For the first time in nearly a decade, I went skiing. New types of skis, new kind of snow, new terrain and lots of unhelpful muscle-memory. Oh yeah, and no confidence. I have a season pass for Mt. Ruapehu and I hope to be getting more use out of it before my upcoming vacation, but this trip was one for the bruise books.

The weather was stunning at the start – very light winds and quite sunny – but the hills were packed. School holidays had lightly dented the anticipation of getting back on skis. We fought the queues and got up the hill a few times before lunch. Heading back out was a lot colder, as a storm was set to roll in. This is where things started to go wrong. There was a fair bit of ice around and I let myself get into situations outside of my comfort zone. That’s where the muscle memory kicks in and does those sorts of things that you really don’t want it to do. Dragging heels leads to popped bindings and having to recover skis from further down the hill. Add in a few icy falls and the scrapes and bruises moved into both larger numbers and larger shapes. It wasn’t until the last run of the day that I got back into a solid rhythm and started having fun again.

Unfortunately, the weather descended overnight and everything closed up for Sunday, citing blizzard conditions. Fair enough, I probably needed the recovery time. As it stands, I’m not rushing out to buy a bunch of gear to get me through this season. We’ll see what happens over the next 2 months, which may put me in line to gear up with the end-of-season sales. If I’m still standing by then.