Page 53 - Wish Stream Year of 2018

Exercise FALKLANDS SNOW
To finally have replaced the plateau of Sand- hurst’s Old College Parade Square for the steep inclines of the Austrian Alps was a welcome relief to all eight cadets of Ex FALK- LANDS SNOW. Under the trusty leadership of OCdt Power-Moore, a stress-free journey ended with a scenic landing between the mountains at Innsbruck Airport and our skiing AT trip, the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ of the Intermediate Term, could begin.
For most members, day one was the first time in skis, and for the remainder it had been many years since they tackled slopes. This conspired to produce a mix of comedy and very quick learn- ing in most cases, admittedly with the majority of laughs coming from our esteemed instructor Paul Owen, himself an alumni of RMAS.
That quick learning had us ‘snow-ploughing’ down one of Schlick 2000’s lengthy blue slopes on the afternoon of day one, and a promise from our instructor that we would be tackling red slopes happily by the end of the week.
Before then, however, a long hard effort was required from all to master certain arts: a moun- tainside lesson on avalanches, thankfully with- out demo; stopping at speed on a steep area of Stubai’s picturesque glacier; turning in an ‘S’ rather than a ‘Z’; and, most importantly, turning the ‘snow plough’ into parallel skiing.
Attempting, and in most cases, getting to grips with these skills characterised our next few days on the slopes. This was only interrupted by our evenings together at our neat, well-equipped
OCdt Hutchinson
apartment in Neustift where, in true cost-saving fashion, we partnered up and produced a cook- ing rota, each night washed down with a sample of local lager.
With time having flown, the group returned to its favoured location, Schlick 2000, with the chal- lenge clear: master the red slopes and beat our PB along a 10km route. Skis attached, warm- up complete, it was now or never. Our strongest led off first, easily mastering the challenge we’d set ourselves; an intermediate group closely fol- lowed, and even those less confident managed to overcome a steep red slope in resourceful fashion.
So, as the sun began to set on our final day on the slopes, the entire group had turned Mon- day’s comedic slipping into recognisable skiing: we’d been down several red slopes and twice bested our PB on the 10km blue, each gaining SF1 along the way. We returned home for Christ- mas content in their efforts.
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