Norway: Trysil
After landing early in the morning following my red-eye flight from New York, I headed just outside the terminal to catch my bus to get up to the Radisson Blu Resort in Trysil. This was the type of convenience I was in desperate need for after sleeping for less than an hour on my flight, as I was stuck next to a large Serbian hockey player who had an odor I wish I could forget. After boarding my bus I was glad to find it was nearly empty for the three hour ride to the hotel, so I took a row of seats and promptly fell asleep for a majority of the ride.
I awoke to a winter wonderland outside the bus, with snow covered mountains in the distance and large snow clad trees. It was beautiful and exactly what I was hoping for when I decided to go up to the mountains to ski. Eventually after driving through roads with walls of snow on each side, we pulled into the hotel and my eyes saw the slopes for the first time. This would be my first time skiing so I was a bit intimidated, and that wasn’t helped by the slopes I saw. They were massive, straight down the mountain, with drops that looked insane to imagine going on (later I would find out these were for ski jumping, but at the time I thought that was what a standard slope would look like). I wouldn’t have my lesson until the next morning as I wanted time to rest from the long flight, so all I did the first day was check in, take a nap, and book a refreshing massage to prepare my body for the trials to come.
I woke up feeling refreshed and knowing my injury history alongside my reconstructed ACL, I wanted to stretch for roughly half an hour to get ready to go. Eventually it was time to head out for my lesson, and I went to the meetup area. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find my instructor given the language barrier and not great instructions on the meetup location, but my instructor seemed to easily identify among a massive crowd. Not sure if it's because of my height or because I looked completely uncomfortable on my skis and it was obvious I was a beginner. Likely a bit of both, I concluded. The first portion of my lesson could only be described as embarrassing, as I flailed around on my skis like a deer on ice. Legs kicking about, not knowing how to control myself with the instructor constantly needing to stay in front of me to help me stop because I couldn't figure out how to slow down. Slowly but surely I was able to turn on my own and slow down, eventually reaching the bottom of the beginner slope. Only then once stopped, I tried to start moving again and tripped while trying to push off. This would mark my first (and only!!!) fall of the day.
Once I got back on my feet, my instructor was crazy enough to think I was ready for a harder slope, so we went up for a new run as he kept trying to instill confidence in me that I could handle it. I wasn’t so sure, but am too non-confrontational to push back and accepted my fate. I was warned that at the bottom of the hill, there were two routes to finish, an extremely difficult end on the left side and a beginner trail on the right. He said I should go right no matter what. This didn't help my fear. I was terrified but made it all the way down, but it took almost all of my energy to slow myself down to prevent an accident. My out of shape legs were exhausted at this point but we still had time for a final run. We got back up to the top and I started off for another go, instilled with a bit more confidence as I had handled everything up to that point. For 90% of the run I was in full control and extremely comfortable, though tired. Then as I was approaching the fork on the slope and trying to turn right, my left leg kicked out due to exhaustion and I wasn't able to regain control to plant and turn right. Due to this, I had no option but to go left and shot down a steep drop going at speeds far above what I was comfortable with. Once I regained control of my left ski, I started to cut left and right to take off as much speed as possible, but even then I was going much faster than I ever had before. Soon I was approaching the bottom of the slope, where they brilliantly decided to install multiple wooden picnic tables in the stop zone. I figured my best chance of avoiding the tables was to take a massive turn right so I could loopback left on the flat ground at the bottom to slow down before the tables. I went for the maneuver and was able to make it work, stopping only a few feet away from the tables.
My instructor eventually caught up to me and yelled with excitement, “Did you mean to do that? Because if you did, that was fucking awesome!” I slightly wanted to claim I did it on purpose, but had to admit it was a complete accident. He said he thought so, as I looked scared going down the slope. Little did he know I was frightened beyond belief, and nearly crying out of relief that I made it down safely. This marked the end of my first ski trip, going better than I expected despite nearly dying on my last run (a bit of an exaggeration, but allow it). I only fell once, and that wasn’t even while actually going down the mountain. What I didn’t expect was the physical toll on my body, as my legs were in pain for the remainder of my week in Norway.
The next day, I jumped back on the bus to head into the Oslo airport and then Oslo itself. As I boarded the bus in agony, I was sad to leave the snowy wonderland. It was everything I imagined when dreaming of Norway, from the beautiful mountains and forests, to the fluffy snow on the ski slopes. Trysil lived up to every expectation of mine and then some.
