“You’re mad!” remarked Caroline the greengrocer cheerfully when I told her my winter sports adventure. A understandable reaction since just a while back I was seen on crutches due to a hip replacement. Acquaintances from my sister’s circle were rather anxious: “How old are you? 80? I don’t think this is a smart move. You’ll have an accident and hurt yourself.” My elder brother Andrew, aged 86, opted it was better not to tell anyone.
A Long-Standing Dream
For twenty years or more I’d had a half-buried wish to undertake a final winter sports adventure. A concluding dose of sunny weather, frosty air and the excitement that comes with ending up unharmed at the end of a snowy run. I wasn’t very skilled, and it had been years since I last skied, but that didn’t matter. As an octogenarian, I needed to see if I could still do it. Should I succeed, what about including Kate, my sister, a member of our senior women’s club who support each other to join regular fitness events? Then I remembered that, during our younger days, Andrew had joined me on my initial winter sports trip. That was 67 years ago, but Andrew had some talent, so he got an invitation as well. A companion named Penny, who is so absurdly young (67, so she says) that she doesn’t really count, was given permission to join and venture out with the elders and practise her German. We all made an effort to enhance our fitness levels, but skiing was a distant memory for at least 40 years.
Choosing the Destination
The Tirol town of Seefeld, close to Innsbruck, was where we decided to go, as it has many snowy pastimes – provided we endured our brief skiing instruction on the opening day (frankly, was the only skiing we intended to do) – and is wonderfully free of post-skiing parties. It attracts families rather than boisterous teens, and is characteristically Austrian, with traditional bell towers and alpine-style homes. We stayed at the cozy, independently owned Hotel Helga and we dined somewhere new every night.
“It’s known as Kaiserwetter,” remarked our guide Janina when I commented we were astonished by our fortune at waking each morning to cloudless skies, pleasant rays and plenty of snow for the beginning of March.
Everyone acted as if just to be thrilled, without any concern, as we took a bus to the slopes. It was packed with young people and families carrying skis and full of life. I suspected the staff member getting our ski gear showing skepticism at the challenge.
I felt certain I would tumble the moment I started. However, I stayed on my feet. No one fell.
The instructor, Ulrich, who had been pre-warned of our ages, grinned courageously as we trudged over. We were talking a bit too loudly, beaming widely, perhaps trying to postpone the moment when we had to step into the bindings. Inside, I was sure I would tumble as soon as I moved. Yet I didn’t. No one else fell either. Ulrich remained calm, providing ample opportunity at each stage of the lesson to become more confident.
Contemporary Winter Sports
Modern skis are much easier to manage, I discovered – reduced in length, weight and featuring shaped ends – than the long, cumbersome things I remember from the 60s that often led to lift mishaps. We understood we wouldn’t be permitted on a ski lift whatsoever, so thought we’d have to laboriously herringbone up the hill and descend, tumbling during the descent. It worked like that in the fifties. But here there was a fantastic contemporary contraption, a conveyor belt, or automated track, that transported us easily to the peak of the novice run, which was cluttered with fearless children. We stood out as the sole seniors.
Once the lesson ended, we hadn’t even fallen, had everyone performed adequate plow maneuvers and even an attempt at parallel skiing. We were overjoyed. “That was just amazing!” said Andrew, who isn’t given to hyperbole.
Beyond the Slopes
Could we have managed a entire week of winter sports? Perhaps, but the diverse pursuits Seefeld offered was more enticing. Trails were available around several bodies of water, buses giving us access to incredibly scenic towns, and the “cold-weather trek to Hämmermoosalm, 4.6km (and sled back down)”, as the guidebook briefly mentioned.
Being familiar with winter sports, Kate and I knew all about sledding. One sprints behind, propelling the sled, then jump aboard and speed downward on your stomach at speeds rivalling a Formula One car. Janina was reassuring. No cause for concern: we’d ride the sled and guide it using our feet. But we did worry. Andrew decided it wasn’t for him but the rest of us continued.
Someone wearing crimson overalls skidded by shouting something over his shoulder regarding my sister.
As a 12-year-old it proved fatiguing dragging Dad’s handcrafted sled up a local hill in Buckinghamshire in our childhood winters, and as an 83-year-old it was tiring hauling an admittedly lighter toboggan uphill in oxygen-depleted air (Hämmermoosalm, a classic mountain lodge and farmstead, is at over 1,400 meters) for almost 5 kilometers. I lagged behind, complaining quietly about being too old for this. {The glühwein and Gulaschsuppe|The mulled wine and goulash soup|The warm
