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From Abroad

Schnee Fahren

The day finally came. I was going to get to try skiing for the first time. Abbie and I had never been skiing before and our Australian friend decided to teach us how. We pilled on the ski clothes and traveled to Semmering, which is about 1.5 away from Vienna. It was really hard at first to learn, but Jess was a good and patient teacher so things ended up going pretty well for me. Abbie on the other hand, had a lot harder time than I did. We practiced and practiced on the little walk way area and we were ready to go up the lift. Abbie still couldn’t go very far without falling but we thought that would get better once she had a longer slope to try on. So up the lift we went ready to conquer the world! Once we were up on the top we started down the basic slope. I could explain all the happenings that occurred, but the best way to explain what happened is that the slope should have taken us 20 minutes to get down. It took us 3 HOURS. That in and of itself was bitter sweet, but the day sweetened up a lot once I had a moment of greatness.
We arrived to the half way point and they had a T- Bar lift to take you back up so you didn’t have to go all the way down. (With the T-Bar lift you just hook it under your bum and it pulls you up, but you don’t sit on it!) Since I had pretty much been waiting for Abbie and Jess the whole time, Jess told me that I should go up the T-Bar lift and I could easily catch them on the way down. I was a little nervous about it because I had never used one before. Jess reassured me that everything would be okay and I could do it all by myself. I watched a few people get on the lift and mustered up the courage to go into the lift area to catch a bar. One bar went by and then another. Jess was trying to reassure me that I could do it. Another bar went by?I missed it. The next one I was for sure I would get? it hit me in the head. I wasn’t going to let those bars get the best of me, so I grabbed the next one that went by. YES!! I made contact with the T Bar, but then I realized that I couldn’t get it under me. So I was just holding it with my hands as if I were water skiing. It was fine for a while until I started up the mountain. I wrapped my arms around the bar. With my poles still in hand, I held that bar tight. As I slowly progressed up the Mountain I realized that if I fell off I would be in big trouble. It was A LOT steeper than I originally thought. The lift path was a narrow trail through the trees, with a lot of bumps and holes. I started getting scared because if I fell off there was NO way that I was going to be able to ski back down without killing myself.
I was going along very slowly and I was focusing VERY closely on holding on tight. So closely, that I forgot to pay attention to my skis. I hit a rock and my left ski slide under my right. Before I could get them separated, the left ski snapped off. Moment of decision: Could I continue on one ski and ski down on one? OR Take the risk of falling off now and figuring out a way to get down from there??? What to do? Considering that I was just okay on two skis I didn’t want to try one ski. So I slowly left go of the bar. I slide down the mountain, grabbed my ski on the way, and slide over to the side of the path and came to a stop. I rolled over and tried to get my right ski off. The more I push the more I sunk down into the snow. I area that I safely slid into was just a buildup of snow and there was no ground underneath me. People continued to pass me on the lift; I just smiled and kept working on getting my ski off. Finally, Success! I piled up my skis and poles and crawled over to the area with ground underneath. I stood up and realized the fun had just begun. I was in ski boots (not the best to walk in) and I was on a VERY steep slope. I took a step and found that I was going to have to run to try and avoid just falling on my face. Put the ski gear on my shoulder and started down. Every step I took, I sunk a little bit deeper into the snow. Then the unavoidable happened, I started to fall. I threw the ski gear so that I wouldn’t impale myself and fell down. The funny part is I didn’t fall in just any place I fell into a ditch. I didn’t know it was there before because the snow filled it. I landed perfectly in the ditch so my feet where way above my head at this point. I put my arms out to try and push myself back up only to find that I was scooting down even more. There was a green snow fence there that I thought for sure would stop me. As I made a snowplow with my arms to hold me there I found that the ditch was doing to go right under the fence. I paused and started laughing…hysterically. Then I heard some people coming up the lift. I held really still hoping that they wouldn’t notice the girl upside down in the ditch with skis and poles everywhere. This made me laugh even more because it was obvious that I was there because my feet were in the air. I looked out and Jess and Abbie were gone. I was so sad that they were missing this funny experience.
I looked down to the other side of the fence and saw a big electrical box. Beyond the box was the ski trail with many people that I didn’t want to hit. It looked like I could gently slide down to the box. With my last bit of dignity, I put my arms straight and slide down right under the fence. There was a little ledge that I came to a stop on and managed to turn around and reach a ski pole. While holding on to the fence, I used the pole to dig out and pull down the other pole and skis. I threw them ahead and to the side. I thought I had it made now. I started to roll over so that I could finish sliding down on my butt. I got one leg over the little ledge and the snow fell away. I realized what I thought was a little edge was in fact over twice my height down. So I was stuck. One leg down the hill, one leg up the hill, and out of brilliant ideas. So I sat there for a bit and watched the people ski by. All the small children skiing perfect 10s. One girl was very concerned for me actually and stopped. She turned around, pointed at me, and started yelling for her mother. He Mom skied down to her and then just hurried her along. They were speaking German, but I could understand a few words and some body language. Then I heard someone yelling my name. It was Jess! She was running (slowly because of the ski boots) up the slope to try and help me. She called out, “Are you okay?!?” I answered, “Yeah, I just can’t stop laughing.” She replied, “Good me too” and fell over into the snow. She started crawling closer to me, but it was hard because there was so much snow Jess kept sinking in. She helped me get out of my split and away from the electrical box. We paused long enough to laugh. I told Jess we should take a picture and then we realized that the camera was in my pocket the whole time. Jess kind of freaked out on me because her camera is very special, his name is Rupert. Rupert was okay though and I was too! What a day. Jess and I reunited with Abbie and took a break to laugh together. Abbie decided to give up being Bridget Jones on the ski slopes. So she finished the rest of the slope on foot. Jess carried Abbie’s skis on her shoulder and skied down with me. That’s right I skied down the rest of the slope by myself. I only fell a few times and when we got to the bottom I was tired. We gratefully took off the skis and unlatched the boots. I stacked up our ski gear on a pole where everyone else put there’s. I turned to walk away and then I hear something sliding. I turned back in sheer fear of what I thought was happening. My skis fell over and the domino effect occurred. I was like NOOO and everyone watch me as I tried to stop things from falling. I caused enough movement that the skis on the OTHER side of the pole fell down too. I was so tired and couldn’t believe that it just happened. So I just started picking up skis. That was just icing on the cake.
I would really love to have been the people watching the security camera that day. They would have gotten the biggest laugh out of watching me fall off the lift and worm my way out back to the trail. This event was truly You Tube worthy.

Soli Deo Gloria!
Kellen