Worlds: Coming down the Piste Rhone-Alpes

If it was possible for one’s eyeballs to simply fall out of one’s head, staring down the first plummeting pitch of the Piste Rhone-Alpes women’s race course at Val d’Isere might do the trick.

The first 10 seconds of the downhill course is the one opportunity racers have to fill their lungs with air before launching around the roller that marks the start of the world championships super G, where the terrain plunges downward into one of the steepest, iciest, turniest courses on which any of the lady World Cup racers have ever tested their speed. At least that’s what many of the racers have told me … that this course is much harder than anything they’ve had to ski on in the World Cup. Ever.

Which makes me feel a lot better, because I thought I was just being a baby. Unlike the ladies attempting to rocket down at full speed, all I have to do is wrench the edges of my rentals (the guy at the shop assured me they are super sharp) into the slope and make sure I keep them there. Because even if the skis came out from under me at a dead stop I probably wouldn’t stop sliding until I got to the top of that first left handed bank turn … way down there.If it was possible for one’s eyeballs to simply fall out of one’s head, staring down the first plummeting pitch of the Piste Rhone-Alpes women’s race course at Val d’Isere might do the trick.

The first 10 seconds of the downhill course is the one opportunity racers have to fill their lungs with air before launching around the roller that marks the start of the world championships super G, where the terrain plunges downward into one of the steepest, iciest, turniest courses on which any of the lady World Cup racers have ever tested their speed. At least that’s what many of the racers have told me … that this course is much harder than anything they’ve had to ski on in the World Cup. Ever.

Which makes me feel a lot better, because I thought I was just being a baby. Unlike the ladies attempting to rocket down at full speed, all I have to do is wrench the edges of my rentals (the guy at the shop assured me they are super sharp) into the slope and make sure I keep them there. Because even if the skis came out from under me at a dead stop I probably wouldn’t stop sliding until I got to the top of that first left handed bank turn … way down there.

Yes, it’s easy to see why so many of the racers I’ve talked to this week have expressed concern that this hill is too difficult for most of the world championship field, some of which hails from places like Argentina, Bulgaria and Chile.

Peering down the first pitch from the super G start gate, where Val d’Isere and the entire valley lies totally visible from between one’s skis (or in my case, from over the side of my skis, which are firmly chiseled perpendicular into the slope), I am literally shaking.

And it’s not that I haven’t been on steep slopes before. I am a Colorado girl, and have been known to jump off cornices and drop into dangerous, avalanche-prone chutes. But that’s different. First of all, I’m usually on a snowboard or telemark skis. And I only do that sort of thing when assured that if I go down, there’s going to be a soft landing in the form of deep, deep powder.

Though it’s hard to tell in the flat light that seems to regularly prevail on this Piste Rhone-Alpes, it’s frighteningly obvious that there is nothing remotely soft about it and that its hardness is waiting eagerly in the form of solid lumps and glistening, water-injected blue ice.

After the first 20 or so meters of side-slipping, I’m convinced that the once knife-like edges of my skis are being worn away like a gummy stone. Going into the first turn, though I’m not turning the gates (the girls told me the set for downhill isn’t much different than that for SG), I can see that it would take nothing short of a full body lurch to get around them into the fall away and once there, it is up to just the left ski  to hold all of one’s speed (in my case, a crawl, and in the racers’ case, about 120 kph) as well as the entirety of one’s body weight going into the narrow ‘S’ curve.

By the time I’m to the end curve of the “S,” though totally ungraceful and possibly visibly trembling, I’m proud of myself for not  going down on my face in front of the dozens of others inspecting the course.

I am about to cry, though.

The pitch going into the compression about three quarters down the course is a sheer wall – of ice, of course – and I no longer feel my edges can take it at a side slip. Thus I point the tips downward for a split second, during which I go from zero to 90 (it feels like), before throwing down the hockey stop of my life on the top of the hump leading into the final right-handed turn.

It’s miraculous to think any of the girls can make this turn or the gate at the top of it with the speed they’ll have in downhill. It’s the place that finished off many who weren’t eliminated earlier on the course in the SG and the first couple of days of DH training.

By the time I near the finish area, where course crews wave me off the course, I am filled with the same sense of relief I get when alluding certain death mountain biking above timberline in lightning storms or swerving to avoid out-of-control semi trucks when driving in a blizzard.

I always knew World Cup racers were brave, but really, ladies, after “skiing” this race course, I have all new respect. Good luck this weekend. I’ll say a prayer for you …