I skiied for the first time in 35 years—here's what happened

It’s not that I’m ungrateful, but did my good Samaritan have to be the man dressed as a banana?

“Try leaning forward more,” he advises through the face-hole, extending a hand and dragging me upright from the snow before continuing on his way. Kitty and Matty look on with undisguised pleasure; my 10-year-old twins are new to this but, as it’s my third time, they think I should be borderline professional. No matter that I was a carefree, indestructible youth when I last went skiing. Or that I’m now a very destructible, 50-year-old father.

My return to the slopes comes after a 35-year hiatus, with the stiffer sinews of middle age and a gammy right knee. Determined my creaking body shouldn’t deny my children a taste of the pistes, I invested in a knee brace made from aircraft-grade aluminium and booked our first family ski holiday.

I’d done my research. Les Deux Alpes in southeastern France seemed the perfect novices’ resort, with conveyer belt-style ‘magic carpets’ to assist those using its gentle nursery slopes and a relaxed atmosphere that even makes room for skiers in fruit-related fancy dress. Uniquely in Europe, it also has a network of blue-rated runs — alongside the dastardly reds and blacks — stretching uninterrupted from the highest point of 3,600m to the lowest at 1,300m.

“You’re like a rubbish Robocop,” my wife Monika had observed earlier, when I strapped my leg into the DonJoy Armor Fourcepoint knee brace like a nervous soldier preparing for battle. Still, the support had done its job, cocooning my leg snugly while I snow-ploughed awkwardly down a beginners’ slope, arms wide as if offering everyone a hug. All the while, I’d provided my own brand of support, calling out useful tips to my family when they collapsed this way and that like felled trees. “We already have an instructor, thanks,” said a blushing Monika, as the dashing Peter Dorultán helped her up once more.

On day two, Peter decided we were ready to brave a proper slope called Crêtes. “It’s officially a blue, but really it’s like a green,” he had reassured us as the Diable chairlift floated up the mountainside. The air had that snow-muffled quality, so still and silent that it rang in my ears, but the calm was short-lived. Kitty lost her balance as she exited the lift, Monika skied into her and Matty fell on top of them both. A moment later, I went down, too, Mr Banana coming to my aid —and we haven’t even reached the start of the run.

But eventually, we’re off. Crêtes opens tamely enough in a broad and shallow sweep, and we follow in Peter’s wake like a ragged gaggle of ducklings. As the slope steepens, though, our differing appetites for risk become plain. The kids tear away as quickly as they can manage, permanently on the verge of a wipe-out, with legs wide and arms circling like cartoon characters running on marbles.

By contrast, Monika and I commit diligently to our snow ploughs, churning back and forth across the piste to keep our speed in check. My heart lurches when one of my skis skids on an ice patch or another skier cuts in front. It reminds me of watching a thriller, and that split-second spasm of panic when the murderer appears at the window.

This will be Monika’s first and last blue run. “I like the skiing,” she declares at the bottom, “I just don’t like the going downhill.” Fortunately, there are plenty of other things to do in the area. Newly unveiled in 2024, the Jandri Express gondola is worth a ride in its own right; it carries passengers from the heart of the resort to the Jandri mountain peak at 3,200m in just 17 minutes — the journey used to take 40 — each one filled with glorious overviews of snow-burdened pines, lonely crows and ant-like skiers moving in snaking lines down the mountainsides.

From there, we board a funicular for a rattling trip along a two-mile wormhole through the mountain rock to a point called Puy Salié. Here, there’s an ice cave complete with chiselled sculptures of woolly mammoths, and a platform serving another helping of Alpine landscapes, including a cloudy peak called Barre des Écrins — once France’s highest, until Napoleon nabbed Mont Blanc from the Italians. However, it turns out the twins aren’t romantic souls. “I’m trying to enjoy the views,” says Matty earnestly, “but it feels like déjà vu all over the place.”

For them, Alpine landscapes are for living not looking at. The next day, we take an hour’s trek from Les Deux Alpes down to the ancient, narrow-alleyed village of Venosc, following a track scattered with pieces of the slate, or ‘blue gold’, that once made this valley rich. “The roof of the Palace of Versailles was laid with tiles from our quarry,” we’re told by a proud resident who passes us along the way. Entering the village along a road that has for centuries been used to take animals to pasture, we stop at restaurant Le Cours de la Vie and eat slices of chestnut pie, the only tourists among tables filled with locals.

Another 20-minute walk uphill through forest brings us to a thin and wispy waterfall, but the afternoon is warm and the children begin to tire of living in the landscape. We relent and take a cable-car back to the resort’s main stretch, where the trees are hung with Christmas lights, there’s a fairytale chocolate shop and the famous Crêpes à Gogo serves pancakes oozing with ice cream and salted caramel. The bars are similarly alluring, most lit with open fires. A few years ago, of course, I’d have led the charge from the Penguin Pub to the Ice Bar and on to L’Avalanche Discothèque, but instead, we head back to our hotel’s terrace for games of Ludo and an espresso martini or two.

By the final day, we’ve mastered not only Crêtes, but Petites Crêtes, too, with its tricky hairpin bend. The twins view every run as a race, and I haven’t won a single one all week — but all that changes when we try out an elegantly simple contraption called a Snooc. This single ski with a seat mounted on top is the king of levellers. Now, like my half-pint kids, I’m close to the snow. Now, there’s no distance to fall. Gone are the fears of the middle-aged me, and the slope morphs into a thing of glorious possibility. “See you suckers!” I cry as I leave them for dead, and once again become indestructible.