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.

It’s hard to believe that summer has already come and gone and we are on the cusp of another ski season. Let’s hope the wet summer translates into a snowy Winter – and one that begins in November and stays until at least Easter! 

Sasha & I have had an active summer with plenty of golf, cycling, and ultimate Frisbee three nights a week. We are stronger, fitter, and ready to challenge ourselves this winter on the slopes.  

Our plan is to start the season early and get at least 25 days on snow before the holidays. We start in mid-October shortly after thanksgiving when we’ll be travelling to Zermatt, Switzerland for the second time for a two week training camp on the glacier. Once again we’ll be with Sandy Gardner and his myswisstrip program. 

I’ll be taking my Level 2 coach during the first week. Sasha will join me for the second week as we both focus on training for our Level 4 CSIA. 

We’re hoping that by having a more active summer we’ll find the sweet spot on our skis sooner so that we can get the most out of the short winter in Ontario. 

I’m back on Head skis this year. I’ll have three pairs in rotation – my CHIP XRC’s from last season which are great all mountain skis, a world cup race stock Head slalom ski (but with softer bindings to make them more versatile) and a longer set of Super Shape Speed for the days that I’m skiing on bigger vertical. 

Sasha will likely be back on Atomic this year (ST 12) – although she is considering a switch back to her Lange boots. 

I’ve made some minor updates to our blog that we hope you enjoy. Specifically, we’ve added a pluggin that will make grinandbarrett.ca also a  photoblog – so you’ll be seeing weekly images from our adventures posted to our site starting this week.  

We also encourage you to follow us on Twitter. Links to both our accounts can be found on the top left navigation bar. 

The countdown to snow begins… now!

(photo: Esta Evans, Phil Barrett and Sasha Gollish  at Anik & Jeff’s wedding this summer!)