Old school skiing

Skiing 1920's Swiss stylee

Believe it or not in ye olde days, even right up to the 1930s, the way people skied was to walk up the mountain, have a picnic and ski down, with a maximum of two or three runs a day.

Talk about tough, not only would people of all sexes do this but they did it in tweeds and nothing more than a thick jumper, there are photos of the ladies dressed in long, billowing coats, carrying their own wooden skis up the hill. This was also in Europe, so no teams of porters to carry your kit. That’s almost a different species, can you imagine doing that?

Is it television that’s made us soft, certainly I know which I’d rather be doing and it shames me somewhat, the luxury of skiing is that you just have to plonk your arse on a lift and that’s it, when it’s posed like that a Eur30+ daily ticket doesn’t seem such an outlay.

I think this type of skiing is known as randonne, but that might be the super-tough one serious off-pisters do and the reason I mention it is that there are a few intrepid locals whom I’ve spoken to who are going up to ski the slopes of Monetier and further afield in Serre Chevalier right now, but this lot walk up.

I am waivering, I thought about it when a neighbour told me he was going up for a snowboard after the last dump, he looks a bit chunky - as I do – and for a minute or two I thought I might like to go, but then realised he might look like me but he’s a local bred in the valley for generations with genetic advantages, but I’d like to try it.

Also I reasoned snowboarding is better in these conditions, but it’s still possible to do up there at this late hour – if you’re up for it.