The Slope in the city
What if you go to the city central to shop for one hour. After all that shopping just happen to feel for a little skiing.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you just could take your skies and walk there, because the slope was in the middle of the city? There is a town where you can walk, or take the bus to get to a small slope with two lifts and five slopes. One is for skiing competitions, and the other is for the public. This slope is in Örnsköldsvik which is a town in Sweden of course.
The name of this slope is Åsbacken.
Åsbacken was built in the 19sentury for the Alpine club FriskaViljor.
It is a slope that is fully adapted to international competitions but also to the public, who just want to ski for the fun of it.
One slope, the competition slope, is steeper, and the other is for beginners and they have a snowpark for snowboard and twintips. I ski in that slope because I like big jumps and rails, and they have that. One jump is 18m long. And there are smaller jumps fore those who aren’t that good yet.
This slope means a lot to people here.
“-The slope is fantastic for me as a mother. I’m an adult student so this is perfect for me, I drop off my kids here then I sit in the ski cottage and study while my kids are skiing.”
“You can go there at 10am in the morning and then go home to clean ore just take a minute for yourself.”
The best thing with the slope is that it’s in the middle of the city so you don’t have to drive for too long, ore have a cabin in the mountains.
Many people afford that, so the slope makes it possible for the kids to try skiing for little money. It’s not to expensive too buy a season card it only cost about 90 pounds.
I like this slope a lot. It has everything that I want Jumps, offpist and well prepared tracks. And if you need a bigger challenge you just go to the backside of the mountain and you have nice paths and cliff jumping and some good skiing in the woods.
After a few hours you might need a rest. Then you just take a short ski trip to the cottage, witch has everything from coffee to pizza.
After a warm hot cup of cocoa, you just ski a few meters and you take the lift up for some more nice skiing. One of the best things in the slope is that more and more of your friends hang out there instead of the “at the Youth centre”.
Another cool thing has happened during the last couple of years. The injury statistics is less than the previous year. Why? Well in a sport shop I talked to Martin Sjölander. “During the last four years we have seen a bigger sale of skiing helmets, and a lot in jackets and ski dresses. Nowadays it is cool with a helmet, and a nice jacket makes it looks even nicer.
That’s why I think the injuries have been less this year.”
So if you happen to visit Örnsköldsvik, take you skies and try this wonderfully slope and have fun, because that’s what this is all about. Do what you like most in this world, with your mommy, daddy, sister, friend skilled skier or not the slope is for every one.
The photograph was taken by Anton Strandberg and Fredrik Sandin.
© 1997-2007 Freeway
Writers: Johan Sjölander(nv08-07@park.se).
HTML by: ONy (olle@park.se).
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