The First Timer

Red Face Paul is a friend of mine who I have not mentioned before. I do not know why, as he is the centre of many funny stories, mostly unintentionally, and usually involving the fact he has a red face.

On his first ever skiing trip he decided to skip the ski-school option that most newbies go for, and after watching numerous episodes of Ski Sunday as a child, he thought to himself, “How difficult could it be?”.

As a result he and his friend Sharpey decided to hire skis and boots, and then made their way to the main chair lifts. Noticing one was significantly busier than the other, they both made their way slowly, very slowly indeed, to the quieter lift.

Having never been on a ski lift before, they sat back and started to enjoy the ride. For approximately fifteen seconds. Because that was when they began to realise how dangerous these lifts were, as they could simply slip off the chair at any moment. They were completely oblivious to the lift attendant shouting after them, “Pull the safety bar down!!!”

When the chair had travelled several hundred feet into the air, they both decided the safest approach would be to hug the side of the chair and close their eyes tightly, much like a drunk using a lampost to stop himself falling into the gutter (except the gutter is a couple of thousand feet of French Alp) whilst whimpering like a frightened child. So that is what they did.

The second surprise appeared about two minutes later, when they realised why the lift they were on was so quiet. The apparent top of the lift was in fact a false horizon, and the lift they were now on would take them a further thousand feet to the top of the mountain. With the only route back down being via Red and Black runs. For those that haven’t been on skiing holidays, ski runs are graded on difficulty using a colour coding system, going from Green (the easiest), through Blue (for intermediates), to Red (for experienced skiers), to Blacks for expert skiers only. Generally speaking, a harder run equals a steeper run.

Red Face Paul and Sharpey had gone to the top of the mountain, and directly onto an experienced skiers route, during their first ever morning of skiing, without ever having set foot on a nursery slope. After getting off the lifts at the top, they then had the option of choosing a Red or a Black. Deciding that “Red equals danger” they decided to go for the black.

This was an excellent decision. For people like me anyway.

Having never actually skied before, and now faced with one of the most difficult runs on the mountain, they did what any normal person would do. They pointed their skis downwards and went for it. Sharpey made it 30 yards before veering off left into the trees where he hit a snow drift and crashed. Red Face Paul made it slightly less distance than that before falling over and sliding several hundred yards on his arse.

Sharpey took off his skis and decided to walk down the mountain, Red Face Paul slid down most of the way on his arse at the side of the piste. After two and half hours they returned to the point their adventure had begun and decided, wisely, to sack it off and go to the pub.

Their day got a lot better after that.