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When did this actually happen? Saturday, January 30, 2016
After the painful first time Alpine skiing, I tried my hand at cross-country skiing (or langlaufen) together with Dutch friend N. and new found Belgian friends N. and J.. There were two main good things about this crazy idea of going cross-country skiing together:
1. None of us had ever done cross-country skiing before.
2. We could all speak Dutch together.
That first thing led to a lot of hilarity that day, simply because we had no idea what to do.
In fact, as we were lost in the beginning and couldn’t found the skiing area, we came across this beautiful monastery, which I would like to visit properly one day.
Then, after renting the skis, boots and poles, and getting advised on taking the easy (but long) 10 km track, we spent a good 15 minutes in the snow figuring out how to attach the boots to the skis. This is not trivial. Right.
Anyway, we were ready at one point and actually started the cross-country skiing. This, I can vouch for, is 1000 times better than Alpine skiing for beginners. First of all, it is easy to do. Maybe we were not doing it correctly concerning the technique, but we at least moved forward.. or backwards sometimes as going uphill is a bit tricky… In any case, you don’t fall as much. Second of all, you still have a very nice gliding sensation and a beautiful view on the mountains and third of all, it is a lot cheaper than Alpine skiing as you don’t need to pay for expensive ski lift passes and the equipment is cheaper to rent as well.
This all made me love cross-country skiing quite a lot.
Me being happy in the snow and feeling a lot safer on these skis than on Alpine skis.
N. cross-country skiing
Other N. happy during the cross-country skiing.
And just look at the views! Even without being really high up, Switzerland can be really pretty. We went to Einsiedeln, because that was the closest place for cross-country skiing.
All four of us very happy and content after our first 10 km cross-country ski track.
And then of course the embarrassing stuff started happening. Because I was so happy that I had actually survived 10 km of cross-country skiing, I wanted to get a very victorious picture of me with the 10 km land mark. However, this required me getting out of the tracks to pose next to the mark. These tracks are very narrow, so it is quite hard to suddenly slip in them. However, when you just stand on normal snow, you can slip quite easily, which happened to me (naturally). N. was so nice as to make pictures of this event :p
Oh crap, face down in the snow the minute I step out of the track.
Even I have to admit that this is hilarious and very typical for me.
So, here we have the victorious picture! Woohoo!
Okay, calm down. You survived and it was loads of fun!
After the painful first time Alpine skiing, I tried my hand at cross-country skiing (or langlaufen) together with Dutch friend N. and new found Belgian friends N. and J.. There were two main good things about this crazy idea of going cross-country skiing together:
1. None of us had ever done cross-country skiing before.
2. We could all speak Dutch together.
That first thing led to a lot of hilarity that day, simply because we had no idea what to do.
In fact, as we were lost in the beginning and couldn’t found the skiing area, we came across this beautiful monastery, which I would like to visit properly one day.
Then, after renting the skis, boots and poles, and getting advised on taking the easy (but long) 10 km track, we spent a good 15 minutes in the snow figuring out how to attach the boots to the skis. This is not trivial. Right.
Anyway, we were ready at one point and actually started the cross-country skiing. This, I can vouch for, is 1000 times better than Alpine skiing for beginners. First of all, it is easy to do. Maybe we were not doing it correctly concerning the technique, but we at least moved forward.. or backwards sometimes as going uphill is a bit tricky… In any case, you don’t fall as much. Second of all, you still have a very nice gliding sensation and a beautiful view on the mountains and third of all, it is a lot cheaper than Alpine skiing as you don’t need to pay for expensive ski lift passes and the equipment is cheaper to rent as well.
This all made me love cross-country skiing quite a lot.
Me being happy in the snow and feeling a lot safer on these skis than on Alpine skis.
N. cross-country skiing
Other N. happy during the cross-country skiing.
And just look at the views! Even without being really high up, Switzerland can be really pretty. We went to Einsiedeln, because that was the closest place for cross-country skiing.
All four of us very happy and content after our first 10 km cross-country ski track.
And then of course the embarrassing stuff started happening. Because I was so happy that I had actually survived 10 km of cross-country skiing, I wanted to get a very victorious picture of me with the 10 km land mark. However, this required me getting out of the tracks to pose next to the mark. These tracks are very narrow, so it is quite hard to suddenly slip in them. However, when you just stand on normal snow, you can slip quite easily, which happened to me (naturally). N. was so nice as to make pictures of this event :p
Oh crap, face down in the snow the minute I step out of the track.
Even I have to admit that this is hilarious and very typical for me.
So, here we have the victorious picture! Woohoo!
Okay, calm down. You survived and it was loads of fun!
