Carefree oldies on the piste
Young skiers may be in decline – but the older Mark Palmer gets, the more he loves Kitzbühel’s downhill runs and its après-ski
Some of us aren’t too good at ‘living in the moment’. Nice thought, but the phrase has been hijacked by the ‘wellness movement’ and the You Can Heal Your Life brigade.
But give me a snowy mountain and a pair of skis and I am, at the very least, roughly in the zone – and so completely happy that many of life’s wounds suddenly become mere scratches and don’t need much healing after all.
I love skiing even more as an older person than I did when first introduced to it aged seven by my father, over half a century ago – although recently I’ve taken against those dudes on their snowboards who carve up the piste and make a hideous screeching sound as they grind against the ice.
So what welcome news it is that some young people are turning their backs on winter sports – because they think it’s outdated and something fit only for their parents’ generation.
A survey by the Association of Mayors of Mountain Resorts (yes, there’s a grouping for everyone) found that the under-25s represent a mere 14 per cent of skiers in France, down from 20 per cent in 1995. And the tour operator Ski Weekends reveals that two-thirds of those who ski regularly are now aged between 43 and 65.
Costs are playing their part, of course. It’s an expensive pastime, which explains why school ski trips of the kind I
experienced in Zermatt circa 1970, when we linked up with girls’ boarding school Tudor Hall and had the time of our amorous lives, are few and far between.
Apparently, ski resorts are being urged to do more to attract the young, such as offering faster internet access, more snow parks and dedicated ‘selfie stations’.
But just as those newspapers that slavishly chase after younger readers end up losing rather than gaining circulation, I doubt this will work because, unlike many sports, skiing is something to enjoy almost right up until you’re invited to take part in the giant slalom in the sky.
I take my lead from Peter Lunn, who captained the British ski team at the 1936 Winter Olympics. After a serious car accident, he was told he’d never ski again. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he said. And he continued to ski every year in the Inferno race in Mürren until he broke his hip in another car accident at the age of 90.
He missed that year’s race, but was back in 2004. ‘When you’re skiing, you have to adapt your style and your movements to the landscape,’ he said. ‘It’s a very intimate communion with nature … and doesn’t change with age. When I ski, I am part of the mountain. Or is the mountain part of me? I’m not sure.’
Skiing has been a loyal friend to me. Mind you, it was all a little austere at the start: in the 1960s, my parents insisted that we wore our leather ski boots for most of the journey out to Zurs in Austria – to get used to them.
We took the train from Reading to Paddington, the sleeper from Victoria to Zurich and then another smaller train up the mountain. It was an almost-24hour journey.
But now I look fondly on those days as I perch on a comfortable chairlift with heated seats. Just as I think about the many years of skiing with my own children, especially after I split up with their mother.
It was the one holiday that worked. We may have been a ‘broken family’ but we were a united trio, sashaying down the mountain at great speed, my nineyear-old son behind me, his younger sister behind him, sharing the exact same tracks, riding each identical bump, negotiating every same inch of ice.
Today, I go out to the Alps with my friend Richard for three nights. We get only two and a half full days of skiing – and they have become increasingly precious.
Richard is a better skier than I am but he has a hopeless sense of direction, whereas I know exactly where I am at any given moment. We ski hard, we drink a lot – and we talk. Perhaps it’s all that fresh air and heightened elevation, but on our jaunts no topic is off-piste.
When you have only a couple of days, there’s no need for a huge, purpose-built area such as the Three Valleys or Tignes. And we prefer places where there’s a church, a town hall and mountain people whose ancestors have lived there for ever.
Last year, we went to Courmayeur in Italy, which is the very opposite of
‘We ski hard, we drink a lot – and we talk. All that fresh air … no topic is off-piste’
offering ski-in, ski-out accommodation, and we loved every moment.
The plan was to ski the Vallée Blanche, which we did together 25 years ago. It’s a 20-mile off-piste descent that should be done only with a guide, starting either in Chamonix or in Courmayeur. Although the weather was against us, we contented ourselves in deep snow and thick fog, using a ski lift to point us roughly in the right direction.
Our friend Arnie Wilson, the FT’S former ski writer, who is still mogulbashing with verve at the age of 75, had suggested that while in Courmayeur we should seek out the local playboy Giacomo, who runs a restaurant high on the mountain called Maison Vieille, where dancing on the bar is encouraged, especially if you’re half our age – and female.
Giacomo insisted that we take part in a friendship ritual, which involved passing round a grole (a type of clay pot), filled with grappa, coffee and heaven knows what. There were four spouts from which to drink and it was regarded as impolite and bad luck for the pot to be put down before all the liquid had been finished.
The year before, we went to Kitzbühel in Austria, where the British are treated with huge respect purely because a plucky public school boy called Gordon ‘Mouse’ Cleaver won the inaugural Hahnenkamm race in 1931 without even being a member of the British ski team. It’s the toughest and most dangerous downhill race in the world and still takes place every year, with competitors reaching speeds of almost 90 mph.
On that occasion, Richard was in his Ernest Shackleton phase, insisting on wearing a Harris Tweed jacket, roll-neck jumper and woollen mitts. He won admiring looks – mainly from women skiers of a certain age.
Kitzbühel is the most civilised of resorts, with a magnificent, 16th-century, car-free old town, reached via arches cut into the city’s ancient walls. There are no self-service restaurants selling leathery burgers and soggy chips. Instead, family-run former farming lodges offer a sit-down service and seem genuinely pleased to see you. We were astonished by the prices, too – a mere £8 for a Tiroler gröstl (roast spuds, beef, bacon, cabbage and a fried egg on top).
One evening, we went and inspected the church which dates back to 1366 and then called in at a heaving bar called The Londoner, colonised by mainly British seasonal workers attached to various ski companies. We were twice their age but didn’t feel like it.
Some people love the yachty crowd; others warm to golfers, fisher-folk or game-bird shooters. Richard and I concluded that we love the ski crowd best of all. Whatever the conditions, they get on with it – and then reward themselves in wild fashion.
What’s more, they don’t seem to mind sharing the mountains with us oldtimers. Perhaps they’re the ones who are successfully ‘living in the moment’.