When Not To Take A Ski Route

No one will tell you this. We learnt the hard way in Bad Gastein. 

A ski route is an unpisted and unmanaged ski run for advanced skiers. We saw one and it looked good from the gondola up. That's when I thought I was ready for a challenge.

Oddly no one was taking this run and Grant was dubious. I told him we should try it once anyway and halfway down we released why he had his doubts. 

First there was a hard top layer of ice as the snow was melting and there were bushes sticking out. Then the coverage got so thin, it was nothing but BARE GRASS on the slope.  The sun melted all the snow and there was no way around the grass. As you can see there's a tiny ski route sign at the top which meant we hadn't gone astray. There was no way to "ski"down this ski route!

It took us half an hour of manoeuvring to get down this bit. We had to take off our skis and somehow not freefall in our ski boots. 

I had a bad memory of fracturing my arm because I slipped after taking off my skis in New Zealand.  

We threw down our poles and anchored ourselves to the ground by clutching onto our skis and digging them into the grass bit by bit. We made our way down until it was safe to butt slide down to the snow at the bottom. 

Take the ski route, she said. It will be fun, she said. 

So we learnt our lesson. If no one is taking the ski route, that's a good enough reason not to do it yourself. Unless you can ski on anything, and I mean ANYTHING.

It took half an hour to pull out all the twigs out of my boot buckles.