A Busman’s Holiday!

by David Cronk

Including the leaders (Übungsleiterinnen), 15 of us met up for this trip based at the very welcoming and comfortable Almi’s Berghotel in Obernberg, near the Italian border.

Lucy Vincent and Leanne Mills were the leaders, and with pre-meet Zoom chats, we were well prepared. Indeed, despite being exceptionally busy with starting up a new business, Leanne was very attentive to detail, ensuring transport arrangements all went according to plan: I felt very cared for!

Foolishly, I had declared medical qualifications and experience (30 years as a GP), and it was not long before my judgement was called upon. Poor Samantha Osmond took what seemed to be a minor fall on the piste on our training day (Sunday), breaking her ankle. She was able to join us midweek at Almi’s, but clearly, her skiing was over for the week.

The strong southerly Föhn wind over the weekend of our arrival had cleared any remaining snow from south-facing lower slopes, and blown it over onto north-facing slopes, so the avalanche risk was a solid 3 in the Obernbergtal at the beginning of the week. We played safe on the Monday and stayed in the valley, with some excellent transceiver practice and a short sunny skin up to the Obernberger See and its pretty chapel.

As the week progressed and the snowpack settled, we were more adventurous. Despite the ages of our group (mostly 60s and 70s, apart from the tour leaders), there were some impressively fit members. Mary White, a Lake District Bob Graham round (42 highest Lakeland peaks in 24hrs) under her belt, still competing in and winning triathlons, in between cycling 100 miles a day, together with her tough companions Anne Daykin and Nikki Hamerton, showed us all that life is definitely not over at 65!

Wednesday morning saw Leanne’s back seize as she rose from morning briefing, so she was bed-bound for the day, and gingerly up but not skiing for the remainder of the week. The same morning, Leanne and Andrew’s car would not start due to a dead battery; not a good start to the day! Nevertheless, the group had a fine outing to the Eggerberg, marred only by another accident: Sandrine twisted her ankle in a fall, was unable to ski down, and had a rather dramatic helicopter ride off the hill.

Later the same afternoon our other leader, Lucy Vincent, sprained her hip, so Thursday morning saw us officially leaderless. Luckily for us, Andrew (“Drew”) Mills is also an Übungsleiter and took up the baton, and we set off on a “moderate” route up steep, mushy snow towards the Allerleigrubenspitze. This proved pretty taxing, and in the steepest section it was necessary to take skis off and carry them as the snow was so poor and the gradient so steep. Only five made it to the summit. Descent from there was initially on delightful snow, but lower down the snow was heavy and there were the occasional alarming slide gaps to be negotiated, before an “interesting” narrow slalom through trees.

Despite challenging conditions and being unable to do a good number of the planned routes because of snow conditions, we had a great week. We all are extremely grateful to Leanne, Lucy and Drew.

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