Skiing Finally!

Remember my skiing vacation got canceled because of the bad weather? (no I still have not got my 350 odd dollars back!). Well the opportunity came up to go on a skiing day trip. I went with my dad, two of his friends and Mahsa. We headed to Tochal – just at the edge of Tehran. We drove for about 20 mins and from there rode a tele-cabin all the way over the first set of mountains to the 7th stop – Mt. Tochal slopes – nestled in the heart of the mountain ranges.

It was still bloody freezing – it was under zero in the city so must have been at least 10 under on the slopes. But it was a beautiful sunny day and under the sunshine the cold was bearable.

Mahsa and I had planned to hire ourselves an attractive coach to teach us (given we’d each been maybe twice) but given the one we found was in his mid fifties we settled for our fathers instead. I rode off down the slope just to practice how to stop but found that I was already too far down to go back up and join Mahsa for our lesson. So I decided to continue down the mountain and get the lift back up. It didn’t occur to me that I should travel in a zig-zag pattern. I just went straight down. Which was fine for the 5 seconds before I gained speed and totally lost control. At this point I went tumbling head over feet. This happened about 6 times. 3 of those times were bad enough to cause my skis to come flying off my feet. One time I fell face first into the snow. It was awful! My face was and hair were wet and when the wind blew it was excruciating.

But I’m happy to report that I survived and furthermore did not break anything!

Leaving Tehran and the smog below us. It’s so convenient that you can drive only 20 mins and go skiing.

Mahsa and I riding the tele-cabin up.

Of course, skiing is not for everyone – you have to have a bit of money. I was surprised to find that nearly everyone on the slopes that day was under 30. Iran’s demographics are  ridiculously biased towards the under 30 age group – they make up over 2/3rds of the population. Everywhere you go, you see lots of young people. At Tochal I suppose we were seeing the spoilt rich kids (who of course were not at uni or work and judging by their skiing and snowboarding skills spend most of the winter on the slopes).

Me trying to look cool. Note no strict hijab being observed (by anyone).

Mahsa losing the will to go on.

Mt. Tochal

Tochal Hotel – at the bottom of the slope. There’s a restaurant/cafe just at the entry. I went in and saw that it was a big hang out for all the youngens – all dressed in their matching ski outfits, girls with full on make-up and everything (they never give up!). I looked the daggiest out of everyone.

Mahsa and I resting at the bottom. We joined everyone else who was lying in the sunshine