Skiing at Nellim

In my trip to Finland, we participated in the skiing programme arranged by the Wilderness Hotel Nellim which lasted slightly more than 2 hours, starting at 10.30am. Well, I guess we didn't know what we got ourselves into.

It was the first new day since we arrived at Nellim and frankly, we did not know what to expect. Visions of skiing usually include you going down a slope with skis, and magically not falling down. The fact is that the truth is very different.

Putting on the skis is already quite a challenge, to me that is. You need to make sure that your boots is secured tightly to the skis and that requires you to sort of step on your own skis in order to gain some sort of traction to secure the skis. It's difficult to explain. You need to try it. :)

The instructor started with the basics... Walking in skis. That itself is already not easy, especially if you're walking in snow. You need to co-ordinate your hand and leg movements properly to prevent yourself from moving. In summary, left leg in front, right hand in front. :)

After that, we progressed into walking up slopes in skis, which I felt is the trickiest part of the whole skiing. It is very difficult to walk up the slope in skis, but I guess having a loose ankle helps. Have the vision of a ski chair bringing you up the hill? Nah... You have to walk up yourself. It's extremely difficult, and requires a lot of strength.

Going down? Well, some say it's easy but you actually need to have a good sense of balance in order to slide down the slope. You need to "flow with the slope" which is how I called it. Basically, it means that you need to adjust and balance yourself constantly when going down the slope. I only encountered about 2 mini slopes during the whole ski exercise. First mini slope, I fell. Second one I got the hang of it. Sadly though, that's the end of all the down slopes. There were a lot of up slopes though.

Good news is that the skis actually comes "free" with the stay at Nellim, at least for us. That means that if you wish to borrow the skis for your own use, you just need to check with the receptionist if you can borrow it, and that's it.

However, my activities were too tightly packed to have any sort of free time. Anyway, my hands were quite sore after all that skiing up slope. :)

Sadly, I was too astonished by the amount of energy needed in the skiing that taking photos were completely not in my thoughts at all. The only thought after the small skiing exercise was to remove the skis and have lunch. :)

Stay tuned for my other posts on my trip to Finland!