Skiing In Heaven, Zurs, Where Everything Is White And One Dimension (Lech, Zurs)

9/3/05 Wednesday

Skiing in Heaven! As close as you can get anyway. It was snowing even more than yesterday and didn't stop the whole day. I started off on the main Lech slopes and gradually started getting into the harder runs. Doing the first red run gave me some confidence... and they are in some ways easier than the blue runs because you tend to move faster and self preservation can take over from the logic of the mind.

I then decided to head over the other side of the village and check out those runs. The visibility was quite poor, especially near the top of the mountain. There is a blue run to the next town called Zurs and I thought given the direction of the snow that it might be clearer on that run. I went up in the cable car. Part way up, we stopped being able to see anything through the windows. Once out of the cable car, I was definitely laughing. It was difficult to see a few metres in front of you. Everything was white, except people and the signs you are meant to follow. Seriously, if you were going to make a movie with a Heaven shot, this would have been perfect. Even the ground seemed to have a smokey kind of haze.

I gingerly headed off. I had just that morning been talking a couple of old fellows over breakfast and they were telling me about how you can lose perspective, such as whether you are moving. I did actually find this happened to some extent. It was a pretty cool feeling though, just skiing into oblivion, just following some signs. After a while, I had lost all the people and it was just me in Heaven.

The strange thing was, I was probably skiinig better, not being able to see the upcoming terrain. I also loved the ski runs on this side of the mountain. They were nice long parts without too many bumps that you could take leisurely, or with some speed. It was nice not to have to keep carving your way down the mountain. Run 18 was awesome and nobody else seemed to ski it. I did that run at least 4 times in a row.

I also found some wine I didn't mind. Hot apple wine... very nice to have half way up a mountain.

Definitely a very cool afternoon.