How is that possible that you live in Austria and have never gone mountain skiing?

Because it's madly expensive, that's why!

But when one has a chance, then one has to grab it.

That is exactly what happened after 3,5 years in Austria. I have made many great friends here, mostly couples. You know- Estonian girl, Austrian guy. The family of one of those guys, lets call him L, has a mountain hut near a skiing slope in the county of Carinthia and he invited us all to go and spend a weekend there.  Usually it is very costly to go such places so took the opportunity without hesitating.

On the last weekend of February 2017 we all drove to Corinthia. Our main aim was to have fun, go skiing and sauna (Estonian influence obviously, L had bough a sauna). We also wanted to celebrate Estonia's 99th birthday there.

Me, Hannes and an Estonian friend of ours, lets name her AS, had never gone mountain skiing. Hannes had only once tried nordic skiing, but that was it.
Some of us went to the hut already a day before. Hannes came one day later with some other friends who had to work a day longer.  The hut itself is lovely, has altogether 3 floors, on the basement-floor is the storage and sauna, ground floor has a living room, kitchen, shower and toilet and first floor 4 bedrooms. The hut has been built by L's grandfather, and the grandparents had made most of the decorations and as far as I understood, some furniture, by themselves. It looked like the cosiest mountain hut one can imagine.

Mountain skiing- I'm glad I know how to ski on nordic skis. As me and AS didn't have any skiing equipment, we had to borrow it from the resort. Getting the right boots was an effort. It turns out that with the boots you need to not only have the correct size, but also the right shape.
I got such bad boots in the beginning, that I couldn't basically move. I think my feet didn't get any blood in them. So, hoping that it was just my problem, I went and changed them for another pair. After that I felt that I could actually go skiing with them. But wait, you had to first get to the slope.
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Putting on the boots took a while- they are so tight and rough that it hurts to even put them on. Then you need to use all your force to strap them as tight as possible. They go way above your ankles and you can not move your feet in them at all. Oh, and your legs are bent slightly forward as that is the position you need for skiing. After all you've heard, can you then imagine walking with them? I couldn't, but me and AS both tried. We were both looking like zombies from the Walking Dead while trying to balance ourselves and move couple of meters with those. Oh yeah, we also had our skis in our hands. I'm pretty sure we were a relatively amusing sight for others. Took us quite a while to get from the parking lot to the actual slope.

Now we were ready (or not) to put on the skis. Sounds simple, you say? Think again. The boots don't lock into the skis only from the front, but also from behind. After 5 minutes of trying we both finally managed to get on the skis with the assistance of L and A-L. They were very patient. The next challenge was to actually stay standing with the skis and not slide anywhere (not that easy in the beginning).  AS managed to slide backwards into a fence.....I'm not gonna say I was much better.  Took down no fences though.
Then we started learning how to actually move around. That's where nordic skiing came in handy. For our surprise we got the techique on how to make curves with the skis quickly and L and A-L decided that we are ready to go up the mountain. Only after 15mins. Great! Or not.....

Once we had bought our ski lift tickets, we had to face another challenge- to get on the lift. It was a plate-type lift which you have to quickly pull and put between your legs and then it starts to pull you up the mountain. Sounds easy? Only if you know how to actually stand while driving up. I was halfway squatting and by the time we were up, my legs were done. Before I had even started to ski down....

Obviously I fell, And not only once. Falling was easy, but getting up, well that is another topic. Took me a while to realize that I should put the skis so, that they are crossed with the slope. Every time I tried to get up in the beginning, I fell straightaway again because I started sliding withour any balance. And I mean, getting up with those boots is not comfortable- your ankles can not move, so you need to use your hands and sticks to get up. I obviously have weak hands.  Must have been a funny sight to see me getting up. But L, who was standing next to me for those THREE minutes, while I was doing god knows what while trying to get my ass off the ground, was very patient.  It was not the only time and place where I fell. AS managed to fall off from the plate-lift. She was supposed to start right after me but all I could see behind me was someone in the snow. One shouldn't laugh about others mistakes. Learned my lesson the next day when I fell down with Hannes from a T-shaped lift for two people.

After couple of times of trying on the lowest slope, we went higher. That was not for me, I fell too often and as I later realized, used many wrong muscles to drive down. So I was knackered too soon. A-L and L said that we had a bad-slope-day for learning as it was icy from the warm weather the day before. After a while it started to snow a lot and then the slope also got better. As we didn't want to take all the fun from A-L and L, we said with AS that they can go and drive some better and faster slopes and we can practice on our own. That's also what we did. After 45 mins of skiing I actually got the feeling on how to ski and started to enjoy it. Did altogether 3hrs of skiing that day. Was a good days' worth of learning for me. I have to say, the sauna had never felt better in the evening than it did on that day.

The next day we had beautiful weather- sunshine, cloudless sky, amazing view. In the beginning of the second day on the slope, my feet (and also AS's feet) were like jelly. She didn't do many rounds. I was luckier-  I did 3hrs of skiing with breaks in between. Downhill skiing is pretty bad for the knees and I could feel mine a lot.
 On that day Hannes also started to learn how to ski. For him it took longer because he had barely gone nordic skiing.  After 45 minutes learning and backwards sliding and falling also Hannes managed to start driving by himself, so we could go up the mountain and down together.  L was very patient with Hannes. I couldn't always wait until Hannes did 20m to continue skiing so I went down a lot faster.  It wasn't fair for L to only teach, so we sent him away so that he could enjoy it too and I stayed with Hannes. He didn't really want me to tell him what he is doing wrong (like not keeping the skis parallel etc) and told me to go faster. Win-win! For the last round he also wanted to try out the higher part of the slope, that me and AS had done the day before. That's when we both fell down from the lift. On the second try we managed to go all the way up.  The higher part of the slope was a lot steeper and Hannes didn't enjoy it too much. He was happier when he got back to the place where he practiced before.


On the third day, most of us decided to take a short walk near the hut with all the picturesque views as our legs were done from the skiing.   By the way, you could see the steepest slope from the hut and with good snow conditions also ski to the lift from the hut.

Even after all the pain and falling, I have to say, I enjoyed it a lot and would do it again. I wouldn't go on a proper skiing holiday though, as they are way too overpriced here. Maybe I go in South-Tyrol at some point.
I am also very grateful to our hosts, L and A-L as the weekend and the hut were brilliant and they were the most patient and calm teachers one could have. They deserve a medal!

Aaaaaand no one can say to me again that "How is that possible that you live in Austria and have never gone mountain skiing?".