Posts Tagged ‘skiing’

Pompeyo's nose

Liz was off running with her new running chums so I took advantage of Pompeyo’s offer to go skiing.

I’d already been to San Isidro and Fuentes de Invierno so we decided on Pajares (Valgrande-Pajares, to give it its full name). Pajares is the original Asturian ski resort (seems funny to call it a resort, in Spanish they’re called estaciones de ski, ski stations: resort seems a little grand). It’s bigger than Fuentes de Invierno, even has a brace of hotels/hostels. As we drove up there Pompeyo told me that the first time he went there was in 1986, when there was only one charlift (wooden slatted chairs) and a ton of button lifts.

It’s popular, on a good weekend it’ll be packed full of folk. Being Spanish, of course, they mainly arrive a little late so as we got there at 8:45am we had the pick of parking spaces. The lifts opened at 9 and there was a gaggle of kids in matching ski-club outfits ready to go up that we had to negotiate. Unfortunately the ski-club yoot had a competition going on so one of the pistes (the best one according to Pompeyo) was shut.

As we started, the weather wasn’t too bad, a bit windy up top because it’s much more exposed than the other ski resorts I’ve been to here. We enjoyed powdery hard pistes (refreshing after a couple of trips with spring wet snow).

Is this a red or a blue?

After a couple of hours the clouds came down and we skied on in very poor visibilty. At times the tiny snowflakes were driven hard into our faces by the wind, and the combination of that, and the ice forming on our goggles meant that on a couple of occasions we really had to work hard to figure out where the hell the piste went.

Another entertaining difficulty was that the ice on the piste markers made them all the same colour (I don’t think it was my colour blindness). So I have no idea what colours the pistes were. The majority are either red or blue, but they’re wide and smooth so they’re easy reds (even the last one which we did with zero visibilty).

All in all a good morning. We bailed as the weather closed in, three and a half hours of skiing (€16 for the half day pass) and were home by 1:45. According to the web site there’s a bus we can get up to Pajares so I’ll have to go up there with Liz at some point.

It was a learning experience for everyone. Pompeyo had raised the issue at the AGM (and a few times before, sounding people out). What about those members of the group who had never in their lives put a pair of skis on? Why not use the knowledge of the group to give them a taster of skiing so they could decide whether or not they liked it.

They don't know what they've let themselves in for

It seemed like a reasonable idea, a few people agreed. So that’s what we did.

The ‘knowledgeable’ folk were: Pompeyo, Carmen, Me and Liz.

So we were teaching (coaching, pulling up from the floor, encouraging, trying not to wince) some absolute novices. Let’s be clear, we were not trying to teach them to ski, only teach them enough to stop (turn if at all possible) and to use the lift, and of course, let them have a go at putting on boots, getting up after a fall, that kind of thing. It didn’t  hurt that the plan included a discount on gear hire (€10) and the option of a big lunch (€12).

We went to Fuentes de Invierno (I took my camera but the visibility was so bad that it never left my pocket). Spring snow (i.e. wet). We had a quick recap of necessary vocab (ski tips: espatulas, the back of the ski: talon, edges: los cantos, bindings: sujetadores, brake!: frena, snowplough: cuña) in the car and off we went.

Chaos, absolute chaos... like herding cats

We marched up the bottom of a long flat green piste and set to work.

There’s nothing like watching absolute novices to show you how much you have learned (and to demonstrate some appropriate cursing, meca is the Asturian equivalent of “bugger”, because it is basically the short form of me cago en el mar (poo in the sea!) although you can soften it even more by using “me caches el el mar“). As expected there was much falling, flailing, yelping and laughing. What seemed to us painfully slow was for them frighteningly speedy, but they all seemed to enjoy it. I’ll be interested to hear from Noel what he thinks about teaching real beginners. Fuentes de Invierno has a ski school, but there seemed to be a huge number autodidacts today (that would be, all over the place).

After a few goes down this little slope, Sabi, one of my charges told me to say los giros not las giras (ie masculine not femenine) for the turns, as the femenine means a tour. This was a long way from being my only mistake in Spainsh today (I paid special attention to the ski instructors I passed later in the day for good phrases: no te tiras! (don’t lean back) was one of the most used).

After lunch Liz and I went up to tootle around (in the zero visibility) and the others (those still standing/willing) paid for a single go on a lift. There were only a couple of injuries, despite the ma

ny falls, nothing too serious (fingers crossed). I think it was a success, half of them will be back, I’m sure.

Día soleado en San Isidro
Originally uploaded by Marcos Dopico.

“Fancy going skiing some time?” Asked Pompeyo on last week’s walk.

“Why not” We answered, fresh from the week in the Alps.

The phone rang on Thursday:

“The forecast is okay for Saturday, how about it?”

So we went. And it didn’t rain, and it only snowed a little bit. The snow was a bit heavy (alright, on the lower slopes it was papa (as they say here, mashed potato consistency) but higher up it was fine).

We set off at 8, sure in the knowledge that the majority of Spaniards would not be rising early to ski. Well some of them did but not too many.

A half day pass for San Isidro (in León) is €16, boot and pole hire for Liz another €11. Pompeyo lent me his carving skis, he skied on his ancient long thin skis. Liz used Carmen’s short skis, which she enjoyed, and we just tootled up and down the reds (which were easier than many blues in Courchevel).

We ate on the way home in Felechosa, pote then trout and now we’re home, digesting and getting ready to head out to the opera. It’s a hard life…

On Sunday we mentioned we were thinking of going skiing and Pompeyo immediately said he’d go too with his wife Carmen, and he’d give us a lift.

Thursday and Friday are public holidays but we had Wednesday off too and so we would probably avoid the crowds.

We went to Fuentes de Invierno (The winter springs) which is Asturias’ biggest ski area (update: it’s not the biggest it’s just the newest).

That’s not saying much, it’s got 15 runs and only 9km of piste. But it’s an hour’s drive away and it’s really pretty. We arrived just as the lifts opened and hired some gear and by 9:45 we were on the lift. We got lucky and it was rather good weather, high cloud to begin with and then clear skies.

The snow’s a bit on the porridgey side, it is coming to the end of the season after all, and the bottom of the resort is quite low. We did pretty much everything except the two black runs. Some of the pistes are a bit narrow, with entertaining drop-offs on one side. I wouldn’t enjoy it if there were too many people. Luckily León’s ski area, San Isidro, is just 1km away and that’s where many more people go, it’s much bigger.

Still, it’s fun. It’s no Park City and it’s about the size of a nursery slope in Espace Killy but we can’t get to those places… and we can get here. And at the end of the day, the smiles on our faces were what mattered.

We stopped when the snow started to get quite sticky and were in time for a leisurely lunch of stuffed potatoes and chicken (whole boiled potates stuffed with cheese in a slightly hot sauce, why didn’t the Irish come up with that one, it’s brilliant!) in Felechosa.

We arrived back in Spain on Sunday afternoon, flying in to Madrid over an extensive snow cover (which closed the airport for five hours on Friday leading to English levels of approbation for the airport). Then the metro to catch the train to Asturias. We had tourist class seats (rather than first class) but the legroom is UK first so there’s a good argument for doing the train thing here rather than in the UK. The train gets up to 200kph as it goes north until it hits the mountains between Leon and Asturias where it has to be a bit slower.

Skiing was a hoot, thanks to everyone who went, and especially to Anne for organising it. I was a wuss and stuck to easy pistes to avoid giving my knee too many problems. It was fine, largely due to the excellent snow, soft but not heavy. Liz did ski school and by the end of the week was bombing down the blues (having been led down a few reds and a black by the instructor).

On the way back from skiing we stopped to eat in a place called Felechosa, high in the Aller valley. Most of the tables in the restaurant were reserved and there was a set menu on offer. If we didn’t like what was on offer, we’d have to go to some other town, the waitress said, because this was one of the Jornadas Gastranómicas de la Matanza. Literally the gastronomic days of the slaughter, traditionally, the time of year when the families killed one of their pigs (or, as was common enough, their only pig) and then made months worth of food from it. The menu was straightforward enough:

First of all an appetiser of Manitos de cerdo (pigs trotters, well the porky gelatinous parts of trotters, rather a nice flavour but definitely an acquired consistency).

Pote Asturiano con compango casero (chorizo, morcilla, costilla y lacon) Which is the traditional beans, potato, kale/greens with a chorizo, black pudding, pork ribs and belly pork (a bit of a pig theme then).

Picadillo Casero Lomo Adobado Casero These two came on the same plate, hiding some chips, picadillo is the filling for chorizo, it was quite spicy, and the lomo is nice thick slices of pork loin. (Remember, it is a pig they slaughter).

Panchón for dessert, which was a new one to all of us, but essentially is breadcrumbs from spelt bread, fried in butter and sugar.

This was not health food.

Accompanying the meal was wine, soda and following it was a chupito of orujo de arándanos, blueberry based alcohol.

I’m still full now.

It was foggy, visibility was, shall we say, limited, flat light, a touch of drizzle. The snow was heavy, sticky porridge and there were too many people but none of that really mattered because I was able to ski. I’ve been a little concerned since I snapped my ligament three years age, haven’t skied since. The surgery was 15 months ago so technically my knee should be fine. Still, there was that nagging doubt.

So when Pompeyo said on Sunday’s walk that we should go skiing on the Monday, taking advantage of the bank holiday, we said great.

San Isidro is a small ski resort in the north of Leon, an hour’s drive from Oviedo. There are 27 runs, mostly blue or red, and a ton of people all with the same idea.

Liz decided not to ski and kept Carmen, Pompeyo’s wife company, as she doesn’t like skiing in these conditions and they’re not conditions to give Liz any confidence ahead of our French adventure.

I rented my boots (€7), paid for the half day lift pass (€16) and borrowed some skis from Pompeyo. It went pretty well, the first couple of runs were a bit sketchy, especially when we went down a red by mistake, thanks to the almost zero visibility, but later on it got a bit better. Except for the other red we went down by mistake where I failed to see a dip and did a face plant at speed, leading to a couple of minutes with snow held to my nose to stop the bleeding. It wasn’t just me, Pompeyo fell a couple of times and we decided not to push it because he’s off to the Pyrenees for a week in a few days.

So the knee worked and I enjoyed it. The resort is tiny but there is a bus from Oviedo, so we can take advantage of it over the next four months. It’ll be nice to go back and actually see the mountains while we’re skiing down them