We set off on the Amtrak train (described in previous blog), and arrived to a beautiful South Lake Tahoe and newly opened Ritz Carlton Hotel. The setting was fabulous, with majestic views of the mountains, deep snow and
brilliant sun-shine - who could ask for more?
The resort was labelled as a 'ski in, ski out' facility, which meant that after you'd hired all the gear from the nice little shoppe in the hotel, a helpful young lad would come out and assist with the most complicated procedure of 'putting your boots on'. These are meant to feel 'like a firm hand-shake' (mine felt like something was strangling my feet). Once all our kit was on, we then had to walk about 50 yards (which is no easy task in those boots), to where the staff had thoughtfully positioned our skis and poles in the snow for us. Slightly embarrassed at this point, as we had to ask them to put the skis on the snow-mobile, as we would definitely NOT be skiing down to the ski school, but taking the transport instead!!
At the ski school we joined in the beginners class, and were soon being able to move a few feet without falling over. Once you've mastered that, they take you on the 'magic carpet' (which is like a moving walkway, that goes up a slight hill). There are different points to exit the 'magic carpet' - as you progress, the further up the hill you can go. So we were doing the plough position with about 15 very small children, who were told to "make a pizza" for the position of the skis.......this became our mantra for the entire day. I managed to progress to the top of the hill, but Richard was most disgruntled not to get past the 'superman frog' sign where the rest of the 5 year olds got off.
I had not realised how much hard work skiing was. We were both drenched with sweat, and glad that we'd only put on our 'base layer' under our jackets, as anything more would have caused me to pass out!
By the third day, we had been allowed to go on the ski lift, and actually ski down a proper slope!! This was where things started to go a bit arwy. Firstly, we were all stationary, listening to our instructor giving us some pearls of wisdom on leaning forward, bending your knees or some such thing, when a young lady learning to snow board, came careering down the hill, and wiped Richard straight out! Needless to say, he
wasn't very happy about this. Still, these things happen, so on with the learning. At the end of the afternoon, our instructor thought it would be fun to go down the 'Village Run', which is about a mile long, and runs from the ski school down to the main village. He did mention that 'at the top it's a bit steep, but it soon flattens out' .... huh! A bit steep!!!! It was like a black run to us!!! And it was full of people (going very fast) on their way home for the evening. We started off OK, but then Richard had what's called a 'Yard Sale', or as Richard describes it "a double forward simultaneous ejaculation!". This is when you do a kind of swan dive forward, your skis and poles go in every direction and you end up flat on your face in the snow. (I was quite disappointed to have missed seeing the dive, as all I saw was Richard, spread-eagled on the slope!) At this point, snow boarders began leaping over where Richard had fallen, some performing aerial twists (which I thought was a tad inconsiderate!).
The instructor helped Richard to his feet, but it was quite apparent that his knee, and his confidence were severely dented. We made it to the bottom, took the gondola back to the Hotel, where upon Richard announced "Tried it, hate it, never doing it again!" ..... can't say I blame him ...
I had a few more lessons during the week, and by the end of our stay, was really proud to ski down the mountain from the very top!!!!!!! The views up there were truly spectacular, but as I was so petrified about the imminent ski down, I didn't take a lot of notice!
I thoroughly enjoyed the skiing (once I got the hang of it) ...... but I don't think we'll be doing it together anytime soon .........
