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French Ski Trip (April 2010)

At the end of the Spring Term and the beginning of the Easter Holidays a group of students moved into Stirling House for the night. These lucky students were going on the College ski trip headed for an awesome fun filled 6 days on the snow slopes of France. This night at Welbeck was quiet and relaxing, giving many of us a chance to spend time mixing with a different group of students over films and pizza. With a very early morning start we loaded up our suitcases into the back of a spacious coach and slept as we were driven to Birmingham Airport. We met up with a few students who had returned home for the weekend, and with the last few disorganised people hastily exchanging pounds for euros, in no time at all we were in our seats on the plane bound for Grenoble.

The end of the plane journey however was not the end of our travelling, as there was still another four hour coach journey to get us into the Alps. We had still to enjoy our first French food which came in the shape of cheese and ham baguettes from a petrol station, but before long we arrived at the extremely cosy hotel where we would be staying. We deposited our bags in our 8 man rooms and went off to get our skis/snowboards and boots fitted (although some of the team had brought their own skis and snowboards). The food was simple yet tasty including dinners of cheesy potatoes and leg of lamb and lunches including chips and sausages. These large and filling meals were always welcome after all the extreme sports we were doing.

A typical day would start at 07:30 when we would get ready for the day, before breakfasting at 08:00 and off to the ski lifts which started operating at 09:00, although this didn’t stop some of the keener skiers who would start climbing the slopes early to enjoy even more skiing. We would free ski for half an hour before our guides took us off in groups to different slopes of varying difficulty. There was a snowboard group with a beginner, intermediate and advanced groups for skiers. Numbers were relatively even and within each group a special bond was made between the guides and the Welbexians which resulted in the instructors coming to meet us in the hotel bar on the last night. Every day we all improved, with most people moving up into the higher groups. We were given large amounts of responsibility with the freedom to ski in small groups of 4 before the lessons, sometimes during the two hours of lunch and also after the lessons finished up until 5pm. Skiing and snowboarding are very exhausting, always exciting and thrilling but are not without danger and there were some close calls with collisions and jumps going wrong. There was also a chance to shine such as when Josie Lockwood calmed down a frightened 6 year old after she had had an incident at the end of a ski lift. I was part of the advanced ski group and experienced really difficult and taxing off slope excursions. This was really rewarding, not just because we had safely reached the bottom of the slope but sometimes we could witness an accompanying staff member fall over and get covered in snow!

There were lots of activities to do in the evenings including an inter-College quiz and other competitions where Dave Brown managed to win large amounts of T-shirts and hats.

There were many chances for everyone to learn new skills and tricks with frequent visits to the boarder park and the snow cross (a race track with turns and jumps). Here many people learnt to jump and grab and several managed to perform a back flip off a kicker (large ramp) onto a large air bag. By the end of the week most skiers could perform tricks such as skiing backwards and under other skier’s legs while the snowboarders had many chances to improve their skills with tricks whilst trying to show off to the skiers. The final and most memorable part of the trip was where almost the entire group of Welbexians took part in a trip race on the boarder cross. This was extremely enjoyable, not just for the leaders at the front of the College group but also for those at the back that were taking the course more casually and laughing at the numbers of students falling over on the way down the course, littering the side of the track at various points, replacing lost skis, wiping snow off their clothes or rolling back onto their snow boards.

An awesome week!

Hamish Cooper, Stirling 09E

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