Ski-ing From An Armchair

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31167, 17 September 1966, Page 11

Ski-ing From An Armchair

(Specially written tor "The Press" by

IDLE CLARKE)

“ A SLALOM? What’s - that?” I asked. “Sounds like a slice of German garlic sausage.”

The hoots of derision took a while to die down. But that was some years ago and my ski vocabulary has improved. I have learned for instance that a snow-plough is not a piece of equipment used in raising a winter crop and tow-ropes are not set up on ski-fields to haul stranded cars from snow-slush to terra firms.

Our TV presents visual lessons on how to manage those extra lengths of arms and legs, and how to perform the miraculous feat of going slowly sideways up a hill and coming down frontways at speeds alarming to watch —a vicarious thrill to the armchair viewer, safe at home beside his fire.

Incredible speeds have been reached on skis. In August, 1955, R. Miller, an American, was ski-ing at Garganta Schuss, at Portillo, Chile. Two timekeepers on a 50-metre marked section on the 62 degree slopes recorded his speed at a staggering 109.14 miles an hour. However, this record was later disputed, as the margin of error in the method of timing was too great. The actual area of

50 metres would have had to be covered in 1.0248 seconds, impossible to record on a manual stopwatch. The fastest speed officially recorded is pretty close to Miller’s figure. L. de Marco, an Italian ski-ing at Cervinia, Italy, two years ago reached a speed of 108.589 miles an hour.

A slightly higher speed, 109.23 miles an hour was set by R. Pitsch on the Silsersee, St. Moritz, in 1956 in a ski-joring run. Ski-joring, believe it or not, is being towed by an aircraft!

Long jumps are perhaps the most thrilling of ski events to watch. The longest jump is 142 metres. Because we are not on a decimal measuring system yet this is best visualised as almost 466 feet. The record was set by D. Motejlek, of Czechoslovakia, on the

Overstdorf Jump In Bavaria in February, 1964.

Chair lifts are comparatively new to our ski-fields. We have tow-ropes aplenty, but for a long time the nonskier armed with photographic equipment instead of sticks and skis, had to be content with seeing things from the bottom up, at the foot of the mountain.

The Annette Plateau behind the Hermitage at Mount Cook has been suggested as a new site for a ski-field, including a chair lift. Coronet Peak’s large lift has been described as one of the best in the Southern Hemisphere. Now in its third season, it is used as much by sightseers all through the year as by skiers in winter.

The longest chair lift in the world is that from Grindelwaid to First, Switzerland, and runs for more than two miles and a. half. The world’s highest lift is in Bolivia, rising to 16,500 feet, 4000 feet higher than the summit of Mount Cook. The thought of that cold, giddy height is just too much to contemplate. Let’s leave the snow slopes to the young and venturesome and go back to the fire in the living room, the television and the comfort of our warm, woolly slippers.