Gondolas - Gripe

This past weekend, I was away in Austria, having won a trip for two the Snowbombing music festival in Mayrhofen. The real bonus for me came when we were told that ski hire and lift passes were included in the prize. As we got our gear and picked up our lift cards, my excitement was too much to contain. It had been seven years since I’d been down any slope and my first time ever skiing in Europe. The fact that the guy at the rental shop told me, “Here, it’s not better than Canada,” didn’t dissuade me or dampen my enthusiasm. Nope, the gondola took care of that.

Now, I’d been on gondolas before and never batted one eyelash at the thought of climbing into a box suspended on a cable by rollers meant to wheel me up a mountainside. Maybe that had something to do with youthful naivety, or perhaps the snow always threw off my depth perception. If everything’s white, it’s harder to tell how far down it really is. Maybe the fact that this particular gondola went up a very steep incline and traversed a valley made it seem particularly death defying.

It could have been that the seats were tiny perches that made me feel like I was falling already. Perhaps the lack of anything to hold onto made me feel even more fatally suspended. I really don’t think it was the height itself, more the thought of falling that far. Let’s face it, a gondola is a mystery of physics to most of us, and I almost failed that particular subject in high school.

For the first 30 seconds, I was fine. Then fear or perhaps the realization of how ludicrous this contraption really is struck like a king cobra. For the next seven minutes, I was the most terrified person alive. I was facing up the mountain, and Graeme was across from me, commenting on the spectacular views. “Look, Grundvald. It’s amazing” he was enthusing, until my silence prompted him to tear his eyes from the view and look at my face. I’m not sure who was more surprised at my mammoth freak out, Graeme or I, but certainly neither of us was expecting it.

When he asked me if I was all right, I could only shake my head slightly in response, fearing that if I opened my mouth, my stomach contents would make an unwelcome appearance. This would have been bad enough had Graeme and I been the only passengers, but sadly we were not. The two children with their parents could probably tell I was less than comfortable, but I’m not sure what they were saying about it as they stared at me. My German is about as good as my Mandarin. At least when the kids shoved past my quivering mass to get off the lift first, I was fully reassured that I hadn’t put them off.

Now I was worried whether or not I would be able to ski; my legs were shaking so badly. Luckily, Graeme hadn’t been on skis in years either, so he was happy to do the bunny run for a warm up. The gentle slope took off the adrenalin edge and helped me find my mountain legs. The rest of the day was a dream. The sun shone; the runs were great; the hills were alive with the sound of music (there was a festival going on after all).

Then came the time to head back down. In the spring, there’s no such thing as skiing out, so the only way down is on the gondola. Turns out, down is worse than up. Pointing down at such a steep incline, the feeling of falling is trebled. I decided if I got down on the floor, I could pretend that I wasn’t in the gondola at all. I kept saying, “I’m on the train. I’m on the train going from Waverly to Haymarket.” Graeme called me a lazy sod and told me to get off. It’s a ten-minute walk.

The laugh helped; however, I discovered that I still needed something to hold on to. That turned out to be Graeme’s leg. Luckily for me, he’s patient and somewhat amused by such weirdness. Even luckier, we were the only ones in the carriage. I can only imagine how this all may have looked to people in passing cubicles. At least they’ll get a story out of it, too.

The very worst moment came when the wind picked up. The carriage swayed, admittedly rather gently, but to me it was Armageddon. If you’ve seen the Goonies, you’ll know who Chunk is and what his wails sound and look like. It was like he was there, channeled by my panic, out of the celluloid and into the present day, alive and yelling. Amusement provided a temporary reprieve from the terror as that thought crossed my mind, but we still had two and half minutes left to go, a long time to be scared witless. I mean, sounding like Chunk? What else do you need to hear to know I was beyond afraid?

Very near the bottom, Graeme gave me the all clear to stand up, so I did. My legs were cramping wildly after a full day crammed in rental boots. My muscles had to struggle to move off the gondola, but the mind was willing. Otherwise it would have meant going right back up. Despite the wobbles of terror, that was all the motivation I needed to bolt when the doors opened.

Being the sort of person who hates having fears, I like to confront them, especially irrational ones. To be fair though, how irrational is it really to be frightened of a gondola? Really? However, the next day, I was determined to screw on the head and go up again. So I did. Go up again, that is. Sadly, it was a repeat performance, but perhaps some of the original drama was lost. I was still bricking it, but hit the floor sooner, pretending to go from Haymarket to Linlithgow, so as not to be asked to hop off again. As much as I hated that little box, I was not getting near the door until we reached the station. After all the thought of falling is the scary thing. Now the conundrum lies in how I will get over this newly acquired fear. Scotland, as far as I know, is gondola free. I knew this was a great country.