This was the day we had all been waiting for, downhill skiing at Mt. Hotham.

Everyone was so excited when we woke up, except to find out that it was overcast, windy and 70km/ph winds blowing our way. But we didn’t let that get our spirits down. We all had to wake up reasonably early, 6:30 was the average start and at breakfast by 7. We had a gear check at about 8, so everyone was fully prepared for any conditions ahead.

We walked down our long Alpine School driveway to be picked up by the Hotham bus. It was a tight fit trying to fit 45 kids plus teachers onto a public bus, but we seemed to manage. Driving along, it was snowing like I’d never seen before. We couldn’t see outside our windows it was just white, that’s what we call up here a “white out”. We got off at the Hotham Village and put our packs in a day shelter, which again was bombarded by 45 students, but we are a positive and happy bunch and we always keep up the high standard the Alpine School has. We walked across the Village road which was so snowy it was hard to see what was in front of us. We walked into Hotham Central and into the ski hire department. We already had our size and weight measured before we came, so getting our skis was quick and easy. The ski boots were much different to the cross country boots we were used to, walking was a challenge.

Once we had our skis, we went back to the day shelter for morning tea. We had muffins one of our cooks Mr. S prepared for us, they were great. Not long after that, we headed out into the snowy mess of Mt. Hotham. We put on our skis which were drastically different to our cross country skis. In cross country skis there is movement in the heel for walking, running, gliding and skating ability. Basically they’re much easier to move around on. These downhill skis had big clunky boots that locked in your whole foot, but within a bit of time it was no trouble.

We headed to the slope for our lesson with our instructor, at about 10:30. It was so foggy we couldn’t see past about 100m ahead of us, it was slowly clearing up. We all split up into our groups for the day and headed off to meet our instructors.  All the instructors were pretty cool, my instructors name was James and he was from Whales. We all had a bit of ski around and he watched us to see our ability levels, because of the cross country skiing we’ve been doing for the past 3 weeks we had all the basics down and were ready to rumble. As usual, some were picking it up and finding it easier than others so we formed some new groups so everyone was comfortable. Everyone liked this because there was no urge to keep up, everyone was happy.

My group started off on the pomma which is a sort of seat attached to a wire that goes between your legs, it pulls you up the hill. After we had a bit of a session using the Pomma, it was time for lunch. One of our lovely cooks Miss Hannah had prepared a whole esky full of hot pies, pasties and sausage rolls. There was not one complaint from anyone, it was the perfect lunch.

After lunch we went back outside for a 2 and a half hour session with our teachers, again we split up into groups where everyone was comfortable and we headed out for the slope. Our group went straight for the chair-lift, we’re an eager bunch of skiers. We headed up on the lift looking out at the beautiful mountain ranges scattered around us, when we finally got to the top we looked out on the amazing snowy steep slops that awaited us, there is a lot of exploring to be done in our future trips there. We skied down the “Summit” which is a nice long run at a beginner level.

Time flew by and before we knew it we were being told “LAST RUN GUYS”. There was no sorrow in leaving, we had all had an amazing day and there are 4 more to come.  I can’t wait till our trip next week, let’s just hope the sun is shining.   

Written By Will S.