IT IS a pity, considering how much I liked skiing, that skiing didn't like me.
On the final run of the last day of my first ski trip, powered by beginner's
hubris, I attempted a tight turn and fell with both legs twisted sideways,
as you might joint a chicken.
Oh, the pain, then the shame of being stretchered down the mountain gawped at
by Italians. And when I attempted to stand, my right knee bent the wrong
way. But on the upside, if I'm ever trapped in a lift with the footballers
Michael Owen, Roy Keane or Ruud Van Nistelrooy, I have ready small talk: we
have all severed our anterior cruciate ligament, the bit of string that
keeps your kneecap in place.
My dry and dashing orthopaedic surgeon, who fashioned me a new ligament from a
length of my hamstring, remarked that while sportsmen were good business, it
was skiers who paid his children's school fees. So after months on
painkillers and crutches, a two-hour op, tedious physio, a whole year unable
to run, why would I ever chuck myself down a mountain again?
And yet... My sons (now 10 and 11) were longing to ski and it does seem a
skill best acquired young. But what would I do all day? And how envious
would I feel when they and my husband returned, full of pink-cheeked
vitality, ravenous for supper? I know non-skiers who enjoy languid days
slinking around the spa, gorging on paperbacks and hot chocolate. But I
would be restless and bored.
And really there's no excuse for such shirking. Because cross-country - Nordic
or “langlauf” - skiing exists for folk who have lost (or never had) the
bottle even for blue runs, knee casualties or ski-tards like myself. Up in
Pertisau, the oldest resort in the Austrian Tyrol, there is a big scary
mountain for the thrill-seeking loons in wacky hats. But all around Lake
Achensee, and through the silent forested valleys, are 150km of gently
winding cross-country tracks.
Langlauf is to downhill as train is to Ferrari. None of this crazy carving
your own course down the piste. Rather you strap on your special shorter,
thinner langlauf skis and slide them into parallel tracks, carved out newly
each day by snow plough. Like roads, these are one-way, so there is little
chance of collision. If a faster skier is coming up behind, etiquette
demands that you step aside. Langlauf is fantastically courteous and
controlled and safe.
At Pertisau ski school I booked myself three mornings of lessons. My fellow
students were also ski casualties and, admittedly, somewhat middle-aged. The
first great pleasure of langlauf is the footwear. Say goodbye to leaden,
agonising Frankenstein's monster ski boots. Langlauf shoes are soft and
comfy, resembling grey orthopaedic slippers. A clip on the toe fits into
your ski, but your heel remains free, because the motion we are aiming at is
somewhere between walking and skating.
Christian, our teacher, first taught us how to stop. In downhill this is
elementary, in langlauf almost impossible. It requires balancing at speed on
one ski, while lifting the other out of the track into “snow-plough”. Or, as
an expert at my hotel remarked: “In langlauf you stop with the bottom.”
Moreover, off the tracks your twig-like skis have little purchase on loose
snow so you see a lot of beginners careening down, screaming: “Achtung!”
Certainly my fellow students and I viewed even a hillock as high as a
wheelchair ramp like a nervous horse tackling Bechers Brook.
Langlauf itself is not hard to master. The idea is to push back with the foot
so you glide along, propelling yourself faster with your extra-long
ski-poles. Going uphill is both comic and galling: I'd frequently huff up an
incline like an ungainly bird only to slide all the way down backwards.
My elder son returned one morning from his red run to say he had watched
cross-country skiers trudge up the mountain. “It looked boring,” he said,
“and really hard work.” There are times when langlauf seems as perverse as
running a marathon in stilettos. Particularly when you see elderly walkers
or folks with pushchairs moving faster. But, boy, is it a great workout, a
festival of endorphins, blazing more calories than any sport except rowing.
And there is an odd disparity between langlauf as a recreational activity
(sedate, worthy, for the dodgy-knee brigade) and as a winter sport enjoyed
by buff, Lycra-clad youths on freestyle skater skis, levering themselves up
alps with sinewy arms.
I silenced my supericilious family by dragging my husband off the piste for a
morning. He had to admit, droplets of sweat covering his scalp, that it was
the most exhausting thing he had ever done. Certainly you could langlauf
nude and still end up too hot. Next time I will invest in the thinner
superhero leggings rather than steam inside my salopettes.
At Pertisau the langlauf tracks began 200m from Hotel Wiesenhof where we
stayed, with the boys' ski school and the cable car a little farther.
Ski-freaks who prefer a greater variety of runs (there is only one blue and
one red) could always take the free bus to Achenkirch at the head of the
lake. But we loved Pertisau's low-key, kindly atmosphere. Even at new year
it was not overcrowded, with few lairy snowboard mentals or designer
poseurs. Indeed, it feels like a proper place, not a tourist construct, the
town scented by the cattle wintering in the barns near the nursery slopes.
One herd belongs to the Entner family, who have long owned the Wiesenhof and
lately remodelled it from a simple farm with guest rooms into one of the
most thoughtful and well-run hotels I've ever visited. Certainly the spa,
with its pool, steam rooms and sauna, will be appreciated by any langlauf
skier, since the aching thighs of downhill is supplemented by throbbing
shoulders from all the ski-pole action.
After three days of langlauf, I have never felt fitter or slept better. Once
on the tracks my mind cleared of anything but sliding one foot before the
other. On my final day I met up with Inga, a German woman from my class, who
the previous day had skied downhill with her son and husband. “It was the
last time,” she said. Once off the mountain she went straight to the ski
shop and sold her boots. “From now on only langlauf.”
Together we skied out of town, through empty woods dusted with snow. In an
hour gradually climbing uphill we had covered 5km and rewarded our toil with
coffee in a Hütte at the top of a valley. It was downhill all the way home,
at first disconcertingly steep, until the tracks smoothed into a long,
gentle descent, and we found ourselves gliding effortlessly but slowly
through the landscape as if riding a travelator. Not exciting, perhaps, but
deeply satisfying.
That afternoon my boys persuaded me to take the cable car up the piste to
admire their bravery and style. I watched them fly off what seemed to be a
precipice but was actually the easiest slope, and felt glad that it wasn't
me. Even before my accident I never felt less than mildly terrified. In the
cable car down, I realised my place isn't up the mountain: thanks to
langlauf, I'm a valley girl now.
Need to know
Inntravel (01653 617906, www.inntravel.co.uk)
offers one week at the four-star Hotel Wiesenhof with a spa complex in
Pertisau, from £745pp, including return BA flights from Gatwick to
Innsbruck, transfers, half board and use of cross-country trails.
Inntravel also offers Pertisau “Try It Out Weeks” in cross-country ski on
March 2 and downhill ski on March 9. The cost for children (sharing with two
adults) is £319 (2-3 years) and from £462 (4-9 years).
Cross-country group lessons cost £56 for two hours a day over three days. Hire
of cross-country skis, shoes and poles for six days costs £45
