying the very same small, bubble-gum pink skis, onto the bus went I on that splendid Saturday morning avec mes amis! 

This bus can be taken for free up to the slopes on Saturdays. It was a combination of us Americans who lack any other method of transportation, and the youth of France who are similarly lacking (you can't get your license here until you're eighteen). 

Up and up and up we went. Away from the city, away from the valley, away from the civilized sectors of human thriving, and into the grandeur of the wild! Well, not quite I suppose, because there is a town and it does have amenities such as restaurants and shops and houses and churches and bakeries and patisseries and such, but when you're up there in the middle of the mountains, it's not too hard to pretend that you're also in the middle of a vast and uncivilized wilderness, and that does make it a good deal more thrillingly fantastic.

Now as we went up the first lift, my heart was full of fear and trepidation, for I failed to realize an essential fact of life, that being that one ski lift does not lead to only one ski slope. No, it can lead to a plethora of different ski slopes and of varying difficulty. It was natural and right that I should be so misinformed, for last time, the ski lifts that I went up did indeed only lead to one ski slope simply because that "slope" didn't even really qualify as a slope due to its minuscule size. Therefore, as we continued up and up and up and up and UP in the ski lift, I was shocked by the size and the unheard of steep drop offs and absurd speed of the skiers below, for the ski lift took us over a slope of MASSIVE difficult and of GREAT enormity and of HUGE steepness and I simply assumed that there was no other way down besides this fearsome path. 

So I enjoyed the ride up as best as I possibly could, assuming that it would be my last as I would indubitably meet my death upon attempting to tackle such a formidable foe as that particular slope presented. 

I rejoiced to discover that I was wrong, very wrong indeed on this account. And instead of going down death mountain, we went down green mountain, entirely manageable, very lovely, with just the right amount of thrilling scares to keep oneself going at a decent pace, but not too many to actually lead to one's imminent death.

After recovering from the initial horror of the death mountain under the ski lift, I loved it. It was splendid, glorious, beautiful. Uplifting to the soul and reassuring to the body. I did not even fall. Not even once. (Unless you count the time when I skied straight into Sarah whilst joyfully proclaiming that I had yet to fall. Skiing and trying to communicate something to a fellow skier just doesn't work too well. Multitasking never was my strong point.)

Alyssa took some pictures of happy, on-her-skis-and-in-a-standing-position Kathryn while it lasted. The vêtements were, perhaps, slightly large on me (particularly the ski pants...I promise I do not condone sagging, but there was truly naught to be done in my case.) I enjoying looking at these pictures, and seeing myself in a standing position on the snow with my skis on my feet with the mountains in the background and the blue sky overhead. It is very reassuring indeed.

After the green slope, we went down the "baby" slope (baby being relative to your ability to ski. Donc, NOT baby in my eyes). Not just any baby slope - THE baby slope that very nearly caused severe injury and damage of a great many organs and bones etc. I had not been able to get down this slope even once last time without major wipeouts. Henceforth it was with great trembling of the limbs and shaking of the nerves that I positioned myself at the top and went down this [not] baby mountain.

And wonders of wonders, miracles of miracles, I skied all the way from the top of it to the bottom of it while remaining in a vertical position. Massive feelings of accomplishment leading towards confidence swelled up within. Then I realized that was probably a really bad plan and banished such feelings that could lead only to a lethally false sense of security. 

Up to the green slope we went a second time. Fall did I not.

Beauty, glory, snow-dusted coniferous trees, Mount Blanc (the tallest peak in Europe) as a backdrop for our ventures, oh it was just the best as the best can be.

So then we turned around to go down again.

But not down a green slope this time. Down a blue slope. I did not know precisely what this blue slope would entail, but I did know this - it was different than green, and it was harder than green.

Well it started out just grand until it got so horrifyingly steep that I cannot comprehend with this novice skier brain of mine how it is humanly possibly to maneuver your skis in such a way as to get from point A (as in the top of the mountain) to point B (as the bottom of the mountain) without inflicting substantial amounts of damage to your body due to severe wipeouts. 

It didn't take long into the blue slope for Kathryn to capsize, go flying over somewhere somehow, some muscle in my right leg felt rather twisted and bent out of shape, and voila! One ski was on, one ski was off, and one girl was no longer in a vertical position. This set of photos displays the most benevolent Sarah valiantly helping her fallen comrade (I PROMISE that I didn't fall after skiing down something that looks as flat as this picture does... There was DEFINITELY a steep part right behind us that caused my fall that you can't see!)

J'ai tombé, j'ai tombé, j'ai tombé. And screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and screamed when I was falling and when I wasn't falling and when I was everywhere in between falling and not falling. There was one utterly inconceivable moment when I was at the top of a slope that I am most utterly convinced must have been nearly a ninety degree angle sort of a slope. As in it wasn't a slope. It was a wall of snow coming straight up from the ground that I was somehow supposed to ski down. Désolé, mais ce n'est pas possible. 

So instead of attempting to achieve the impossible, I half lay, half sat, half squatted in an awkwardly cumbersome position and slid/bumped/fell down the snow wall until I felt like it was possible to actually get up and continue on in an upright position.

I arrived at last at the endearingly flat bottom of the mountain shaken but not dead. Fantastique!!!! And, with much cheerleading and encouraging and you-can-do-it-ing from Alyssa and Sarah, it was time to tackle the blue monster once more.

But only once more, not twice more or thrice more. It was fascinating to see the tracks that I left from not-skiing down the mountain from the perspective of the ski lift. It was like...like the tracks of the abominable snowman gone wrong...

I improved my technique significantly when I arrived at the snow wall. I knew it was coming, and rather than bumble down it awkwardly, I lay on my back and slid down quite smoothly and effortlessly, hoping all the time that no one would accidentally ski over my sliding body. They didn't. I made it down again. Then I capitalized on the civilized assets of this ski town, and gratefully consumed hot chocolate and nutella crepes. 

Before the bus came to pick us up and bring us back down again into the valley, I went once more down not the blue, nor the green, nor the baby hill, but the super duper oober baby hill, that has even become a baby hill to me. I appreciate this hill greatly, for it is entirely possible for me to whiz down it with speed whilst keeping relative control. A gratifying feeling to be sure.

As we said goodbye to the slopes, the sun was beginning to set, casting a mellow glow over the grandeur. Down the winding mountain roads went the bus (amazingly...it is rather incomprehensible to me how it drove with such finesse and ease on those perilous roads). I relished the glimpses of steep mountainsides coated in ice - a waterfall frozen in place. A river with rapids rushing over rocks, cutting through the rugged mountains. And then we were back in the city. And then it was time to go to youth group. And then after youth group, a plumb tuckered out Kathryn turned to the safety of her tiny, un-epic but vastly comfortable little room and went promptly to sleep, only to wake up with large amounts of pain ailing her muscles, every single one of them. The End.