I’ve blogged about my fear of heights before, and I blame this on never having gone skiing. Ever. Yes, opportunities have come up at Big Bear (practically in my backyard) and far more exotic locations like Portillo, but the dread of the ski lifts always followed with an excuse to back out of ski trips. So when I was at Botrange on that nature hike not too long ago, the suggestion of ski de fond seemed like the perfect combination of long distance skiing without the nightmare of dangling high above the mountain in order to get to the top.

 

Over the Valentine weekend Belgium saw its fair share of snow. So everyone and their grandmother and I packed up the cars and headed out to the slopes.

 

In my case, we went to Baraque de Fraiture in the Luxembourg province.  

 

For a mere ten Euros you could rent the skis, boots, and poles and ski to your heart’s content from sunrise to sunset.

 

Since it was my first time on skis we agreed to take the easy 3km trail. If you want to see how NOT to ski, watch the video below. I know, skiing does not come natural to me:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd879YVc2ek

 

In my defense I have to say the skis came with no instructions and as I had no waterproof pants on, my goal was to remain standing upright, unlike this…and I’m not even on skis yet here…

 

…but if you’re down, you might as well make snow angels:

 

Anyway, after 30 frustrating minutes or so of watching other skiers glide gracefully ahead of me, I tried to mimic their movements and let gravity take its course. In this video below, it was fun moving (though it felt like I was moving a lot faster than I actually did in the video) forward but stopping on skis was not always so pretty…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwzFkozaaF4

 

it was all I could do to not mow down small children and dogs (or the person taking the video) to break my fall.

So after two hours we completed the 3km trail and ventured out to the more challenging 7km path. The view was absolutely breathtaking when I got to the top:

 

Cross-country skiing is definitely for those who find solace in desolation…

 

I loved this day and I think I could learn to be a cross country skier. And perhaps when I’m better at it, I could take the time to enjoy the view instead of skiing with my head down to focus on correcting the position of my skis.

 

And when I’m in correct skiwear…snowboarding, here I come! Watch out!