LET’S ALL GO SKIING... OR NOT?

Sonia Sbolzani

J. Kalvellido illustrations

I love skiing... I’ve changed my mind!
You will think that you are hearing that famous jewellery advert with Francesca Neri again, but this time we’re in an altogether different environment that is connected with mountains, snow and skis.
Skiing is wonderful, as anyone who does this sport well knows, even if it is only for a few days, or even hours, a year.
The writer Dino Buzzati, in a hilarious article published in Europeo now some decades ago, divided the joys of skiing into two large categories: the certain and the uncertain ones.
Into the first would fall:
1) the decision itself to go skiing, provided that it is well planned ("with a precise date, destination, hotel, or even better home of some billionaire friends");
2) waiting to leave (without doubt the best moment);
3) choosing and buying equipment (already an "exciting sport" in itself), which does however require a certain amount of commitment in terms of time and money, since fashion on the one hand and technical progress on the other call for frequent additions, changes or even substitutions ("You must remember- writes Buzzati perceptively- that, unlike all other industrial products which, as production methods are perfected, become cheaper every year, skis and ski boots are always more expensive; this is because ongoing improvements require evermore difficult materials and devices"; however, the author then points out ironically: "If the price of skis and boots, instead of rising, were to decrease out of all proportion, the same sport would end up being ridiculed for it");
4) the preparations at home, that is packing the suitcases and loading the car in the middle of the afternoon (while "people pass by... look, watch and envy. Isn’t it great?");
5) the journey (which Buzzati cynically hopes is "livened up by fog and possibly large blocks of ice") and the intimacy inside the car;
6) the sudden whitening of the snow as darkness falls, and then the appearance in the distance of the lights of the big hotels;
7) staying in a classy hotel and enjoying its pleasures;
8) waking up the morning after with the view through the windows of the white peaks already bathed in sunshine;
9) the skier’s clothing, as exciting as a bullfighter’s;
10) the crowds, not without anxiety, at the ski lifts and the resulting queues;
11) the spectacle of the slopes below you as you climb ("and those little black things that descend going from side to side, but we will definitely do something better");
12) finally the return, when from the bottom of the valley the evening’s first shadows rise, overcome by that gorgeous feeling of exhaustion that only a hot cup of tea and piping hot bath can relieve (and what is there to say about "that sleep around seven in the evening, the loveliest you will ever have?").
The list could go on, as we know, but let’s stop here to mention finally skiing’s uncertain joys. Looking close, however, there is only one of these: the descent. It is soon clear to see why this is an uncertainty:
1) perhaps the weather is bad;
2) the slope is not beaten;
3) the snow is not in good condition;
4) the boots hurt;
5) our partners ski better than us;
6) the skis are not suitable for the snow;
7) a storm is blowing;
8) our legs cannot hold up
But, Buzzati points out, there is a way to avoid disappointment, or to arrive at the bottom of the slope in the shortest time possible: do away with the descent itself!!!
"And instead of putting your tibias in jeopardy, lie down, with a blanket on your knees, to enjoy the benefits of the sun, while the other idiots tear down the slope through the ravines risking life and limb" concludes the ironic writer who actually was a mountaineer and experienced skier.
Let’s admit it: Buzzati is not entirely wrong to stigmatise, albeit in a roundabout way, the decline and excesses of the world of mass skiing, increasingly seen as a fashion statement and status symbol, and less as a healthy sport that teaches you to love and respect the mountains. But it is also true that, if you choose the right place, time, company, state of mind, including an awareness of your own human and technical limits, you can really derive from skiing a joy without uncertainties, which gets closer to nature, beauty and the real soul of things and ourselves.
Then, turning the opening words on their head as Francesca Neri would like it, I will finish exclaiming: "I hate skiing... I have changed my mind!".