Skiing has a big gender imbalance problem. A surprise to no one who loves spending time in the mountains, the latest survey from the Ski Club of Great Britain shows that nearly 70 per cent of adult skiers are male.
There’s a number of reasons for this, but a significant one is that skiing doesn’t always feel like a welcoming sport for women. For some, the prospect of an all-female trip is appealing as a more relaxed and comfortable environment with which to enjoy the slopes and improve technique.
I’m an experienced skier and am starting to outgrow skiing on crowded pistes. I wanted to learn how to ski off piste safely, and to find like-minded women. And so, an all-female, introductory off piste ski course with the Ski Club of Great Britain felt like the perfect fit.
The 120-year-old club has a community of around 17,500 members who book around 40,000 ski trips each year. As well as ski holidays and courses, the club also offers insurance, a historical library of skiing and mountaineering artifacts, equipment discounts, reliable snow reports and resort guides.
My week-long course was in Les Deux Alpes, France, an off-piste mecca with the highest skiable area in France at 3600 m, and just a 2-hour drive from Grenoble airport. It was here that I met my fellow aspirant off-piste female skiers as well as our Ski Club volunteer and rep, ‘Bobi’.
Bobi, a cheerful 76-year-old grandma and former accountant who only started skiing aged 45, is the ultimate inspiration for how to age impeccably and live life to the fullest. Throughout the week she very comfortably outperformed all of us, some of which are half her age!
Our group of ten was split into two groups of five, according to our ski ability and experience. I was in a fun and energetic group with Claire, a cyber security PhD student; scientist Kate; a mother of three who was on her first trip abroad without children in 13 years and was accompanied by her two university friends. Then there was Helen, an epidemiologist, and Anna, who works in microfinance.
Our instructor was Alex Chapman from Tip Top skiing, a Brit who has lived in the resort for over 20 years with her French ski patrol husband.
Before we set off for the lifts, Alex explained the three aims of the week ahead: one: stay safe, two: have fun, and three: improve our skiing and confidence. We spent the first morning on-piste to warm up our legs and so that Alex could see our skiing ability.
After a chatty lunch discussing our lives and finding many commonalities, Alex gave us our first taste of off-piste skiing, between two pisted slopes.
Bobi our teacher, a cheerful 76-year-old grandma and former accountant who only started skiing aged 45, is the ultimate inspiration for how to age impeccably
I soon realised that skiing off-piste requires a very different skill set to on piste. I managed to stay on my feet for the short foray, but was surprised by how unbalanced I was, probably due to the squatting bambi-like position I adopted having been taken out of my comfort zone.
But we were here to be challenged and to push ourselves to improve. At some point during the week Bobby earned the name ‘back-up-bob’ as she always positioned herself at the back of the group, purposely to scoop up any of the ‘youngsters’ that fell and to help them back into their skis.
During our six days of skiing Alex took us through drills and provided each of us with feedback to work on, whilst taking us off piste at every opportunity to practice our skills on the best snow she could find. And find it she did, as having been based in the resort for nearly two decades, she knew all the best places to find untouched snow.
During the week all of us had moments of frustration and wobbles in confidence, but Alex was always there to rationalise our thoughts and tell us what we needed to do to improve, whilst we were all each others’ cheer leaders.
Over post-ski Aperol spritzes and dinner each evening at the hotel we’d recount the day’s highlights get to know each other better. By the end of the course my confidence had grown, I’d made new friends and felt inspired by the women around me who were all leading such interesting and varied lives with gusto.
We all agreed that offering all female ski courses is one great way of bringing more women to the sport, and the ski club is ideal for those wanting to improve their skills, solo travelers, friends of differing abilities who want to go on a ski trip together, and for those who want to be part of a ski community.
