Training in the Dachstein moutain range

Skiing in Austria again!

In February, I was taken by my Rotary counsellor Marek and his family to train for a week with their Czech ski club!! It was a nice trip and I met many people in the club. This time we stayed in a town 10 minutes from Gröbming; the town I stayed in the first time I went to Austria a month earlier. We all stayed in a kind of group lodge that we completely rented out for the 6 skiing days. The group of skiers was a group of people from age 4 to age 15, and I was the oldest at 16. I stayed in a room with bunk beds with Marek and his 2 kids and each family cooked for themselves here.

Every morning we would wake up at 6:00 to be ready for breakfast at 7:00, and then be at the ski hill at 8:00; which was about a 5 minute drive from where we were staying. It was a fairly small ski resort called Ski Galsterberg and it was actually a perfect place for ski team training. We would warm up, divide into groups based on age and ski down to the one chairlift at this resort. Usually we would start with some drills and then move into small races down the slope with those gates. Training would usually go until about 12:30, then a quick team talk and each family was allowed to go as they pleased. Lunch was incredible Austrian food like the first time at those nice restaurants with a wonderful mountain view!

In the afternoons, I usually skied until 4pm with the people from my group; where usually we skied off the slope into the fenced off zone, then would meet up with Marek at the end of the day. Most days we would go back to the lodge to hang out for a bit, and one day we headed to Schladming; another town in the mountain range, to swim! Each day we met back up with the whole team in the mess hall, and watched videos of people from the group doing their slalom runs so they could improve the next day. Overall this experience was very fun and really helped improve my technique to a much higher level than it was before!

Big thanks to Marek for this trip!!