Skiing in Garmisch, Ian's Post

This is Ian writing about a great ski week in Garmisch, Germany! After a three hour drive trough the Alps we arrived at the ski resort. We stayed in the Edelweiss Vacation Village on one of the bases in the area. The first day, all we did was get settled into our cabin and rent skis from the resort. The second day things got better. I was in one of the groups for more advanced skiiers who were younger than I was by about three years. The youngest was 8 and the oldest was 10. The first day with that group we warmed up our skills on the small slope behind the lodge. The second day we went up on the mountain. Either the kids were highly advanced skiiers or the teacher rushed into things, but we were skiing the intermediate trails before lunch. The teacher thought that I didn't feel comfortable on the large slopes, so they transeferred me into another group of adults who had no skiing experience at all. This group worked at a slower pase than the first one (which was later skiing the Olympic and World Cup trails). The third day my new group went up the mountain to ski the beginner trails. We stayed on the the smaller trail and worked on our skills. The fourth day two of our four skiiers stopped skiing with us because of sore feet but I kept skiing. We moved on to a higher skill beginner trail and skiied that one for the entire day. On the last day we skiied the same trail until lunch when the last skiier left early to get home. That left the instructor and me to ski alone. We skiied the intermediate trail that I mentioned on the second day for the rest of the day. The crash total was 7 - unlike St. Anton's 9. Three of those were on rope tow lifts, two were from when another skiier crashed into me, one was from slipping on ice, and the last one was skiing into a snow drift (which my group loved seeing because everyone else had crashed but I hadn't.) I crashed three times on the first day, twice on the second, and twice on the fifth. The first picture is me on the mountain the second is my instructor on the far right, me second from the right and another group member third from the right, and the video is of me going over a jump on the first day.