I was obsessed with Lonely Mountains: Downhill, the minimalist mountain-biking game from 2019. Obsessed with it. I ran those courses over and over until I knew just when to brake, when my tyres would skid over a rock and when they’d catch and send me flying, when to power down a straight, and when to cautiously pick my way over ledges like a goat in Lycra. I found it deeply soothing, partly because of the soundtrack of tweeting birds and rustling leaves (punctuated only by the sickening thwack of a rider colliding with a boulder), but mostly because of the zen-like state of concentration needed to get down those mountains at speed without dying 300 times. I developed a perfect feel for the infinitesimal adjustments in trajectory that made the difference between shaving a second off a run and sailing off the path to land in a crumpled heap.
I have been looking forward to this snow-sports-based successor for years. Instead of sun, rocks and dirt, we have glittering snow; instead of a bike, we have skis. It couldn’t be that different, surely. I thought it would take me no time at all to find my ski legs. But the first few runs on these mountains were … humbling. I skidded backwards down slopes after trying to brake and turn at the same time; I smacked continually into trees; I flubbed jumps and skidded, puzzled and slowly rotating, across frozen lakes. The challenges on each course felt impossible. I don’t even want to talk about what happened on my first multiplayer race. It was humiliating.
