Overcoming a Fear of Heights: Learning to Ski in Quebec

I am afraid of heights, and I learned to ski anyway, on two mountains in Québec, over a few days. This is not advice from someone who got over it. It is an account of what it was actually like to get into a cable car and then onto an open chairlift when the thought of both had kept me off a mountain for most of my life. If you have turned down a ski trip for the same reason, the useful part is probably the order things happened in.

I have mentioned the fear on this blog before without giving it much attention. Writing about skiing in Québec made that impossible.

Where the fear of heights came from

My fear of heights is of the mountains themselves and of the lifts that take you up them, rather than of skiing or of cold. That distinction is why I never went. As a child I stayed home from a week-long school ski trip because I was too frightened to get on the lifts. I was afraid enough that standing on the kitchen table so my mum could take up my trousers made me dizzy.

I still remember the first time I understood it. I was about 7 or 8, on a weekend away with my parents, and we were going to visit a castle reached by a cable car that ran up the side of the hill. The car was glass, including the floor. I do not remember getting in. I remember screaming the whole way up, huddled against one of my parents, crying hard enough that I thought I was going to choke.

It stuck. My dad has it too, so I blame him. When the two of us went to see King Kong we ended up in the front row because the cinema was full, and at the moment the camera looks down from the Empire State Building we both felt sick. That is the level we are talking about.

So when I met a snowboarding boyfriend, nothing changed. For the first 7 years we were together he kept his snowboarding holidays as trips with friends and I never went near the snow.

An offer I could not refuse

Two ski resorts in Canada invited us to come and test their slopes and their other winter activities, and that was the thing that finally moved me. This was not a weekend in the Alps. It was Canada.

It also seemed like the moment to find out why Siemen loved the mountains as much as he did. He agreed immediately, being already halfway down a Canadian slope in his head. And so, somehow, we were going to do winter sports in Canada.

Starting small at Mont-Sainte-Anne

I deliberately built the trip so that the mountain came last, which turned out to matter more than anything else I did. Rather than throw myself at it, I planned 4 days in Québec City before the first resort, Mont-Sainte-Anne, so I could get used to the cold and the snow before facing either the slopes or the height.

We had a good enough time in the city that by the time I collected my rental gear I was actually looking forward to it. I also had a private instructor for a full hour, and I reasoned that no instructor would take a complete beginner up a mountain.

Class started where I hoped it would: on the nursery slope, a piece of almost flat snow with just enough gradient to teach slowing down and turning. I slid down it and felt calm, even in control. Two runs later my instructor Paul moved me up to the children’s slope.

Getting up there was nothing. A magic carpet does the work, and you simply stand on it with your skis on while it carries you up what must be 100 metres (328 feet). The run down was hillier and still short and still not high. We worked on technique, and I learned to zigzag to control my speed, to keep my weight on the correct leg and to change it through a turn.

It was going well. Well enough that Paul pointed at the cable cars and said he was taking me up.

The first cable car

The cable car was the first real test, and choosing where to sit was what got me through it. This was not the plan. I asked, without much hope, whether there was a magic carpet that went all the way up the mountain. There was not.

Two things helped. The cars were the enclosed bubble type rather than anything open, and I picked a seat facing up the mountain so I would not be looking down into the drop. As we were pulled up I felt it in my stomach, and I dealt with it by keeping Paul talking, mentioning roughly ten times how beautiful it was.

My one hope was that the car would not stop mid-air. It did not.

At the top I felt like I had conquered something. I had skied and I had taken a cable car. There remained the small matter of getting down the mountain, which Paul handled by taking me along the easiest run. I felt like I was moving fast. I was, of course, being overtaken by everyone. I got down without falling once.

I wanted to tell Siemen immediately. He had spent the hour on the expert slopes, and while I was glad he had not watched me learn, I was sorry he had missed it.

The open chairlift at Stoneham

The chairlift at Stoneham was harder than the cable car, because there is nothing around you. There was a second day of skiing planned at the Stoneham resort, with a guide taking us around the mountain. We agreed to stick to the family slope for my sake. The problem was how you reach the top of it: not an enclosed car but an open chairlift.

Queuing for it, I felt sick again. This was the specific thing. This was why I had never skied.

Our guide Melissa took my poles so I would not have to think about them in the air. Honestly, I do not think I would have remembered I was holding poles at all. I was entirely occupied with not being frightened.

It was not as bad as I had built it up to be. I had expected to freeze, or become hysterical, or simply refuse to get on. Instead there was an irrational churn in my stomach and otherwise I was fine. The hardest part came at the end, lifting the safety bar before you reach the station so you can get off in time.

The feeling afterwards was something else entirely. In the space of a few days I had learned to ski, taken a cable car and ridden a chairlift, several times over. Standing at the top with the lifts behind me, I felt briefly invincible.

What actually helped

Four things made the difference, and they are listed below in the order they mattered.

1. Put days between arriving and the mountain. Spending 4 days in Québec City first meant the cold, the snow and the place were all familiar before I had to deal with the height as well. Arriving and skiing the same day would have stacked everything at once.
2. Book a private lesson rather than a group. An hour with one instructor meant the pace was mine. Paul moved me up only when the previous step was genuinely comfortable, and a group would have moved at its own speed.
3. Choose your seat and face uphill. In an enclosed cable car, sitting so you look up the mountain rather than down into the valley removes most of what triggers the fear.
4. Hand over anything you are holding. Melissa taking my poles before the chairlift removed a whole category of worry I would otherwise have spent the ride on.

I should say plainly that the lifts I took in Québec are not as high off the ground as many in France or Italy, a point my partner made at the time and was right about. It still counted.

Curious what it looked like? The trip is on our YouTube video of my first time skiing at Mont-Sainte-Anne.

The fight continues

The fear of heights has not gone, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. It is still there and I will meet it again. What changed is the default answer. I cannot promise it will never stop me climbing a castle wall or getting on a zip line, but from now on I will try, and I will push through it when the experience is worth it.

In this case it was.

Where to stay at Mont-Sainte-Anne and Stoneham

We split the nights between the two resorts, staying at the hotel at the foot of Mont-Sainte-Anne and at Condos & Hotel Stoneham.

The Mont-Sainte-Anne hotel has since changed name. It traded as the Château Mont-Sainte-Anne when we stayed and is now the Delta Hotels by Marriott Mont Sainte-Anne, Resort & Convention Centre, in Beaupré, about 30 minutes from Québec City, with ski-in and ski-out access at the base of the mountain. If you search the old name you may not find it.

For what to bring, my Quebec winter packing list covers the layers that made standing about on a cold chairlift bearable, and the Ice Hotel near Québec City is worth a night of the same trip.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 4 tips below come from learning to ski with a fear of heights at Mont-Sainte-Anne and Stoneham.

1. Ask which lifts a beginner slope uses before you book the lesson. Mont-Sainte-Anne’s children’s slope runs off a magic carpet, which involves no height at all, while Stoneham’s family slope is reached by an open chairlift. Those are very different propositions and nobody tells you unless you ask.
2. Say out loud that you are afraid of heights at the start of the lesson. I did, and Paul built the hour around it, stopping at the nursery slope until I was ready. An instructor who does not know will take the direct route.
3. Take the enclosed bubble lift over the chairlift while you are learning. Both go up the same mountain. One has walls.
4. Expect the dismount to be the hard bit on a chairlift. Lifting the safety bar before the station, while still moving and still in the air, was the only part that caught me out.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand account in this post is hers, from learning to ski at Mont-Sainte-Anne and Stoneham in Québec while afraid of heights. The team covers Canada for independent travellers, including the ski resorts, hotels and winter gear worth booking, and updates this page when resorts, lifts and hotels change.

Big thanks to Mont-Sainte-Anne for hosting us and giving me the chance to face my fear of heights and skiing. You can be sure I’ll always write honestly about partnerships like this.