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“You’re crazy!” stated a local shopkeeper brightly when I told her my ski trip plans. A logical reaction since recently I was shopping on walking aids due to a joint operation. My sister’s friends were rather anxious: “How old are you? Eighty? I don’t think this is a good idea. You’ll take a tumble and get injured.” Andrew, my 86-year-old brother, opted it was wiser not to tell a soul.

A Long-Held Dream

For twenty years or more I had nurtured a quiet longing to enjoy a final winter sports adventure. A final fix of sunny weather, chilly air and the exhilaration that comes with ending up unharmed at the bottom of a snow-covered slope. I was never much good, and hadn’t skied for decades, but that didn’t matter. Now in my eighties, I wanted to find out if my body could manage. And if I could do it, why not ask Kate, my sister, part of our elderly ladies’ circle who motivate one another to do parkrun each week? Then I remembered that, as teenagers, my brother had accompanied me on my first ski holiday. Nearly seven decades earlier, but Andrew had some talent, so I included him in the plans. Penny, a friend, who is surprisingly spry (claiming to be 67) that she doesn’t really count, was invited along and test her skills among the seniors and improve her language skills. Everyone tried hard to get as fit as possible, but skiing was a distant memory for over forty years.

Picking the Location

Seefeld, located in the Tirol region, was the spot we selected, as it offers a variety of winter activities – provided we endured our two-hour lesson on the initial day (frankly, was the extent of our alpine skiing) – and is wonderfully free of evening revelry. Families frequent it rather than partying youngsters, and is characteristically Austrian, with distinctive church steeples and chalet-type houses. We stayed at the cozy, independently owned Hotel Helga and we dined somewhere new every night.

“This is what we term Kaiserwetter,” remarked our guide Janina when I remarked it seemed too good to be true at waking each morning to cloudless skies, sunshine and abundant snowfall for the beginning of March.

We were all pretending just to be eager, not worried at all, as we took a bus to the ski area. It was packed with children and adults holding ski equipment and full of life. I thought I caught the assistant getting our ski gear showing skepticism at the situation.

I expected to slip the moment I started. But I didn’t. No one fell.

Ulrich, our teacher, who had been told we were older, grinned courageously as we trudged over. Our voices were somewhat raised, grinning excessively, perhaps trying to postpone the moment when we had to step into the bindings. Inwardly, I felt certain I would tumble as soon as I moved. However, I remained upright. None of us did. Ulrich was very patient, allowing us sufficient time at each stage of the lesson to gain in confidence.

Today’s Ski Technology

Today’s skis are far simpler to handle, I found out – reduced in length, weight and featuring shaped ends – than the unwieldy, lengthy boards I remember from the 60s that always made me fall off the ski lift. We understood we wouldn’t be permitted on a ski lift whatsoever, so assumed we would painstakingly climb the slope and ski down, tumbling during the descent. That’s how it was in 1958. But here there was a fantastic contemporary contraption, a conveyor belt, or motorized path, that carried us smoothly to the top of the gentle beginners’ slope, which was crowded with daring youngsters. We were the only adults.

Once the lesson ended, we remained upright throughout, had everyone performed adequate plow maneuvers and even an attempt at parallel skiing. We were euphoric. “That was just amazing!” remarked Andrew, who isn’t given to hyperbole.

Beyond the Slopes

Could we have managed a whole week of skiing? Perhaps, but the range of options available in Seefeld was more appealing. We could go walking around several bodies of water, buses giving us access to absolutely charming hamlets, and the “winter hike to the Hämmermoosalm, a 4.6-kilometer hike with toboggan return”, as the guidebook briefly mentioned.

Being familiar with winter sports, we two knew all about sledding. You dash after it, shoving the toboggan, then jump aboard and speed downward on your belly at paces matching fast vehicles. Janina was reassuring. Don’t be anxious: we’d ride the sled and direct it with our boots. But we did worry. Andrew chose not to participate but the rest of us continued.

A man in a scarlet onesie skidded by calling out about Kate.

As a 12-year-old it was exhausting dragging Dad’s handcrafted sled up a local hill in the rural area in our wintry youth, and as an 83-year-old it felt draining hauling an admittedly lighter toboggan up the slope in high-altitude atmosphere (the mountain restaurant, a customary high-altitude retreat, is at over 1,400 meters) for almost 5 kilometers. I lagged behind, grumbling under my breath about being too old for this. {The glühwein and Gulaschsuppe|The mulled wine and goulash soup|The warm