Where Is The Best Alpine Skiing?

By Author: Paul Zayer
Total Articles: 63
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It seems easy to do when you watch downhill skiers on TV. It looks so natural, unless they take a tumble of course. Cross Country was the first skiing sport until the invention of tow lifts which brought Alpine Skiing. The Austrians, Swiss and Italians have dominated the sport. A lot of young kids in the Alps can ski as soon as they can walk and ski to school everyday.

Olympic ambitions are left to the daredevils as most people ski as a leisure pursuit. Snowboarding, particularly popular with the young, has joined Alpine Skiing. It seems a crazy thing to do racing down slopes on planks of wood. Having done it myself, I know how thrilling it could be. When I was in Scotland I skied in the fog and over sheer ice. I hit a sheet of ice one day and couldn't prevent myself from crashing into a picket fence. There was this cabin at the top of the mountain where they sold coffee, hot chocolate and snacks. The local herd of reindeer would come up to the cabin and feed from your hand. Yes Alpine Skiing is something else!

My other experience of skiing was in Austria. The snow conditions and the weather were almost perfect ...
... there. There is nothing to beat Alpine Skiing when the sun is shining and the snow glitters in the sunlight. I love Apres Ski too and I remember drinking a lot of great wine. I stayed in a picture postcard little village in a typical Alpine lodge. In the small village, there was this amazing church which was adorned with frescoes and gold. One day I had to put my Alpine Skiing on hold because the night before, me and my friends had rather too much schnapps at the local bar.

I promised myself to go skiing again and try to improve. A very big dry slope has opened near my house, and that could be a good way to get back into it again. I might even take snowboarding lessons; You don't have to be young to have all the fun. When I was in Austria, we had a trip to Innsbruck and we walked around the old Winter Olympics site there. I went to the top and stood where was the ski jump slope, and the incline is incredible. It's impossible to have an idea of what ski jumping is like from television. Sometimes, Alpine Skiing and its various events, must feel like flying. The only time that I ever flew was by pure accident!