I’ve forgotten a number of important items, but never my boots.
He did seem a little foot-loose this morning.
Trying a couple of things this season:
– A living polymerization resulting in a base that does not need waxing but can receive wax when I chose. I’m hoping that this will save having to wax after every full day of skiing and deal with having worn through wax near the edges before the end of a day, not to mention reducing my use of fluoro. I’m not after the perfect wax replacement – just something that has a wide coverage range like the Swix F4 universal that keeps me happy most of the time.
– 4 degrees sidecut rather than 3 degree sidecut for 21 metre radius turns on ice and hardpack, rather than the 3 degrees that I have been running with. I’m hoping for a snappier entry into turns and a bit more hold at the apex on ice. Downside will be having to diamond stone the edges during the day more often and having to sharpen them daily.
Time will tell. Either of these two changes could be a waste of effort, but if either works out, yay!
Got out on the hill on the weekend and had a blast tellying on slalom skis on what could best be described as hero snow. It felt wonderful to come alive again. I even put on some alpine rec gs gear and tootled about without ill effect (it takes me a while to figure out how to initiate the first few turns, but once I am up to speed all goes well).
We had an early snowfall in October that gave me a chance to get the boards on briefly, but it sure wasn’t hero snow. It felt like skiing on a horizontal snow fence. In fact it was skiing on a horizontal snow fence. The outrun of a 30 metre jump at the end of my road was astroturfed, but snow does not hold well on it, so in '96 one of my friends laid down snow fencing on it to hold the snow. The fence is still there, but skiing on it when there is not much snow is less than ideal, for the metal wire prevents ski edges from having any effect. It was a relief last weekend to have hero snow rather than a horizontal snow fence over long astroturf.
Still waiting for cross-country to open up (aside from that day back in October). I was five wheel rollerblading in the summer, but it just ain’t the same. I miss the gliiiiiiiiiiiiiide. One of these years I’d like to try some roller skis, but I never get around to it.
A friend and I forgot most of our food for a March break backcountry ski. Each thought the other was bringing the food, so all we had was half a pound of bacon, and pound of hot dogs, and a large packet of Lipton cup-o-soup. Were it not for a porcupine, we would have had to have turned back rather than continue and lose some weight. (I wish we had turned back). That was in the mid 70s when rollable closed cell foam existed but we had never heard of it. Between the porcupine, the pine boughs and the open fires, it was not what one would call low impact skiing. Fortunately practices have changed over time.
In the mid 90s in the spring I forgot my paddling gear for a spring runoff instructional weekend on the Ottawa. A five hour drive there, then a five hour drive back for my gear, then another five hour drive to the venue. I’m sure it filled my students with confidence knowing that their instructor was for all intents and purposes brain dead.
Last week I walked into my local hill’s chalet (Thunder Bay’s Loch Lomond – NNE Mt. Johnson) to put some gear in my locker in the basement, only the staircase was no longer there – just a floor where there used to be stairs. That was a bit of a mind fuck, for although I don’t have much of a memory, I could have sworn that there had been a staircase there that I have been using for a couple of decades. Like an old horse returning to the barn, I stepped on the floor as if it were were a staircase.
After a few puzzled seconds, I recalled that a lot of work had been done over the summer and fall, including foundation and drainage work – hopefully no more frozen pipes when we hit the deep freeze, and no more ponding at the lift in the spring.
As part of the reno, the locker room (under a couple of hundred lockers) was re-organized to provide more space for changing and a ground level exterior door by the main lift. Yay! No more getting long boards up into the building and then down an awkward staircase. No more having to make a hole when other folks are making their way past the benches. The placement of lockers in the old locker room was good for a few folks but was annoying most. Now there are only good placements, with the only distinguishing issue being how far from the door you have to carry your skis.
Of course alpine skiers being alpine skiers, there is bound to be a lot of bitching about locker assignments based on how far one has to carry skis to the door (I’m preparing against being assassinated), but the difference between the old and the new layout is like day and night. There’s even forced air heat ducting under many of the lockers with a vent under mine!
The cost of the locker room reno is a loss of history. Two of our Olympians lived in the apartment that has now become part of the renovated locker room (the apartment section of the reno is akin to Cinder Alley of Denver’s departed Cinderella City). The Irwin family created the ski area and built and lived in the chalet. Bill Irwin competed for Canada in the 48 Olympics in St. Moritz in downhill, slalom, combined, 18 km, Nordic combined, and ski jumping (and his brother Bert competed in the downhill, slalom and combined). Bill’s son Dave Irwin was one of the downhill Crazy Canucks who took it to Europe in the mid-70s through the mid-80s. The Irwins’ no compromise approach to skiing lives on in particular through three of the many runs that the Irwin’s cut.
That apartment in the basement of the chalet was their home, and the chalet was their homestead that welcomed generations of skiers. After the Irwins sold the area, part of the apartment was used variously for a racing room, and the larger part of it was occupied for years by a very nice older woman who cleaned the chalet.
There’s a brass plaque on a boulder by one of the race start huts commemorating matriarch Mary Irwin. What a wonderful legacy they have left – a ski area with challenging runs in the middle of the continent, and the spirit and practice of skiing very hard and very fast.
So I hit the slopes for the first time this season on 12/24. Crowds were low and conditions were good. I was pleased that I got my ski legs back fairly quickly. I overdid it a bit, though, and am paying for it in soreness today.
A good soreness to remind you of a good day, I trust. 
One of the better runs at my hill opened today, so it was telmark on slalom skis and alpine on super-G skis. Picked up a couple of my GS Dobermanns from the shop for telemark tomorrow. Snow in the forecast.
Two amazings days st Whitefish, rest day tomorrow, then another Whitefish day or roadtrip to Fernie.
Fernie didn’t happen for logistical reasons, but a powder day at Whitefish for our anniversary made up for it. Powder is the traditional 5 year anniversary gift, right?
Nice, and congrats
Anyone ever skiied Angle fire?. We won’t be doing our trip back to Park City this year but may be able to take a March trip to Angle fire. We stayed up there over Thanksgiving and it is very pleasent , I didn’t get much of a sense of the mountain though.
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We rode this chair several times the day before the evac. That terrain is interesting.
A good January 1st. Four hours GS telemark, two hours Super-G alpine, lasagna dinner, then one hour cross-country classic at night. All praise be to Ullr’s beneficence in the last week of last year (my driveway imgbox - fast, simple image host).
Off to a tele training session on the local bump tonight since I’ve been unexpectedly pulled in to teaching beginner tele on Saturday. The current forecast for teaching is low 40s and raining. 
Ick. Hope it changes for you.
Changes to what? 30s and raining? :eek:
Freezing rain – that hit us this afternoon, so once it started I bailed out and went to the office. It came from the south, so I’m blaming it on you. 
I left tele boots and skis in my locker for one of our tele club member in from Norman Wells (arctic mainland) for a couple of days. There’s only flatland skiing there, so he’s been pretty eager to hit the slopes – today – the day that brought us freezing rain. It stopped about an hour ago, so I’m packing it in at the office to spend a couple of hours skiing this evening and hopefully catching up with our visitor, but I’ll be wearing my kayaking spray jacket just in case.
Looks like I was lucky yesterday for work kept me from skiing. Something buggered up the power out by the hill, resulting in the lifts having to be evacuated. Over an hour for the last poor bastards.
Winter is interesting.
Tonight was firm conditions, comparable favorably to well cured cement. We had fun and it was good to be on tele again before teaching on Saturday. I learned to ski on that hill, it’s always fun to be back.
It was in the mid 30’s but only periodic rain, and none of it hard. A good day teaching on the hill.
Full throttle today for the first time this season, bending GS Dobermanns like Beckham on Ontario’s premiere GS pitch. Very hard surface but not ice, challenging pitch changes. Full commitment telemarking, literally launching into each turn at the end of each carve.
Or to put it another way, ski time to pass out after skiing time ratio was 1:1. 