On Course at Mont Sainte Anne: Part 5

Today was a typical Quebec ski day; -20C, a haze of clouds, and a thick frost on your windshield.

We were on snow at Le Massif by 9:00am with our new course conductor, Emerson Brooks.  Originally from Montreal, Emerson moved to Lake Louise 18 years ago.  He is your typical west coast skier, extremely relaxed and fluid, but his performance in this relaxed mode is matched by few. 

For the past four days he has been skiing in short bursts, usually about 100ft of vertical at a time.  What he didn’t realize was how energized our group was.

Today’s focus was on edging.  Our morning progressed from short bursts of skiing to long cruisers this afternoon.  We started by focusing on only one part of the turn and only doing one turn at a time.  Slowly we moved up to link these turns, but by lunch time we were all a little bored of this routine; we wanted to ski.

We convinced Emerson that we were not tired and ready to ski.  We headed up to ‘La 42,’ one of the steeper runs here at Le Massif (the 42 is actually the degree of pitch of the hill!!)  It was one of those epic moments, sunshine, fluffy bumps, and a view of the St. Lawrence River.  From there it was lots of vertical, combining both bumps and cruisers.

At the end of the day we all took away the importance of setting an early edge.  Again under the theme of the last few days, the key was to increase edge progressively through the turn.  This not only allows you to carve more of the turn but also makes skiing more efficient.

Tomorrow we head back to Ste Anne for our final day.  The ski focus will be a progression of pressure control through the turn.

We will also be reviewing ski-off maneuvers for the level 4 exam and finishing a bit early so that everybody can have time to meet with the course conductors and review their progress throughout the week.