Holiday post no.4

Day 3 of skiing was brilliant. I feel surprisingly confident on the slopes today, not that I didn't yesterday, but I feel confidence and retained skill just increasing more and more! I found that today in most cases, I was shooting way ahead of my parents on most pistes, waiting for them to catch up further  down, with the exceptions of the 'schusses' which are just a straight run down a hill, crouching down attempting to gain as much speed as possible. My parents usually went past me in this case, due to weight. On an average run, where we would be traversing across the slope, I was faster than my parents because my mother found that at speed, she did not have much control at all and my dad is just a little cautious about going over the top, because he doesn't want to wear himself out, and also because he does not want to risk causing leg problems, as he broke it a couple of years back. Over all, I just act a little stupidly, I probably go a little above my ability at times, in terms of the speed I go at; I expect this will be my downfall at some point, but so far I have stay upright except once today. I fell over as I attempted to turn my skis by simply angling my feet rather than moving the actual ski itself. It wasn't a big tumble though, I am yet awaiting my first proper fall of this skiing holiday.

While I am on the subject of falling, at the end of the day, when my mother and I (my dad had gone back earlier as he was worn out) were going down a very steep run called 'la face'. This is a black run, that most people find tricky at points, even ski instructors! Anyway, we were going down the  steep bits of this slope, and I found the first part great, it was nicely angled so I could get a good amount of speed up and there was a a good amount of grip; this was where the grip ended though.
For the rest of the descent, the grip was spread far and thin, a lot of the piste was icy, which is dealable with but then we found there was occasional patches of blue ice, which is just frozen water. The grip on it is minimal at best, so I found that I was struggling at times to stay upright. My mother was not so lucky, a lot of the descent down the mountain she spent sliding, unable to stop herself. This was partially because she was tired after a long days skiing, but mainly though due to the patches of ice.
If you are interested, here is a video of someone skiing down La face (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLVbSO_loVI). It doesn't look too steep in the video, but trust me it really is. The first time I went down, I was seriously worried about going down it, I admittedly was about 12 at the time, but I would guess it is still worrying for skiiers of any age.

I also took some photos from high up in the mountain, as some of the views from up there were astounding. I feel that it is a bit of a shame that I cannot get the pictures any bigger without going over the border, but still, I guess it is pretty good that I can share holiday pictures via a blog.

By now, I feel that we have been down most runs that are local to this area, which is a little surprising, as the amount of slopes accessible from here is very big compared to other ski resorts. Over all, this holiday has been going very well so far, and I have also managed to keep writing a daily blog post!!