🔗 Share this article

“Are you insane?” stated the vegetable seller happily when I mentioned I was going skiing. A sensible reply since not so long ago I was shopping on crutches following a hip surgery. Acquaintances from my sister’s circle were more concerned: “How old are you? 80? I don’t think this is a wise plan. You’ll fall and break something.” My brother, Andrew, 86, decided it was better not to tell anyone.

A Long-Standing Dream

Over the past twenty years I’d had a secret desire to experience one more ski trip. A concluding dose of blue sky, frosty air and the exhilaration that accompanies finding yourself still intact at the bottom of a snow-covered slope. I wasn’t very skilled, and decades had passed since my last ski outing, but that was irrelevant. Now in my eighties, I needed to see if I could still do it. Should I succeed, why not ask Kate, my sister, one-third of our Old Crones group who encourage each other to do parkrun each week? It then occurred to me that, in our youth, my brother had accompanied me on the first time I went skiing. Sixty-seven years had passed, but Andrew had some talent, so he got an invitation as well. Penny, a friend, who is remarkably youthful (allegedly 67 years old) that she’s almost an exception, was also allowed to come and try her luck with the oldies and practise her German. Each of us worked to become more physically prepared, but skiing was a distant memory for over forty years.

Picking the Location

Seefeld, in Tirol near Innsbruck, was the spot we selected, as it has many snowy pastimes – assuming we’d survive our brief skiing instruction on the first day (frankly, was all the downhill skiing we had planned) – and is happily without post-skiing parties. It draws in family groups rather than boisterous teens, and is characteristically Austrian, with distinctive church steeples and alpine-style homes. We stayed at the welcoming, family-operated a charming inn and we dined somewhere new every night.

“It’s known as Kaiserwetter,” explained Janina, our leader when I noted it seemed too good to be true at waking each morning to unblemished heavens, warm sun and plenty of snow for the start of spring.

We were all pretending just to be excited, completely unafraid, as we hopped on a coach to the winter sports zone. It was crowded with children and adults with winter gear and full of life. I thought I caught the young man helping us with our boot and ski hire rolling his eyes at the situation.

I felt certain I would tumble the moment I started. However, I stayed on my feet. Everyone managed to stay upright.

Our instructor Ulrich, who had been pre-warned of our ages, grinned courageously as we stomped towards him. Our voices were somewhat raised, smiling too broadly, maybe attempting to delay the point when we had to attach our boots to the skis. Inside, I believed I’d fall over immediately upon starting. But I didn’t. Everyone else stayed up too. Our instructor showed great patience, giving us enough time at each stage of the lesson to become more confident.

Contemporary Winter Sports

Current ski equipment is more user-friendly, I realized – shorter, lighter and rounded at the front – than the unwieldy, lengthy boards I recalled from the sixties that frequently caused me to slip from the lift. We knew we would not be trusted on a any type of cable car, so assumed we would painstakingly climb the slope and descend, falling over in the process. That was the method back in 1958. But here there was a fantastic contemporary contraption, a moving walkway, or moving walkway, that conveyed us effortlessly 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 each executed reasonable wedge turns and even a sort of parallel turn. We felt ecstatic. “It was truly wonderful!” remarked Andrew, who tends to understate.

Other Winter Activities

Would we have handled a whole week of skiing? Perhaps, but the diverse pursuits Seefeld offered was more enticing. Trails were available around several bodies of water, public transport allowing visits to incredibly scenic towns, and the “snowy walk to the alpine hut, 2.9 miles followed by sled descent”, as the information pack casually described it.

Having watched the Winter Olympics, my sister and I were aware of sledding techniques. You run behind, pushing the sled, then hop on and race down on your stomach at speeds rivalling a Formula One car. Our guide offered reassurance. Don’t be anxious: we’d sit on the sled and guide it using our feet. But we did worry. Andrew chose not to participate but we others persevered.

A fellow in a red jumpsuit zoomed past calling out regarding my sister.

During my childhood it had been tiring dragging Dad’s handcrafted sled up Gold Hill common in the rural area in our snowy childhood, and now in my eighties it was tiring hauling an admittedly lighter toboggan uphill in oxygen-depleted air (the mountain restaurant, a customary high-altitude retreat, is at 1,410 meters) for nearly 3 miles. I fell behind, complaining quietly about my age being a hindrance. {The glühwein and Gulaschsuppe|The mulled wine and goulash soup|The warm