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“That’s insanity!” remarked Caroline the greengrocer happily when I mentioned I was going skiing. A rational reply since just a while back I was shopping on walking aids due to a hip replacement. Friends of my sister were more concerned: “How old are you? Eighty? I don’t think this is a wise plan. You’ll have an accident and hurt yourself.” My elder brother Andrew, aged 86, decided it was wiser not to tell a soul.

A Hidden Desire

For at least two decades I’d had a half-buried wish to enjoy a final winter sports adventure. A concluding dose of clear skies, frosty air and the excitement that comes with ending up unharmed at the end of a snowy run. I wasn’t very skilled, and it had been years since I last skied, but that didn’t matter. Now in my eighties, I felt compelled to check if I was still capable. And if I could do it, what about including Kate, my sister, part of our elderly ladies’ circle who support each other to do parkrun each week? Then I remembered that, in our youth, Andrew came along on the first time I went skiing. That was 67 years ago, but Andrew used to be quite good, so he got an invitation as well. A companion named Penny, who is surprisingly spry (claiming to be 67) that she doesn’t really count, was invited along and try her luck with the oldies and improve her language skills. Everyone tried hard to enhance our fitness levels, but none of us had skied for at least 40 years.

Selecting the Resort

Seefeld, in Tirol near Innsbruck, was the spot we selected, as it provides diverse cold-weather pursuits – provided we endured our two-hour lesson on the opening day (admittedly, was the extent of our alpine skiing) – and is wonderfully free of evening revelry. It attracts families rather than partying youngsters, and is typically Austrian, with distinctive church steeples and alpine-style homes. Our accommodation was the cozy, independently owned Hotel Helga and we ate at a different restaurant each evening.

“We call this Kaiserwetter,” said Janina, our guide when I noted it seemed too good to be true at getting up each dawn to cloudless skies, sunshine and abundant snowfall for the beginning of March.

We were all pretending just to be excited, without any concern, as we took a bus to the slopes. It was full of families and youngsters with winter gear and radiating energy. I thought I caught the assistant assisting with our rental equipment showing skepticism at the challenge.

I expected to slip the moment I started. Yet I remained upright. None of us did.

Our instructor Ulrich, who had been told we were older, beamed valiantly as we stomped towards him. Our voices were somewhat raised, beaming widely, maybe attempting to delay the time when we had to step into the bindings. Inwardly, I believed I’d fall over as soon as I moved. However, I remained upright. No one else fell either. Our instructor showed great patience, providing ample opportunity at every part of the tutorial to become more confident.

Modern Skiing Advances

Today’s skis are far simpler to handle, I found out – more compact, lighter weight with curved tips – than the long, cumbersome things I recalled from the sixties that often led to lift mishaps. We knew we would not be trusted on a ski lift whatsoever, so assumed we would tediously ascend the incline and descend, taking spills along the way. That’s how it was in 1958. However, we found a marvelous modern invention, a “travelator”, or motorized path, that transported us easily to the top of the gentle beginners’ slope, which was cluttered with fearless children. We stood out as the sole seniors.

After 120 minutes, not one of us had taken a spill, had each executed reasonable wedge turns and even a version of side-by-side turns. We were overjoyed. “That was just amazing!” remarked Andrew, who doesn’t usually exaggerate.

Additional Adventures

Would we have handled a entire week of winter sports? Perhaps, but the diverse pursuits Seefeld offered was more enticing. Trails were available around various lakes, buses giving us access to incredibly scenic towns, and the “snowy walk to the alpine hut, a 4.6-kilometer hike with toboggan return”, as the guidebook briefly mentioned.

Being familiar with winter sports, Kate and I knew all about sledding. One sprints behind, propelling the sled, then hop on and race down on your belly at paces matching fast vehicles. Janina was reassuring. Nothing to worry about: we’d ride the sled and steer with our feet. However, we were nervous. Andrew chose not to participate but we others persevered.

Someone wearing crimson overalls skidded by shouting something over his shoulder about Kate.

During my childhood it proved fatiguing pulling our family’s DIY toboggan up a local hill in Buckinghamshire in our wintry youth, and as an 83-year-old it felt draining dragging a reduced-weight toboggan ascending in oxygen-depleted air (the alpine hut, a classic mountain lodge and farmstead, is at 1,410 metres) for about three miles. I trailed the others, complaining quietly about my age being a hindrance. {The glühwein and Gulaschsuppe|The mulled wine and goulash soup|The warm