Life as a Military Wife and Special Needs Mama : First time for Everything

Dan and I met up with some friends in Aviano yesterday morning and went up to Piancavallo to go skiing. The weather was pretty cloudy, but once we were going up the mountain we rose above the clouds and it was gorgeous up there.

Out of the 6 people who went, only 1 person knew how to ski. His name was Peter. AJ is a snowboarder and was on his snowboard yesterday, Larry is also a snowboarder, but he was on ski’s for the first time yesterday, his fiance, Jin, was on ski’s for the second time and Dan and I were also on ski’s for the first time. Made for a pretty interesting day.

The one bunny hill was closed, it was completely iced over, there was a smaller area open though, but the place was packed with people. We were then asked if we just wanted to go up on the lift and go down the green ski area. Sure, why not! No better way to learn! The lift part was actually pretty easy for me, I didn’t fall, so that’s good. Now that we are at the top of the mountain looking down it looks a lot bigger then it did from below. The top was iced over pretty good, so when you fell you slid about 10+ feet down the hill. There was a lot of falling.

Here’s Dan about 1/4th the way down

Someone mentioned at the shop the night before we went, that whichever direction you want to turn, you need to put weight on that side. So, if you want to turn right, put weight on the right. I had this in my mind the whole way going down and it just wasn’t working. It was to steep to experiment anything else. AJ, who is a snowboarder, was trying to help me and watch other people come down the mountain to see what they were doing to try and give me tips, that was nice of him. The bottom part of the hill I did well coming down because it wasn’t as steep and it wasn’t ice, so that helped.

This is a picture of the lower part of the mountain were it was more like snow or mush instead of iced over.

After my first trip down the hill, I practiced at the bottom of the hill and just tried getting used to being on ski’s. I started experimenting with shifting my weight to see where it would take me. This is where I learned it was the opposite of that I have been told. If you shift all your weight to the left, you are going to go right. Not what I had been told the night before. So, then I really tried to start weaving back and forth to make myself go slower down the mountain, which helped. Dan kept going back down the mountain and caught on very fast. I think his 3rd or 4th time down he didn’t fall at all. He did so well. Here is a short video of him coming down. The first guy you see coming down on his snowboard is AJ.

Peter, Dan, Larry and AJ

The guys went off to go on a blue and black or diamond course. They were gone for a while doing that, Jin and I stayed behind working on mastering our turning skills.

It was a great day to learn how to ski, even though there was a lot of mushy snow and ice. The weather was nice, we all were actually getting hot after we started skiing. I think I have the basics down for next time, but who knows when we will go again. Not sure if it’s going to snow again this year up there or not.