A personal look back at how skiing went from something I tried once to something I look forward to every season.

Usually I don’t share personal things. Turns out all it took to change my mind was falling down a mountain a few hundred times.

How it started

Before even saying how it started, I should say that looking back at my childhood and teenage years, I always wanted to become some sort of sportsman or athlete; becoming a software engineer was never the plan. (I used to dismantle all sorts of electronics and mechanical things, sometimes putting them back together and sometimes producing what could generously be called abstract sculpture, which cost my parents a small fortune in replacements, and might explain what led me to where I am today). I was a competitive sportsman growing up and never imagined my life without sports. There used to be a time when I’d be on the playground as early as 5am and still the last person standing and practicing there at 10pm, which, looking back, was either discipline or an early symptom of an addiction. It was consistently like that. Every day I used to dream about sports. Growing up in India, it was mostly about Cricket, but among others I did well enough in Badminton, Swimming, Skating, Volleyball, Cycling and Football.

Down the line life happens, and I left sports completely, like flipping a kill switch, around my late teens. RIP athletic career, gone but not forgotten.

After almost 20 years, at the age of 36, I happened to join a company where everyone seemed quite passionate about some sort of sport, which was mildly alarming for someone whose most recent sport was competitive sitting. In April 2023 I was on a road trip through the Scandinavian nations, and while passing through Hemsedal in Norway, I stopped randomly at a ski resort. My friends and I, dressed for the occasion in pajamas and sneakers because we hadn’t planned this at all, were standing by the ski lift when a generous lady offered us a free ride up, possibly out of kindness, possibly because we looked like lunatics.

Standing in pajamas and sneakers on a snowy deck in Hemsedal, Norway, with mountains in the background Pretending to smile after falling off on the ramp, thanks to my sneakers

But standing there watching people of all ages (kids, teens, adults, and whole families), I quite felt like I’d want to give it a try someday.

Fast forward, my former workplace DRW arranged an office skiing trip to Morzine, France in March 2024. I thought of signing up for it, despite a few colleagues warning me that breaking my bones was quite probable, which in hindsight was less a warning and more a professional forecast. Finally I took a leap of faith and started getting myself ready for the skiing trip. My colleagues seemed like experts, and I wanted to make sure I’d be able to keep up. So I took this on like a mission and started taking lessons north of London at The Snow Centre Hemel Hempstead. After roughly 18-20 hours of lessons I thought I was ready to conquer the slopes :P. But real slopes are just out there to prove you wrong, gravity included, and hell yeah, I was nowhere close to what I’d been imagining and would need to keep up with friends while skiing. But after that one skiing trip I felt I’d learned something new, and I think it was an unconscious reminder for me: learning a new sport gives you the confidence that you could do something worthwhile you’ve never done before in life. I came back with pretty much mesmerizing experiences, some fond memories, and a new nickname (I’ve been labeled a loose cannon by a colleague ever since, a title I’ve chosen to wear with pride, mostly because the alternatives suggested were worse.)

Note: In between all this skiing, I also made it to KubeCon EU Paris 2024, because apparently the adventures never stop. A good friend of mine presented a talk on Confidential Containers (CoCo): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko0o5_hpmxI

A group photo on a sunny ski deck in Morzine, France, with everyone holding drinks

A view of snow-capped mountains and ski slopes from a piste in Morzine, France

What keeps pulling me back

After this, I kept doing more skiing trips: France (Chamonix, Alpe d’Huez), Finland (Lapland Levi), Germany (Garmisch), and Austria (St. Anton, Saalbach, and Ischgl), every year through last season, 2026.

Every season I go in with the mindset to improve, just like any athlete pushes out of their comfort zone to keep improving, or at least out of the beginner slope and into something with actual gradient. That’s something sports can offer in life: getting disciplined. Another reason I thought I’d share this experience is that it’s never too late to learn something you’ve always dreamed of, and the key to getting better at anything is practice.

Of course, the nature in those mountains is incredibly beautiful, and if you appreciate deep silence, there are certain places in the mountains where you can really find it, usually right before you fall over and break it yourself.

For me, being on the ski slope has eventually become quite meditative, as if my mind has escaped reality and is just happy in the moment, right up until the moment involves a tree.

The thing I like about skiing is that it’s a family sport. Everyone seems to enjoy the atmosphere, and this place has something to offer for everyone in the family (at least, enough to make some good memories, and possibly a few good stories about someone else falling over).

Of course, something that goes against my nature: yes, I eventually found a love of Après-ski, where people are in a celebratory mood and there’s real joy, plus questionable dancing on tables that I will neither confirm nor deny participating in. So far my favorite has been Mooserwirt in St. Anton.

At last, wherever you go for skiing, it’s one of those things where people are generally welcoming, warm, and share true hospitality, even to a guy who once showed up to a ski lift in pajamas.

Some of the best skiing places I’ve been so far

Every place has its own beauty to experience, so it would be a bit unfair to say which is the “best.”

But so far I’d say I enjoy the Austrian Alps most, with long pistes and a bit more adventure. I really enjoyed night skiing in Saalbach, which is basically regular skiing but with extra ways to lose track of where the ground is. You can reach pretty much every skiing destination by train: fly into Innsbruck or Munich and take a train from there.

A floodlit ski piste at night in Saalbach, Austria, lined with lights and surrounded by dark mountains

A wide floodlit ski slope at dusk in Saalbach, Austria, with the village lights below Night skiing in Saalbach

And of course I love the French Alps, Bonjour! Chamonix offers a really wide range of pistes, and the place itself is quite pretty!

The Aiguille du Midi peak station in Chamonix, France, rising above the clouds Aiguille du Midi peak station in Chamonix, France

Lapland (famously known for the Santa Claus Village) has its own beauty. The slopes are really comfortable, especially for beginners, or people like me who peaked at “comfortable.” If you enjoy slow cross-country skiing you can see how beautiful the village is, especially the cabins and forests. It also offers plenty of fun activities, like snowmobile riding and husky rides, and if you have a caravan, there are plenty of nice places for camping.

Snow-covered forest with tall pine trees under a blue sky with wispy clouds in Lapland, Finland

A traditional Finnish wooden cabin surrounded by snowy pine trees in Lapland, Finland Cross country skiing experiences

Something I found very deep in Finnish culture is the level of trust in people and society.

Lessons learned on the slopes

  • Lessons get you started, reps make you good. Instructors give you the fundamentals, but it’s the volume of runs that actually improves you, usually one small bruise at a time.
  • Layer smart, not thick. Staying warm matters, but over-layering just means you sweat through your gear instead. For me, one layer of thermals and ski pants has been plenty, with the jacket being the one call I make on the day: a light jacket on sunny days, a warmer one on gloomy ones. For ladies wanting to actually get this right, follow alpineflorine on Instagram, she breaks down layering far better than I ever could. A neck warmer, though, is genuinely life-changing: it keeps your neck warm, stops cold air sneaking in through the jacket, and on the higher-speed slopes it’s the difference between your face feeling the wind and not. Get one before you get anything else.
  • Contacts beat glasses, every time. Goggles plus a neck warmer is a fog machine for spectacles. Contact lenses solve it instantly, and let you swap in sunglasses whenever the sun comes out.
  • Sunscreen and lip balm are not optional. Mountain sun and wind will wreck your skin faster than you’d expect, cold weather or not.
  • Book early, or pay for it later. Prices climb fast once peak season hits, so lock in the trip well before everyone else has the same idea.
  • Measure yourself against yesterday, not the person next to you. Progress is personal, easier said than felt when a six-year-old blazes past you on the same run.
  • Get insurance, seriously. Skiing looks graceful right up until it isn’t, so get a policy that actually covers winter sports before things go sideways, not after.

What’s next

Hoping to explore the Polar Night Light Festival, Finland. I’ve never tried off-piste skiing and hope to try it soon. Along with that, I’d be very keen to try the Vallée Blanche in Chamonix, France, a legendary 15 to 20 km off-piste glacier ski descent. It starts at the 3,842 m peak of the Aiguille du Midi cable car and drops roughly 2,000 vertical meters through breathtaking high-alpine glacial terrain. And if I’m ever able to make some fortune, a one-time heli-skiing trip with the Viking Heliskiing, Iceland crew is definitely on the list, albeit unlikely, alas.

With all this, this has also been the first time I’ve followed an entire Winter Olympics, 2026, thoroughly enjoying everything from figure skating to all the skiing and snowboarding competitions. Someday I’d love to see the Olympics in person.

For this one reason, I owe a big thank you to my former workplace and colleagues at DRW, for reintroducing me to my love for skiing, table tennis, and cycling.

At last, I hope life keeps skiing as exciting as I’m writing about it, some of the love for sports I’ve rediscovered, bruises and all.

Lying flat on a snowy slope after a fall, with two people looking on in the background Loose cannon