Three months on here are a few thoughts on skiing throughout 2008.
It was definitely a talking point. Especially the summer months when colleagues and friends imagined that I had been off on a trip to the southern hemisphere, or were totally perplexed (even skiing friends had little idea about the possibilities of skiing in the Alps in the summer). I was even motivated to start this blog by friends who encouraged me to blog about it (so as a bonus I got to learn how to set up a blog site..).
I skied the most I have in one year (21 days – no big deal for J who did 40+ last year, but it beat a 25 year record for me, set when I was at University). I got to ski in some new places – 5 to be precise, and I improved my skiing technique (thanks Norbert).
I discovered that the ski season does not have to stop in April/May, and so I will definitely ski in the summer again though I will choose the days carefully to ski in the summer on new snow (and preferably at Zermatt).
As mentioned in the November post, I did calculate the CO2 emissions from skiing every month. This amounted to 792kg for 10 car journeys and 3kg for the 2 train journeys (Gala Yuzawa and St Anton). I have not been able to find the CO2 emissions associated with the lift system, but lets be generous and double that figure to 1.6T of CO2 (I doubt it as much will be powered by hydro electricity, but whatever). To offset this would cost about CHF32 (compared to the US$232 if you want to buy a T for industrial purposes… something wrong there…). However I subscribe to the view that offsetting is a rather screwy concept (for a laugh look at Cheat Neutral ) plus the option of paying for the establishment of wind farms in emerging market countries does not seem like the highest priority for funding when the developing world has other problems. So my money is going to a cause that is more immediate and needy – Plan-International.
A few friends suggested that for an encore this year I should try and ski every week. Thats much too much like hard work – the day job (with travel and deadlines) would make this difficult, plus summer skiing is not that “to die for”. Once or twice a month was fun – every week would be an obsession. So 2009 will see a different set of challenges and opportunities to post rambling musings into the blogosphere. I’ll post on this shortly.