Category — Free skiing

It’s hard to believe that it’s actually been a year since my last post here – but it’s not for a lack of things happening in my life.

If anything the last year has been among my busiest ever with the start of a new job at BSTREET Communications as their new VP of Digital & Mobile marketing, my continued recovery from shoulder surgery, and taking my role on the board of directors for the CSIA Ontario up a few notches by taking over the magazine (and rebranded it), their website, their facebook fan page all while creating & maintaing their new twitter account and launching a new blog that is complimentary to the magazine and all other channels.

The season started out well with a return trip to Zermatt to participate in Sandy Gardner’s “my swiss trip” where I was successful in achieving my level 2 coach (now called development level) and had so much fun that I’m now motivated to start training for my 3 coach.

Work was especially busy this Winter as my team doubled in size and we worked hard to keep up with the pace of our successes.  Because of my workload, I decided not to teach any programs this past season and instead focus on skiing for fun – and skiing with a slighly less regimented schedule

The season highlight was a quick trip to Utah where I participated in a “live to ski” camp with former world famous extreme skier Kristen Ulmer.  I had met her a few years ago at a new year’s party in Park City when I crashed my friend Pete’s party and stayed for a few days.  After 15 years of taking ski courses and training that fit within the CSIA or CSCF mould, it was very interesting to take a course that was completely different in it’s form and function.

Although smaller class sizes and more mileage would have made the experience even better, on the last day we had a “powder” day and all was forgiven.  I am looking forward to continuing on my journey of big mind.

The Ontario season has come to an abrupt end and for the first time in many years, I’m ok with that. I’m looking forward to getting back into a regular fitness routine, re-discovering the flaws in my golf swing, and maybe, just maybe head south this summer for an extra early start to my season.

This week Sasha & I were notified that we have been selected to join the high performance demo team at Mont Ste-Anne in Quebec City next month to test next year’s lineup of skis for Ski Press Magazine.

This will be our first time as ski testers and we can hardly wait to spend a few days ripping the top runs in the east on next year’s gear. Our feedback and ratings will be part of Ski Press’ annual buying guide for gear. We’ll post more details as we receive them… and will be blogging about our experience as we go through it at the end of March.

The timing works out perfectly for us as the annual super camp for active level 3 and 4 course conductors begins right after, making for a week of high performance fun!

Now that half the planet watched the NFL’s Superbowl, check out the real superbowl! Thanks to Jason Kerr for the find!

All footage taken at Kicking Horse in Golden, B.C. If you haven’t been yet, add it to your top 3 list. The terrain featured in this quick vid are all chairlift accessible…as are over 70 other chutes!

Happy Holidays everybody from Grin and Barrett. 

After spending 4 quality days in Collingwood where Sasha rookied her first level 1 course at Blue Mountain and Phil spent 4 days ripping down the hills of Alpine, we’re taking 3 days off the hills to spend quality time with our family before heading to Whistler Blackcomb for a week.

We’re bringing two sets of skis each – one pair to rip and one pair to float.  Thanks to our new wireless card for the laptop, we’re planning on posting updates from Whistler with pictures and maybe a small video or two.

We’ve also discussed video taping a half dozen or so ski “tips” that we can then post on this site throughout the season. Topics such as – best way to ski powder (assuming we get some), bumps, steeps, or carve down a mountain. Any suggestions or ideas? Let us know and we’ll do our best to incorporate it into our filming.

Happy Holidays!