(Since most of the first half of 2005 we spend skiing in one form or another, we have left the update of 2005 skiing trips in the general diary section! Will update the actual hotel and resort info at a later date...)
Livigno, Italy - December 2004 (by Phillip)
Ingrid had promised our niece Angela a ski trip for her 7th birthday and she flew over to Germany alone as an unaccompanied minor the first time on a plane too! It was really great to see the world through the eyes of a child for a week, asked what she saw different about Germany on the way back from the airport she replied that for one thing she would be sitting on my lap in the car (since we drive on the 'wrong' side) and secondly that the traffic lights were square - in 2 1/2 years I hadn't noticed that the metal surrounding the actual lights was square in Germany and the edges in South Africa are rounded! On reflection, that pretty much sums up the difference, they're a little more square here....... .
We arrived in Livigno on Saturday afternoon after an overnight stay near Neuschwannstein and although we were only supposed to start skiing the next day, Angela was soon desperate to get onto skis. We did the first few runs with her, pushing / pulling her up the slope, but she soon tired of that and wanted to go up on the ski lift. Ingrid laid down a clear rule, you have to be able to stop before you can use the lift and that kept Angela off the ski lift till the first mornings ski lessons.
Angela was unfortunately the oldest in her ski group and was soon bored with the lack of pace. I think that there was even a kid of three in there somewhere! She did learn to stop though, and was soon on the ski lift and able to be independant. Seems minus the concept of fear, things are much easier than Ingrid and I had made it for ourselves! Angela also discovered that she was an expert snow ball maker, and thank goodness she discovered Tommy (one of the Absolute skiing guys) as a target, I was getting pretty wet!
By day two Angela was already able to control her speed, turn and much to our concern jump ! She also went off on the chair lift to the higher part of the mountain with the instructor so there was no stopping her now. Day three there were no official lessons so we booked an hours private lesson for her with the same instructor. Our eyes got wider and wider as we saw them skiing off together to do a series of red runs over the back of the mountain we’d been on. We followed them down watching from afar, that’s why it is not a good idea for parents to teach their children, you have a heart attack! She made it down and was happy the rest of the week to zoom up and down on her own, or with the ski lessons each morning – it really is quite easy you know !
We had booked the trip via Absolute skiing / Snocomber from South Africa to make the logistics, visas / passport applications etc easier for Angela's parents Brett and Hilda in SA. We were also hoping that there would be some other South African kids her age to bond with, but she soon found people her own mental age to bond with - thanks Luke! We had activities with the Absolute Group each evening (about 25 South Africans), ice skating, bumboarding ,10 pin bowling etc then followed by dinner from around 8:30. This was quite a punishing schedule for a 7 year old – 6 hours of skiing and partying till all hours, so Angela rarely made it completely through dinner, but always wanted to be part of the action. As always Absolute were fantastic and strongly recommended. We really enjoyed Livigno as a resort. Even though not all of the lifts were open, we did manage to test ourselves on a few occasions - thanks Tommy for that surprise black run at the end of a hard morning.... .
As a special treat we also did husky dog sled rides through the mountains (a special treat for me, not Angela !). This was really great. Getting pulled through the forest with the snow falling and just the odd shout of HIKE and WOWWW to keep the dogs under control. Not sure what happened to 'mush' - must just be in the movies! Wait till we have some decent snow fall at home, the basset and two boxers are about to learn a new game!
We sent Angela off home on the Sunday, with video in hand. We hope that she had a really good time and will certainly have much to talk about when back at school in the new year!
Hintertux - November 2004 (by Phillip)
Just to get back into the swing of things, we made a long weekend ski trip to Hintertux in Austria. We had been the year before, but decided go again because it is a glacier resort with a snow guarantee. We were very lucky once more with great weather and also plenty of snow. Many resorts in the alps have struggled early season this year, because the snow has been late in coming and the temperatures too mild to keep what snow had fallen. Good choice to go back again, even if the actual skiing is a little limited, we had a great few days.
We stayed at the Rindererhof Hotel this time which was right next to the gondola with good food etc, but we preferered the Hotel Alpenhof that we stayed at last time despite it being a 5 minute bus drive from the lift (see details below from 2003).
Wolkenstein / Selva, Italy - February 2004 (by Phillip)
Dave, Ailsa, Thomas and Charlotte (plus their two kids Lilly and Daisy) joined us for a week in Selva immediately after Thomas and I had a few days with 30 work colleagues in Ischgl the weekend before (more about that later). This resort is also known as Wolkenstein which has had a split personality ever since it became embroiled in bitter fighting when Italy entered the war against Austria in 1915, splitting the Tirol. Towns that were part of the Austrian Sud-Tirol, acquired two names - one Italian, one German. This is true of all of the towns in the area and quite confusing for a poor navigator like me !
Selva is most famous as the starting point in the Sella Ronda. This is advertised as a gentle, enjoyable jaunt on skis around the mountain and through as many as a dozen resorts in the four valleys surrounding the Gruppo Sella. We found this pretty tough going since we had to make the one day trip in a morning (on both trips around) in order to be able to join up with friends after lunch. I imagine that if you make a full day of it, including many stops for schnapps and food, it is less exhausting (or maybe you just need to be fitter and a better skier !).
We preferred the resorts on the far side of the mountain to Wolkenstein itself (Colfosco, Corvara, Passo Campolongo), but if you need to be close to the ‘action’ then Wolkenstein is the main place. Did enjoy the restaurants we went to and even a serious ApriSki evening out – thanks Thomas ! (he had been there before and recommended it).
The entire ski area is over 175 km of runs, so kept us busy and we never needed to do the same slopes many times. Dave and Ailsa both progressed well and are looking forward to being able to bring Joshua their son) along shortly. Unfortunately Josh still needs to master walking, but Dave is convinced he’ll be skiing soon! Poor kid will probably also be forced to be an Arsenal supporter, talk about mis-directed parent pressure from an early age!
I mentioned last time that this also caught my eye from the resorts web site – (Dave I think they need a marketing guy or two?)
“Selva itself has a relaxed Italian feel with bars and restaurants, and on Friday afternoons, those looking for entertainment, will enjoy the Austrian style tea dance.”
We managed to avoid this aspect of the resort, but did get to enjoy a few local beers and was great to see SA friends again – there is still the ongoing threat from the Wingfield clan that they’ll all come along one year.
Ischgl, Austria – January 2004 (by Phillip)
Just before we went to Selva, Thomas and I went with 30 people from work to Ischgl for three days. Ischgl is well known as the best ApriSki resort in the world and it certainly lived up to its reputation. After the second night we missed our bus back to our resort 30 minutes away (party in the KuhStahl (Cow Shed) was scheduled from 16:00 to 16:30) and ran over slightly and we felt it would be rude to leave early... .
Hintertux Glacier, Zillertal, Austria, December 2003 (by Phillip)
We took a weeks break in December to have an early season ski trip. We treated ourselves to a really nice hotel (usually we only had low cost B&B's), but this was a proper 'Wellness Hotel' complete with pool, sauna, steam bath etc. The hotel had a special which we took and included breakfast, dinner and ski pass in the price. The 5 course meals were all excellent and complimented with a fine wine selection, this was really a great break. The weather was pretty miserable for the week, we had some snow early on in the week, but quite a few days of low temperatures and high winds making skiing high on the glacier pretty tricky.
We found a well protected slope on the far side of the ski area and improved our technique some there. We also took one morning of lessons and joined in with the Hotel ski day and the ski guide also offered some advice, so hopefully we are improving. I have to admit that by the end of this trip I felt that I was not skiing too well as I tried to correct a basic flaw that I have in my 'technique', but must get it right to improve further! Ingrid is skiing really well now with a much more elegant technique. Seems listening to the instructors is paying off, but I still think that good technique is over-rated - speed counts!
One day the weather was really bad with winds over 50km/h on the glacier and well below freezing and we decided to whimp-out and take a day off. We went though to Innsbruck and wandered around the Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas Markets) and did most of our Christmas shopping.
Hotel Alpenhof in Hintertux comes highly recommended by us. We had an excellent week and Ingrid even managed to tempt me into the naked sauna and steam bath facilities and then a few lengths of the heated pool, a good way to relax those weary muscles! www.alpenhof.at . Hintertux is not for the Apres-Ski crowd though and is very quiet at night (unless we missed out on the swingers clubs somewhere). It was, from my point of view, also not a great beginners resort as most slopes require a bit more than a snow plough turn and even the easier slopes were quite difficult to get to in the mornings. Great for intermediates though, and because of the glacier, a snow guarantee which was important for us so early in the season.
We left out last ski trip for the year as late as possible in order to allow maximum time for my leg to recover from the December skiing injury. To make sure that we were not left in a resort with cows grazing instead of ski slopes we chose to go to one of the glaciers with a snow guarantee, Soelden in Austria. In summary, Soelden is my favourite ski area to date. It has enough apres-ski to keep the hardest party crowd entertained and the many slopes and ski areas. All are well maintained with an excellent lift system (read nearly no T-Bars !).
We also had excellent conditions for the entire trip because they had just had fresh snow falls the week before so the best combination of really warm sunshine and excellent snow for us! We stayed in a 'pension' that was a little too far out of town so you needed to drive into town in the evenings, but was up on the mountain with excellent views over the entire valley. It was also very quiet up there very different from the party atmosphere down in the village. If we went again in a group we'd definitely book somewhere in town near the main lifts, although there was always parking in a multi-story car park right at the main lifts. The week was really great and a welcome break. We (well actually me) took it very easy for the first few days, still worried about my leg muscle which was pulling a little at first, but once it was warmed up I had no problems, but left my first black run until day three. Ingrid was skiing really well having also had a few sessions at our 'local' slope an hour away in Hundseck during my recovery, was skiing nice and fast. She also had to put me to shame by immediately going off to do a black run without me on the first day (show-off!).
The only excitement for the week was Ingrid being pulled over for speeding in Austria on the way to Soelden. This was especially significant since I'm usually the one being chastised for speeding by her. Was excellent practice for her German having to explain why she was racing at 62km/h through a 50 zone! This high pressure German lesson only cost €21 so may be an excellent new training method and much cheaper than the formal grammar lessons we are still attending twice a week! Ingrid also left the camera at home so we don't have any pictures from this trip (her thinking was that we now have enough pictures of skiing and can just re-use those from other places if need be, nobody will know the difference - practical as always). Take a look though at www.soelden.com if you want to see more about the place.
Neustift and Lech Austria, December 2002 (by Phillip)
We left for our first ski trip of the new season on the 07th December. Ingrid did all of the preparations and bookings with one week in Neustift and a few days in Lech (both in Austria). We were really lucky because it is early in the season and there is always a risk that you'll find cows grazing on the slopes, rather than skiers, but the week before we left they had loads of snow.
We went with Absolute tours a South African operator again to Neustift with Luke and Eva the two new hosts at the resort. As always it was absolutely fabulous. Although the 30 minutes on the bus to get to the glacier(or in our case in the car) every morning is a bit of a drag, it is worth it once you get up on the mountain. There are some excellent wide slopes perfect for beginners and those who may need to 'perfect their technique' shall we say !
We had five days of ski lessons (in German) and were really happy with our progress this trip (Dave you'll be excited to know that I think we can attribute it all to having bought our own much more expensive equipment, than the rentals we'd had in the past !). By the end it was Ingrid leading us down the black run at the end of the day as a grand finale! Just a few thousand euro's worth of new kit and we'll be invincible. Absolute were great as always and kept the schnapps flowing. Having committed to never touching Tequila again in November (until the next time) - I may now need to add schnapps to the banned list, having tried valiantly to smash a bottle during an evening sleigh ride to dinner, with two of the absolute team. There were only 12 tourists on the Absolute trip, but we were joined by over 50 from another resort at St Johann mid week where lawn bowls were being played where snow should have been. They had offered a 10 day special as a start of season trip, but decided to move them to Neustift for a few days while they waited for snow! We had a really brilliant 6 days skiing and other than using my face to stop while being video'd (see pic) the week was uneventful and filled with food and good beer.See pic for Ingrid tucking into some wholesome vegitarian platter Austrian style!
We left on the Saturday for Lech, which was a really nice 2 hour trip, although Ingrid may disagree with the windy mountain sections and many narrow avalanche tunnels. Ingrid had selected a Pension (hotel) via the internet, so a bit of an experiment, but it was perfect. Immediately opposite the ski lift system and right on the main road for easy access to local restaurants! The snow was not the best when we arrived, but came bucketing down before we left. I managed to loose my right ski in a tight turn and ended up still skiing downhill on one ski trying to fall backwards with my ski and boot preventing me from actually falling. Having got some speed up I did manage to fall badly twisting my left leg. It must have been reasonably impressive because 4 people skied over to see if I was OK (for normal falls people just ski past laughing at you!). My leg was really burning with some definite damage to my calf muscle, but I managed to ski down before it cooled down and seized. That was the end of skiing for me and Ingrid spent the next night and day fetching and carrying food to me in bed before we decided to leave early and go home to the doctor.
Luckily nothing was broken, but my left calf muscle was now nice and blue in colour and the tendons are badly torn or stretched and two weeks later I was still on crutches and had a light cast fitted by the specialist on New Year's Eve. A professional sports person would be out of action for 6-8 weeks with this injury according to the specialist, so we may need to add in a bit of VAT or is that FAT for my improvement. Ingrid wanted to know when I'd be able to drive and when we could go skiing again, seems skiing will have to wait for at least March, but I'll keep in shape watching the ski jumping on the TV until then !
Val Thorens, France, December 2001 to January 2002
During the 2001/2002 season we spend two fantastic weeks skiing in the Trois Valless (Three Valleys) in France. Val Thorens is linked by ski lifts and slopes to Meribel and Courcheval. The Val Thorens ski area has 140 kms of piste and the Three Valleys ski area has over 600 kms! More than we could ever hope to ski in 2 weeks.The village of Val Thorens lies at 2300m and the slopes go up to 3230m. "The highest ski resort in Europe" they claim. This, and the fact that there is a glacier in the valley means that Val Thorens has a snow guarantee.
When we arrived at the resort it was snowing which meant great skiing for the first few days. Unfortunately, towards the end of the second week, lack of snow falls, and slighter warmer weather meant that sometimes you would ski over small stones, leaving your skis standing still, and you diving head first into the snow! The great thing about Val Thorens (other than very few drag -lifts) is the fact that you can ski almost everywhere. We would walk about 100m downhill from our chalet, and then clip into our skis and ski down to the lifts. To get home in the afternoon, we would catch a lift up the mountain behind our chalet, and ski to a spot which was about 20m from our chalet! Fantastic!
Phillip and I shared a chalet with the McCue family from South Africa, Greg, Patsy, Carol, Gary and Lauren. The other 2 chalets contained a mixture of South African and London based people, including Martin and Juanita and Givany, Neil and Melanie and Bev, Neil and Gillian, Cliffie and Anya, Greg and Alexa and Aron. There was a nice spread of skiing abilities, from complete beginners, various stages of intermediate, to expert. Of course the fact that one of the beginners (Yes Gary!) was skiing better than most of the intermediates , who work our asses off to ski half decently, by the end of the first week, caused much disgust with some of us!
Juanita, who was organising the trip slipped on some ice and broke her arm outside the doctors room the day the rest of us arrived, dashing her hopes of doing any skiing during the two weeks we were there. From now on i'm going to watch my step very carefully! It's a bit suspicious that there was ice just outside the doctors rooms, and Juanita was not the only unsuspecting tourist to slip on that spot and need medical attention while we were there. We reckon the doctor used to sneak out in the small hours of the morning with a watering can, to make sure of his revenue!
The skiing was great with plenty of green, red and blue runs to play around on. We split into groups of similar abilities, and were allocated instructors. Phillip and I were in a group with Mel, Bev, Givany and Alexa. Our instructor, Marco from Sicily, was very funny. His English was OK, but not really enough to explain the intricacies of some of the exercises he wanted us to do. He would rattle on for 10 minutes and the ask us if we understood. Seeing a lot of blank faces, his standard answer was, "OK, you look me, and after, you go". He would proceed to ski down a short way and then wave his pole for the first poor lemming to follow him. Sometimes we got it right, and sometimes not, judging by the amount of criticism he gave us. Actually he was very good. Patient with those of us who were a bit nervous, but still gently pushing us to try harder the whole time.
One day, we were about to set of down a slope with Marco, when Bev noticed that the piste markers looked black, rather than red or blue. Marco was sneakily trying to push us harder without us noticing. Bev and I arranged a very quick mutiny, and we all proceeded to go around on the red slope. That evening I asked Marco if he really thought we could do that black slope and he said, "Yes, of course, you do, no problem!". So I asked him to take us back the next day to ski our first black slope, which we did without incident. Granted, it was only about 100m long, perfectly groomed, lots of snow, no moguls, but it was still a black!
On one of the days a group of us set out on a "ski tour" to ski across the 3 Valleys through Meribel, to Courcheval and back. Of course we started late, with one person forgetting their ski pass at the chalet and others being just generally late (hungover). Because we had beginners in our group, we were going to ski only blue slopes, and take the lift down where this was not possible. Then there was a small disagreement regarding whether we were on the correct route or not. On our trip down into Meribel village on a gondola, all skiers except Anya (an experienced skier) were to take the lift, and Anya would meet us at the bottom.
Aron (still learning how to snowboard) decided that he was also going to go down on his snow board, but was too late to tell Anya that he was following her, and of course, he didn't have piste map so didn't know which turnings to take on the way down. When we all met Anya in Meribel there was no sign of Aron. Now what were we going to tell his father Greg! Neil did another quick run down the mountain but couldn't find him. We stopped for lunch after which we realised that we would never make it to Courcheval and back. Reluctantly we headed back home. At the halfway station on the Gondola, we saw a notice that Aron was waiting at the top of the mountain. I'm not sure if we were relieved or disappointed to have found the little bastard!
Unfortunately, Phillip had to leave halfway through the second week, to attend a conference in Nice. I spent some time skiing with Greg, Lauren and Carol. We spent a great day skiing down to the next village and back, with the occasional stop for some beer, and I took the opportunity to get some video footage of them. I also spent a day trying to correct the main criticism of my skiing which Marco had, which is that I ski too slowly. Damn cheek! Well, I have improved my speed greatly, and look forward to the next ski season with great anticipation.
We had a great time, and the only negative was the rude, unhelpful, arrogant attitude of the French people, waiters, chalet staff etc. Next time we'll go to Austria thank you very much. Spend our money where it's appreciated!
Sorry but no more skiing photos. We didn't have a digital camera before, so you'll have to use your imagination.
We spent a great week skiing in Saalbach-Hinterglemm with Absolute Skiing (Beachcomber) in February 2001. It was the first time Dave and Ailsa had skied, so we were quite anxious that they have a good time. Dave and Ailsa had done some touring in Europe the week before, so we were due to meet up with them in Munich airport. We flew via London and had a very short connection time for our Munich flight. On landing in London, we ran to the next terminal, only to find out that our flight was "CANCELLED"! Munich airport was snowed-in and no planes were going in our out. We waited around for about 4 hours while the airport staff tried to get people on later flights once Munich airport opened again. The airline neglected to announce what was happening and we nearly didn't make it onto the new flight we were booked on. This time we had to run for the departure gate! A bloody stressful holiday and it had hardly started. While boarding the flight we met Owen and Denise from Bergville, South Africa, who were also going to Saalbach with Absolute Skiing. They turned out to be great fun. As we landed in Munich 3 hours late, and just after the scheduled departure time for the Absolute bus, I was convinced that we would have to catch the train to Saalbach, a real hassle with all the luggage. Luckily, or so I thought at the time, the bus had waited because so many flights were delayed. We met up with Dave and Ailsa waiting for the bus. When Dave asked me how long the bus trip was, I said 6 or 7 hours. He was horrified and told me that Jonno from Absolute had said 3 hours. We were both wrong. I took 9 hours! Fortunately those at the back of the bus were so well oiled that they didn't seem to mind. Plus the fact that the reason the trip was so slow (too much snow) meant that we would have lovely powder snow for our first few days skiing.
On the first day of skiing Phillip and I went off with our instructor Maria from Bulgaria, while Dave and Ailsa joined their beginners lessons. We were a bit worried that they might not progress at the same speed as each other, and our fears were confirmed when, on the second morning, their instructor asked if they would mind being split up. Not as we suspected though. Dave had to stay in the dunces group, and Ailsa was moved to a faster group. How embarrassing (some bullshit about listening to the instructor Dave)! Fortunately Dave took this as a challenge and had improved a lot by the end of the week (nearly bulletproof).
Unfortunately, Dave also spent the week getting into trouble. On the first night he lost his poles, which had to be replaced. On the second night, we left our skis outside a pub while we had a few drinks. When we came out, Dave's skis had been "stolen" but another pair of the same brand had been left there. Dave reckoned someone had taken his skis by mistake and left theirs. The next morning he took the other skis back to the ski hire shop to explain the problem. They checked the bar code on the skis to find out which idiot might have taken the wrong skis. Guess what - they were Dave skis. Too many schnapps's Dave! Then there was the taboganning evening. Our Austrian friend Horst had joined us for a few days, and the dinner in the mountain hut was really festive. We all played "Nail" (if you don't know the game, come skiing in Austria with us and we'll teach you). Dave eventually got a bit too festive and was no longer able to play. He, Phillip and Horst ended standing outside in the snow, in the middle of the night, singing. In this sharp and alert state, we then all did the tabogan run down the mountain in the dark. I was a bit disappointed to come second to Horst, but then I suppose he is Austrian. Next time I'll get you!. Once we were all at the bottom we noticed that Dave was missing. We waited for ages and he eventually came limping down the tack, dragging his sled behind him. He had been a bit too drunk to sit up on his tabogan, so had lain down, and missed a turning in the track, landing on the rocks in the river. There was also an incident where Dave neglected to dismount the chair lift in time, and the whole lift system had to be stopped so Dave could get off.Ailsa has no such problems and simply leaped from the chairlift now dangling high in the air into the snow below in James Bond style!
The rest of the week was great. Absolute always has a good entertainment programme and we did bum-boarding ( Still beat you guys to the fence Phillip and Dave!) and ski-bobbing (like a bicycle on skis). This was my first ski trip after my knee-op and I was very pleased with my return to the slopes. My confidence had returned and I had skied the mountain, on which I had hurt myself, several times.
Saalbach, Austria, February 1999, SAP Overachievers Club
This was our second trip with SAP but our first to Saalbach. It was quite a change from Neustift, as you could walk to the ski lift, and didn't have to catch the bus. The trip was great with the usual Absolute entertainment (taboganning, bum-boarding, ski-bobbing, night skiing etc). Unfortunately, on the third day I fell and hurt my knee. I didn't know for several months, but I had torn the meniscus cartilage in my knee. My knee hurt quite a lot, but I thought it was just the usual pain, so continued to ski. I found it harder to keep up, and decided to join the beginners group the next day, to give my knee a chance to recover. By the end of the week, I could hardly keep up with the beginners! I was very miserable as I couldn't keep up with Phillip, so this was not my favourite ski holiday. I also had my first and last ride in a snow plough (snow tractor). It was really scary. If I ever need to be rescued off the mountain, they will have to drag me down on one of those boards, no way will they ever get me into a snow tractor alive! Phillip had a good time though, and I got to meet some SAP people I had not known before, including Joshi and Regina, Matt and Sabine, Stephan and Veronica as well as old ski buddy, Juanita. The two of us were usually dithering at the back of the class together. Andre and Sean, who were beginners, joined Phillip's group and managed to keep up with a kamikaze attitude. Sean liked it so much, that the following year, he and his wife Kathy packed in their jobs, and went to Neustift with Absolute to be the video man for a season. I bet they learned to ski like pros real fast!
Neustift, Austria, December 1998 to January 1999, Christmas and New Year
We had been to Neustift two years before with SAP and decided to go back with some of our friends. Quite a few were keen, but when the Rand took a knock, and bond rates went up to 24%, we suddenly found ourselves alone on the plane to Europe. Since we hadn't managed to get any of our friends to come with us, we decided to make some new friends within the Absolute tour group. A South Africa couple, Kevin and Brigitte, were staying in the same pension as us, so we became friendly. Kevin looked very serious and stern, but turned out to be a bit of a party animal. We also met Scott from Australia and his girlfriend. We had a great time, and the Christmas dinner in Neustift was the nicest Christmas I have ever had. New Year was quite an experience. At midnight, fireworks are set off in the town square and the aim seems to be to shoot as many other revelers as you can with your rockets! Neustift also has the best Rodelbahn (tabogan run) I have seen. It is 4,5kms long and runs right from the top of the Elfer lift at 1812m down into the village of Neustift at 1000m. Quite a drop and very fast. The course is filled with hairpin bends, and if you are not careful, you can go straight over the edge. It's a real thrill. The last time I came down the Rodelbahn I was going so fast when I reached the end of the snow, that I continued about 50m on the tarred road! Neustift has a special place in our hearts and we will definitely be going back.
Neustift, Austria, January 1997, SAP Overachievers Club
This was our first ski holiday, and we probably wouldn't have gone skiing if it weren't for SAP. This was a sponsored trip for Phillip's company as an incentive and got us hooked for life. I was a bit dubious, but thoroughly enjoyed myself, even though I was a bit scared sometimes. On the last day the instructor took us to the top of one of the mountains to see into Italy. When he wanted us to ski down I completely froze with fear. I only managed to get down by focusing on the next little turn that I had to make and reminding myself of what the instructor had told me. That and the fact that after I had stood frozen at the top of the mountain for 10 minutes, Phillip told me that I had no other way to get down! It was fun though and at the end of the week, the muscles that hurt the most were my stomach muscles. From laughing at everyone trying to exit the ski lift at the top of the slopes. Definitely worth a mornings entertainment, even if you don't ski. I think one of the reasons why Phillip likes Neustift so much, is that it has an apres ski bar where schnapps sprays out the ceiling. No jokes - join us there in December 2002 and you'll see!
We Recommend Absolute Skiing (Beachcomber)
Of our 5 ski trips so far, 4 have been with Absolute. And we are going back to them this December! Their service is excellent. If you are thinking of going skiing for the first time, definitely go with Absolute. They look after everything for you, organise ski passes, ski lessons, ski hire etc. So you can relax and just enjoy the holiday. You might think it is cheaper to book it yourself, but its not worth it unless you really know what you're doing. A few examples. If your luggage goes missing on the way to Munich, Absolute will send a car back to Munich the next day (about 3 hours drive each way) to collect it when/if it arrives. And they can probably sort out some clothing and ski gear in the meantime. If you break your leg on the first day of the holiday, they will get you to the doctor, help sort out the medical insurance, and bring you pizza and videos in your room! They have an office where you can phone, fax etc and usually change travellers cheques as well, very useful if you arrive Saturday afternoon and the banks only re-open on Monday. If there is no snow in your resort, they will transport you to the nearest glacier. You will always be greeted with a smile and a bottle of schnapps!
Ingrid had promised our niece Angela a ski trip for her 7th birthday and she flew over to Germany alone as an unaccompanied minor the first time on a plane too! It was really great to see the world through the eyes of a child for a week, asked what she saw different about Germany on the way back from the airport she replied that for one thing she would be sitting on my lap in the car (since we drive on the 'wrong' side) and secondly that the traffic lights were square - in 2 1/2 years I hadn't noticed that the metal surrounding the actual lights was square in Germany and the edges in South Africa are rounded! On reflection, that pretty much sums up the difference, they're a little more square here....... .
We arrived in Livigno on Saturday afternoon after an overnight stay near Neuschwannstein and although we were only supposed to start skiing the next day, Angela was soon desperate to get onto skis. We did the first few runs with her, pushing / pulling her up the slope, but she soon tired of that and wanted to go up on the ski lift. Ingrid laid down a clear rule, you have to be able to stop before you can use the lift and that kept Angela off the ski lift till the first mornings ski lessons. 
Angela was unfortunately the oldest in her ski group and was soon bored with the lack of pace. I think that there was even a kid of three in there somewhere! She did learn to stop though, and was soon on the ski lift and able to be independant. Seems minus the concept of fear, things are much easier than Ingrid and I had made it for ourselves! Angela also discovered that she was an expert snow ball maker, and thank goodness she discovered Tommy (one of the Absolute skiing guys) as a target, I was getting pretty wet!
By day two Angela was already able to control her speed, turn and much to our concern jump ! She also went off on the chair lift to the higher part of the mountain with the instructor so there was no stopping her now. Day three there were no official lessons so we booked an hours private lesson for her with the same instructor. Our eyes got wider and wider as we saw them skiing off together to do a series of red runs over the back of the mountain we’d been on. We followed them down watching from afar, that’s why it is not a good idea for parents to teach their children, you have a heart attack! She made it down and was happy the rest of the week to zoom up and down on her own, or with the ski lessons each morning – it really is quite easy you know !
We had booked the trip via Absolute skiing / Snocomber from South Africa to make the logistics, visas / passport applications etc easier for Angela's parents Brett and Hilda in SA. We were also hoping that there would be some other South African kids her age to bond with, but she soon found people her own mental age to bond with - thanks Luke! We had activities with the Absolute Group each evening (about 25 South Africans), ice skating, bumboarding ,10 pin bowling etc then followed by dinner from around 8:30. This was quite a punishing schedule for a 7 year old – 6 hours of skiing and partying till all hours, so Angela rarely made it completely through dinner, but always wanted to be part of the action. As always Absolute were fantastic and strongly recommended. We really enjoyed Livigno as a resort. Even though not all of the lifts were open, we did manage to test ourselves on a few occasions - thanks Tommy for that surprise black run at the end of a hard morning.... .
As a special treat we also did husky dog sled rides through the mountains (a special treat for me, not Angela !). This was really great. Getting pulled through the forest with the snow falling and just the odd shout of HIKE and WOWWW to keep the dogs under control. Not sure what happened to 'mush' - must just be in the movies! Wait till we have some decent snow fall at home, the basset and two boxers are about to learn a new game!
We sent Angela off home on the Sunday, with video in hand. We hope that she had a really good time and will certainly have much to talk about when back at school in the new year! 
Just to get back into the swing of things, we made a long weekend ski trip to Hintertux in Austria. We had been the year before, but decided go again because it is a glacier resort with a snow guarantee. We were very lucky once more with great weather and also plenty of snow. Many resorts in the alps have struggled early season this year, because the snow has been late in coming and the temperatures too mild to keep what snow had fallen. Good choice to go back again, even if the actual skiing is a little limited, we had a great few days.
Dave, Ailsa, Thomas and Charlotte (plus their two kids Lilly and Daisy) joined us for a week in Selva immediately after Thomas and I had a few days with 30 work colleagues in Ischgl the weekend before (more about that later). This resort is also known as Wolkenstein which has had a split personality ever since it became embroiled in bitter fighting when Italy entered the war against Austria in 1915, splitting the Tirol. Towns that were part of the Austrian Sud-Tirol, acquired two names - one Italian, one German. This is true of all of the towns in the area and quite confusing for a poor navigator like me !
Selva is most famous as the starting point in the Sella Ronda. This is advertised as a gentle, enjoyable jaunt on skis around the mountain and through as many as a dozen resorts in the four valleys surrounding the Gruppo Sella. We found this pretty tough going since we had to make the one day trip in a morning (on both trips around) in order to be able to join up with friends after lunch. I imagine that if you make a full day of it, including many stops for schnapps and food, it is less exhausting (or maybe you just need to be fitter and a better skier !).
The entire ski area is over 175 km of runs, so kept us busy and we never needed to do the same slopes many times. Dave and Ailsa both progressed well and are looking forward to being able to bring Joshua their son) along shortly. Unfortunately Josh still needs to master walking, but Dave is convinced he’ll be skiing soon! Poor kid will probably also be forced to be an Arsenal supporter, talk about mis-directed parent pressure from an early age!
Just before we went to Selva, Thomas and I went with 30 people from work to Ischgl for three days. Ischgl is well known as the best ApriSki resort in the world and it certainly lived up to its reputation. After the second night we missed our bus back to our resort 30 minutes away (party in the KuhStahl (Cow Shed) was scheduled from 16:00 to 16:30) and ran over slightly and we felt it would be rude to leave early... .
We took a weeks break in December to have an early season ski trip. We treated ourselves to a really nice hotel (usually we only had low cost B&B's), but this was a proper 'Wellness Hotel' complete with pool, sauna, steam bath etc. The hotel had a special which we took and included breakfast, dinner and ski pass in the price. The 5 course meals were all excellent and complimented with a fine wine selection, this was really a great break. The weather was pretty miserable for the week, we had some snow early on in the week, but quite a few days of low temperatures and high winds making skiing high on the glacier pretty tricky. 
Hotel Alpenhof in Hintertux comes highly recommended by us. We had an excellent week and Ingrid even managed to tempt me into the naked sauna and steam bath facilities and then a few lengths of the heated pool, a good way to relax those weary muscles! 
We left out last ski trip for the year as late as possible in order to allow maximum time for my leg to recover from the December skiing injury. To make sure that we were not left in a resort with cows grazing instead of ski slopes we chose to go to one of the glaciers with a snow guarantee, Soelden in Austria. In summary, Soelden is my favourite ski area to date. It has enough apres-ski to keep the hardest party crowd entertained and the many slopes and ski areas. All are well maintained with an excellent lift system (read nearly no T-Bars !). 
We left for our first ski trip of the new season on the 07th December. Ingrid did all of the preparations and bookings with one week in Neustift and a few days in Lech (both in Austria). We were really lucky because it is early in the season and there is always a risk that you'll find cows grazing on the slopes, rather than skiers, but the week before we left they had loads of snow.
We went with Absolute tours a South African operator again to Neustift with Luke and Eva the two new hosts at the resort. As always it was absolutely fabulous. Although the 30 minutes on the bus to get to the glacier(or in our case in the car) every morning is a bit of a drag, it is worth it once you get up on the mountain. There are some excellent wide slopes perfect for beginners and those who may need to 'perfect their technique' shall we say !
We had five days of ski lessons (in German) and were really happy with our progress this trip (Dave you'll be excited to know that I think we can attribute it all to having bought our own much more expensive equipment, than the rentals we'd had in the past !). By the end it was Ingrid leading us down the black run at the end of the day as a grand finale! Just a few thousand euro's worth of new kit and we'll be invincible. Absolute were great as always and kept the schnapps flowing. Having committed to never touching Tequila again in November (until the next time) - I may now need to add schnapps to the banned list, having tried valiantly to smash a bottle during an evening sleigh ride to dinner, with two of the absolute team. There were only 12 tourists on the Absolute trip, but we were joined by over 50 from another resort at St Johann mid week where lawn bowls were being played where snow should have been. They had offered a 10 day special as a start of season trip, but decided to move them to Neustift for a few days while they waited for snow! We had a really brilliant 6 days skiing and other than using my face to stop while being video'd (see pic) the week was uneventful and filled with food and good beer.See pic for Ingrid tucking into some wholesome vegitarian platter Austrian style!
We left on the Saturday for Lech, which was a really nice 2 hour trip, although Ingrid may disagree with the windy mountain sections and many narrow avalanche tunnels. Ingrid had selected a Pension (hotel) via the internet, so a bit of an experiment, but it was perfect. Immediately opposite the ski lift system and right on the main road for easy access to local restaurants! The snow was not the best when we arrived, but came bucketing down before we left. I managed to loose my right ski in a tight turn and ended up still skiing downhill on one ski trying to fall backwards with my ski and boot preventing me from actually falling. Having got some speed up I did manage to fall badly twisting my left leg. It must have been reasonably impressive because 4 people skied over to see if I was OK (for normal falls people just ski past laughing at you!). My leg was really burning with some definite damage to my calf muscle, but I managed to ski down before it cooled down and seized. That was the end of skiing for me and Ingrid spent the next night and day fetching and carrying food to me in bed before we decided to leave early and go home to the doctor.
Luckily nothing was broken, but my left calf muscle was now nice and blue in colour and the tendons are badly torn or stretched and two weeks later I was still on crutches and had a light cast fitted by the specialist on New Year's Eve. A professional sports person would be out of action for 6-8 weeks with this injury according to the specialist, so we may need to add in a bit of VAT or is that FAT for my improvement. Ingrid wanted to know when I'd be able to drive and when we could go skiing again, seems skiing will have to wait for at least March, but I'll keep in shape watching the ski jumping on the TV until then ! 
During the 2001/2002 season we spend two fantastic weeks skiing in the Trois Valless (Three Valleys) in France. Val Thorens is linked by ski lifts and slopes to Meribel and Courcheval. The Val Thorens ski area has 140 kms of piste and the Three Valleys ski area has over 600 kms! More than we could ever hope to ski in 2 weeks.The village of Val Thorens lies at 2300m and the slopes go up to 3230m. "The highest ski resort in Europe" they claim. This, and the fact that there is a glacier in the valley means that Val Thorens has a snow guarantee. 
When we arrived at the resort it was snowing which meant great skiing for the first few days. Unfortunately, towards the end of the second week, lack of snow falls, and slighter warmer weather meant that sometimes you would ski over small stones, leaving your skis standing still, and you diving head first into the snow! The great thing about Val Thorens (other than very few drag -lifts) is the fact that you can ski almost everywhere. We would walk about 100m downhill from our chalet, and then clip into our skis and ski down to the lifts. To get home in the afternoon, we would catch a lift up the mountain behind our chalet, and ski to a spot which was about 20m from our chalet! Fantastic!
Phillip and I shared a chalet with the McCue family from South Africa, Greg, Patsy, Carol, Gary and Lauren. The other 2 chalets contained a mixture of South African and London based people, including Martin and Juanita and Givany, Neil and Melanie and Bev, Neil and Gillian, Cliffie and Anya, Greg and Alexa and Aron. There was a nice spread of skiing abilities, from complete beginners, various stages of intermediate, to expert. Of course the fact that one of the beginners (Yes Gary!) was skiing better than most of the intermediates , who work our asses off to ski half decently, by the end of the first week, caused much disgust with some of us! 
Juanita, who was organising the trip slipped on some ice and broke her arm outside the doctors room the day the rest of us arrived, dashing her hopes of doing any skiing during the two weeks we were there. From now on i'm going to watch my step very carefully! It's a bit suspicious that there was ice just outside the doctors rooms, and Juanita was not the only unsuspecting tourist to slip on that spot and need medical attention while we were there. We reckon the doctor used to sneak out in the small hours of the morning with a watering can, to make sure of his revenue!
Saalbach, Austria, February 2001
Neustift, Austria, December 1998 to January 1999, Christmas and New Year
Neustift, Austria, January 1997, SAP Overachievers Club
