Snow Bunny

The last thing my mom said when I told her I was going skiing was, "Don't fall off the mountain." If you have only been skiing in the Eastern US, as I have, you know that is impossible...or so I thought. 

The major difference between North Carolina/West Virginia and Swiss skiing is what I've often thought of as a myth - powder, or actual snow. If you aren't exactly on the trail, you begin to sink into the snow, and the poles no longer do any good if they are buried 3 feet down. I didn't realize that we would be skiing above the tree line, and two of those tracks going off the mountain are from my skis. I eventually just fell over and swam through the snow back to the trail, before gravity took me down to the parking lot.

On US slopes I'm a Blue skier; I like to mainly ski the blue/medium slopes with some green/easy long runs thrown in for scenery. Here the medium runs are like Black Diamonds, and only pride kept me from taking my skis off and walking down. Eventually, I found the long, picturesque trails that I like.