Friday was our last day skiing and as we had no lessons it was a free day. The plan was to spend it with the Richardsons & Brinds & see what happened. Tim was confident enough to take his camera up the mountain for the first time so there are a lot of pictures!
It was a beautiful sunny day with lots of fresh snow to enjoy and while heading up the chair lift the others decided to do a Red run before heading over to the Seven Dwarfs. So we, with camera, headed across to 7 Dwarfs ourselves. When I say "we" I really mean Fiona zoomed off while Tim stopped to take some pictures....a familiar feature of the day.
When it was getting towards lunch time the question was where did we want to stop and eat?...Beth suggested we find a sunny spot in the trees (off piste, of course) where the snow is fresh and sparkly and eat there...for some reason we all agreed and set off in search of somewhere. We found our random spot and got off our skis. Beth jumped off hers and ended up thigh deep in the snow! We all perched on our skis to eat so that we wouldn't sink too much. Sharing things involved throwing & was the cause of the loss of chocolate snacks and Chris being covered in snow having dived to catch them.
Next we headed over to Red 11 (on Planai) for more off piste – this was a bit more challenging with some steep banks to traverse and then lots of trees to contend with. It was good fun even if scary at times.
On our way back to Hauser Kaibling, on what is a fairly long chair lift, we must admit to some silliness. The sun was strong & creating really good shadows which came in to focus as the angle of the ground changed below. This created so interesting photo opportunities, we just had to be careful to hang on to everything!
Back on HK we headed across to blue 3 where we all skied down, doing the camel humps and generally having fun. Back to the top again & then the plan was to do red 3 but due to tiredness Fi decided to stick with blue 3 and Paul was kind enough to go with her...We all met up back at the top of HK to finish the day off with one last run – Fi & Beth on blue 4 & Tim, Chris, Sarah and Paul on Red 4, meeting up where the the two runs join.
Tim & I were pretty exhausted at this stage so it was the gondola home for us while the others skied back to Pension Ennstal. It was a gondola journey with very satisfied smiles on our faces. :)
Next morning it was time for farewells & another bus journey back to Munich. Then flights to Heathrow & more goodbyes. What a wonderful week! We look forward to the opportunity to do it all again some time.
He took us over to Blue 3 to practice - we were picking up more speed & trying to do parallel turns, gaining confidence all the time. We found some more camel humps too which were good fun! Paul filmed each of us skiing so that we could have a look at how we were getting on, which we watched that evening.
After a hot chocolate with lashings of whipped cream, Beth (T) & the two of us spent the afternoon doing the Blue 4 run, crossing paths with Beth B & the Richardsons every so often.
Wow! What fun that is! Skiing through knee deep powdery snow, making new tracks. Unfortunately we were having far too much fun to take a decent photo....
The plan was to do it again & then to eat our lunch on the way back up. Tim & Beth T decided to give the Black 1a a go this time but Fiona couldn't be talked into it & stuck to the Red run with Beth B. Fiona & Beth heard Tim before they saw him as they got to the bottom, going Weeeeeeee!
The day wouldn't have been complete with out another couple of goes on Blue 4, some hot chocolate & then a final run down the black (for the brave). All in all, a very good day!
This is the view from the Nursery slope - pretty & impressive!
On Monday, we were back on Reiteralm again. We started the morning with a bit of a refresh on the nursery slope before heading off on some of the easier blue runs to practise turns and traversing. This also involved more button lifts & skiing without poles - pretending we were bouncing basketballs to make sure we were leaning the right direction to turn. After our lesson Paul suggested we return to the Blue run we had been on the day before, next to the gondala station, to try out our new skills. There definately was an improvement in all of us! Much less falling over & Tim & Beth were even trying the red part of the slope by the end of the day.
That evening after dinner & the meeting we had the pleasure to be in the perfect location to watch the local ski show from our bedroom balcony. The Brinds & Richardsons came to join us with Glühwein & hot chocolate in flasks to watch. There were synchronised skiers, young skiers & boarders doing jumps, demonstrations of traditional skiing equipment & techniques, skidoos & motorbikes driving up the Black slope (the skidoo pulling someone!). We also saw two paragliders landing at the bottom of the slope & 5 dancing piste bashers.
On Tuesday we (the Beginners with Paul) caught the local bus to Planai, while everyone else skied across. It was a greyer morning because it had been snowing a little overnight but this also meant we had lovely fresh snow to ski on. We seemed to be one of the first there & was so peaceful. Here we experienced camel humps (& tried to get to the end with out picking up too much speed) & T-bar lifts. At the end of the lesson Paul offered to bring us back across the mountains to Haus at the end of the day if we wanted to...
The time came to start skiing home so Paul, Tim, Fiona & Beth(T) headed off. The views were amazing & some of the slopes very intimidating but Paul expertly & calmly talked us through it all & helped us. The journey involved Fiona's first red run which of course meant there was some falling over to be done but all in all it felt like a real achievement. 
We rode a long chair lift up from where the Planai & Hauser Kaibling meet up to the top of HK where we stopped to refuel - Hot Chocs & apple strudels very needed!
The journey was pleasant enough with pass the pigs being played to pass the time & starting to get to know some of our fellow Oakhall travellers. We flew to Munich where we were met by a coach which took us to our Hotel in Haus, just down the road from Schladming. After a good meal we were kitted out with our hire boots, skis & poles and of course our ski passes so that we were ready to hit the slopes the following morning.
An early start the next morning & after breakfast we all headed off to the furthest mountain of the 4 on our ski passes, Reiteralm. The plan was lessons with Paul until 11:30 & then practise what we had learned for the rest of the day... The lesson went well - there were four of us in our beginners group, the two of us, Lucy & Beth (Thompson), we got on well for the 1st morning with the basics & followed the lesson with some yummy hot chocolate...mmmm
Beth (Brind) & the Richardsons found us at this stage & we hit the nursery slope for a bit more practice before being convinced to try a blue run....Some may question the wisdom of this but we couldn't possibly comment - all we know is that Fi fell over...alot! Thanks Beth for catching this one! At least it was a chance to get our heads around using the button lifts. Tim also fell a few times (including on the button lift!), but was loving the new challenge!
At the end of the day we headed back to Pension Ennstal (our Hotel) by bus where hot showers & a four course meal were waiting for us. After dinner we had the evening meeting where JJ started his talks on James. We relaxed for a little while & then headed to bed - it had been a busy day!
