Auli -> Rishikesh -> Corbett National Park -> Varanasi -> Agra
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In a week that I spent in Auli, I spent only three days skiing and another three days in wandering, trekking to the high peaks, taking pictures or doing nothing much. Every day was fun in its own way.
On my second day, I put on my ski gear and decided to check out how much I remember from last year’s learning. Not much was forgotten for good, but in the initial hours I suffered from some anxiety and was worried about falling. Some anxiety had to come because I was skiing again after a long time, and the slopes higher up in Auli are much more steeper than what I used last year for learning. But two-three rounds of sliding down and I knew I am doing fine.
I was introduced to much more adventurous skiing in the next few days. One of the days, we went high up the slopes and skied down through the tree line. I was again scared about hitting the trees but it wasn’t very bad. A funny incidence is worth recalling here. As I was sliding down between the trees, I lost balance in one of the occasions. And I did what anyone would instinctively do on loosing balance – look for some support. To my bad luck, the nearest support I found was a tree and instincts lead me right into it – and BANG! The skis hit the tree and parted – one to each side of the tree and my body moved further towards the tree! Luckily I had slowed down by then, and managed to hold the tree with my hand, getting out from there without any scratches. But I will tell you – the fun of skiing amidst the trees is worth this risk, as long as you make sure you don’t over-speed.
There was another occasion of injury attributed my stupidity. I was skiing in open slopes with my backpack, which had my expensive camera. I was weary about falling and damaging the camera and was coming down slowly. At a relatively easy turn, I made a half minded attempt with the camera in my mind, and the next moment I was on the ground, with my right knee nearly twisted! Again I was slow and was lucky to get away without any injuries to the camera and myself. Despite all this, I learnt a lot of skiing in these days put my time to good use.
After this, the most happening activity on the slopes was jumping over a rock with the skis or snowboard. But with the nearly twisted knee, I did not want to take any more risks and decided to let my camera work on the people jumping instead.
All these things – skiing in the forest, jumping on the rock are things that we never managed to do last year when there was full snow in Auli. Thick snow prevented us from getting into the forest and there were no rocks jump on but just the smooth slopes. The near-summer skiing had an element of disappointment in the beginning due to lack of much snow, but I soon figured out it has a charm in itself. Besides, we never had to worry about the chilling cold weather too.
Also see more about Auli in paintedstork.com
Visit to Auli in 2005
* Images from Auli(plenty of snow)
* Trip report
Visit to Auli in 2006
* Images from Auli(little snow)
* A back-breaking journey: from Rishikesh to Auli
* First Day at Auli
* The days of Skiing
* Spending time in Auli
* Trekking and walking around
* About Auli
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