We received a phone call to tell us the fantastic news that the last 10km of the piste were officially closed. So we said, thank you for this wonderful news, but closed or not closed, we are coming home (on ski's). We checked the weather forecast which said 'a little snow', but that turned out to be an understatement; it started snowing around 10 and it never stopped! In fact, it is still snowing while I am writing this (2 days later).
Our friends (the sporty ones) decided to ski us home. Also, Stephanie Santer, a national ski champion, whose family supported us by offering us a hotel room in their famous Hotel Santer, decided to take a day off from work and ski with us as well. We were 7 in total.
From left to right: Yolanda Clant, Arve Dinessen, Stephanie Santer, and me
We were supposed to meet at 10 am and because I know this crazy bunch of people, I stressed to be punctual, a suggestion that of course had no effect what so ever: -). So once we all departed (30 minutes late), one of the group had put wax on his ski's that didn't work out too well. So instead of skiing, he kept collecting a mountain of snow underneath the ski's, making it very difficult to move forward. The both hilarious and great part of this unforgettable day is that two of our friends, Giorgio (Trainer world champion trail running) and Marzia (ex-professional XC skier), had not put their XC ski's on for many years, but decided to find their ski's from the attic just to be with us on our final day. To then ski (untrained) in fresh snow on a piste that is closed and thus, not prepared, is pretty hard work!
And whereas Giorgio and Marzia had to remove the dust from their ski's, my friend Yolanda, the only other Dutch in the village, and European champion 400m (running), was going around the stadium before departure, and I wondered, what is she doing? Turned out she had never skied on XC ski's before: -) but decided to ski with us as anyway... So she took 5 minutes to learn how to do it. This is my crazy bunch of friends from the Italian village we live. Only when we were halfway through, ploughing through the messy snow on an empty track, Yolanda told me she also couldn't use her left arm as it was injured.. and the poles were too high.. So we all ended up swopping each other ski's and poles, to make it easier for one and other. So we have the wrong ski's, the wrong poles, the wrong wax, an increasing amount of fresh snow and a piste that is closed. So far so good... then we arrived at a sign that said 'closed for risk of avalanche'... which of course we ignored... we finally entered a tunnel (where the train used to pass through). We had been informed that the tunnels were icy, so we were equipped with crampons to wear underneath our shoes. But we didn't know that the ice was not only on the ground but also hanging from the ceiling.
There was no way of avoiding it, so we just tried to move as quickly as we could through the tunnels, hoping the ice would not fall on our head.
The hardest part was that the snow was getting thicker and thicker and these are not the ski's to ski within the deep snow. So it was tough and we kept swopping ski's with each other, to give each other a break, as some ski's moved better than others. The ski day was like a soap opera and eventually, we made it to the end. I am very proud to call this crazy bunch my friends!
A big thank you to Yolanda, Arve, Tanja, Stephanie, Marzia, Giorgio, Massimo and all the people that had to wait more than an hour in the snow at our arrival!
From left to right: Yolanda Clant, Tanja Dinessen, Eleonora Orlandi, me, Marzia Brugiolo, Arve Dinessen and Stephanie Santer.
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