Winter musing

Skiing at the Roc d'Enfer, Haute Savoie

Last week I went skiing with my son, completing the circuit of the Roc d’Enfer, a few kilometres north of Morzine. The access station is disconnected from the main resorts of the Portes du Soleil and hence largely overlooked by the hordes that flock to their overcrowded slopes. In four hours, we saw perhaps fifteen people, gliding through tree lined rides that feel more like back country than a maintained piste.

Which hints at the complicated relationship I have with skiing.

For decades I dismissed it as a ‘sport’ (note the italics and scare quotes) of thrill seekers who had little knowledge of – or care for — the mountains. My view was shaped by a climbing accident in my twenties when the nearby glacier skiers could offer no assistance.  And over the years that attitude hardened; I’d like to claim from an increasing awareness of its environmental damage, but, in truth, as much a disdain for the boorish mix of alcohol and adrenaline that’s stereotypical of snow sport tourism.

If that makes me sound like an old grinch, then I suppose I was — and sometimes still can be.

And yet, here I am in my mid-sixties, regularly skiing with my family, and loving the thrills as much as the sport’s capacity (no italics or scare quotes this time) to smooth the differences in our age and fitness.  Having started in my fifties, I’m not especially good, but I’m competent enough to enjoy the landscape and discover valleys and vistas that would not otherwise come my way.  

Do I regret those years of curmudgeonly attitude?  Not really, because I filled them with other activities, and as I said, the relationship remains complicated.  Skiing will never replace my love of climbing; I still have concerns about its over commercialisation, and as for its safety record, my eldest son lost his best friend in a tragic accident that could so easily have been avoided.

But despite all this, I have come to look forward to the season, enjoying the winter like never before.  And as I get older, with more of those behind me than ahead, I reckon that’s as good a reason as any to take a broader and more positive perspective.

A slightly amended version of this post was published in the AAC (UK) monthly newsletter.