During half term 39 Farnborough Hill pupils and five teachers (Mrs Dunnage, Mrs Kirby, Miss Clutterbuck, Mr Maccherini and Mr Temple) set off to Passo del Tonale, Italy for a week’s ski trip for all abilities. Having left on Saturday 16 February at 2.15 am, we finally arrived at our destination, Hotel Negritella after a long journey. The area surrounding the hotel was filled with natural beauty varying from glaciers to snowy mountain peaks. We were supplied with our ski equipment and looking around, we could see a wide variety of different slopes varying from green to black as well as differences in altitude. We were put into different groups according to our ability: Beginner, Lower Intermediate, Upper Intermediate and Advanced. Members of the different groups describe their experiences below:
Ellie and Rosa (Beginner’s): ‘Our experience has been exhilarating and unbelievable. With some of us having never skied before and some, at the most, had ski lessons on dry slopes or skied once with families. By the end of the week though, our progress had grown immensely with all doing parallel turns down the mountainside and neatly in a line following on. The first day was like a warm up and evaluation of our snow-plough turns and we were all so happy when we started on the blues the next day. On the Tuesday and Wednesday, we were doing red runs which were exhilarating. On the last day was a slalom race which we all got commendable times followed by the Snow Park and trip to the glaciers. We all thoroughly enjoyed it and have great thanks to our instructor, Fiorella.’
Akshayaa (Lower Intermediate): ‘My experience was both thrilling and terrifying. Most of the skiers were quite experienced and very interested in trying out new and harder tricks and slopes. Our instructor was called Mauro and we all had an ever-lasting experience with him. He made many jokes on how if anything went wrong, the wolves would come and eat us, but he was still a king and wonderful instructor. Every day, we would conquer a different challenge with him guiding us; sometimes we would do a new and harder slope or we would do a few bumps and jumps on a slope. We went on a range of different slopes, from long and steady to steep and quick. Our group also did the easier snow park jumps and a slalom race on the last day of skiing. On the last day we all went to the glacier and went to the top of the mountain to drink hot chocolate and ski on the blue route, since the only other route was a black and we weren’t capable of doing a black yet. Our group had a lot of fun and we shared many good memories on this trip.’
Freya (Upper Intermediate): ‘During our ski lessons our group had an eventful time, including many hilarious falls in many different directions. Our instructor was called Paulo and our favourite joke was that if he were to fall over he would buy everyone a drink. We learnt many things including skiing backwards, angulation for steep slopes, ski cross, Snow Park jumping and re-clipping your skis on black slopes. Many of us agree our favourite run was the black slope on the way down from the glacier as it was speedy and challenging. Overall, we had a great time and we all thoroughly enjoyed it.’