Page 66 - Wish Stream Year of 2018

Exercise TIGNES CADET
OCdt Matthews
On the 15th December 2018, nine Officer Cadets from 32 Platoon set off at 0230hrs, with the sounds of the Senior Term’s Com-
missioning ball still rattling around New College, for the enormous Espace Killy Ski area, and the resort of Tignes. Over the next six days, our group of inexperienced skiers would, to use a term loved by those in the adventurous training world, spend a lot of time in the ‘stretch zone.’
After a smooth departure from RMAS and no issues getting to Grenoble airport, we hit our first hitch of the week when our transfer from the airport up to Tignes was delayed by a hand- ful of Gilet Jaunes protesters driving three cars abreast at 10mph on the motorway. We eventu- ally reached Val Claret, where we were able to collect our ski equipment and the keys to our apartments.
Our first day of skiing started with a 0700hrs rev- eille to be ready for 0900hrs to coincide with the first lifts opening. As we all know, you must be able to walk before you can run, so we headed straight for a flat piece of snow and the ‘magic carpet’, or beginners area. Here we ran through the basic mechanics of skiing and ensured that everyone was able to make basic turns and, more importantly, stop themselves on the shal- low slopes before we moved on. OCdt Mat- thews’ teaching abilities were tested at this early stage by OCdt Rees, who was extremely reluc- tant to turn at first, although he stopped himself with characteristic grace, even adding in some backwards skiing. By the afternoon, the group had progressed quickly and everyone had con- quered the chair lifts.
As the SF1 course required five days of skiing to complete, and we had six days available to us, we spent our third day taking a trip over the peaks to the nearby Val d’Isere. The route down to the town was a challenging one, but with the promise of a break at the bottom, everyone made it down in good spirits, having thoroughly explored their stretch zone. OCdt Copland in particular demonstrated why alpine skiing is very much justified as Adventurous Training, as he braved the steep descent down, perhaps encouraged by the promise of a hot drink.
The day spent in Val d’Isere gave us the chance to explore some different terrain and even intro- duce the group to some basic off piste tech- niques before returning to the SF1 programme on Wednesday.
As confidence grew on day five, we were able to progress onto some steeper and more challeng- ing terrain, in the form of red runs and some more off piste sections. As this was one of the clearest days, we made a trip up to the Grande Motte glacier, at 3456m above sea level, giving us some stunning views over the surrounding Alps.
All good things must come to an end, and for us the weather finally closed in on our last ski- ing day. This didn’t stop the group making the most of the time we had and provided us with a reason to stick to the lower slopes and work on our technique before we headed home. By this stage of the week, the majority of the group were close to full parallel skiing, with everyone at the standard for SF1. We handed back our skis and called it a day.
64 SANDHURST