[Arnold] You make me laugh. I pass you last. [/Arnold]
I have complete respect for tele skiiers, there is just too much stuff and chaos going in for my simple brain. Although it does seam a bit of a cheat to get face shots in 3 inches .
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Tunes on populated runs? Unsafe. Tunes when sharing the lift? Antisocial. Tunes in the backcountry? Sacrilege deserving of Dante’s sixth level of hell.
But then there’s night skiing at my home hill, with my favourite fast cruising run in Ontario, which is often nearly empty of skiers on cold nights. Time for tunes, for the in-run before hitting the main pitch takes about twenty seconds. Of course after that I can’t hear a thing, but for the lonely lift and the in-run, the tunes are a good motivator.
3 Doors Down: Kryptonite
Jesus Jones: Right Here, Right Now
Machinehead: I Mother Earth
Marilyn Manson: Sweet Dreams
Gorillaz: Clint Eastwood
and a bunch of other crap.
I suspect that a lot of it has to do with programming our brain and muscles to react in certain ways. I started telemarking over three decades ago, but only took up fixed heel skiing in '09. Despite the fundamentals of tele and fixed-heel being the same, despite usually using the same skis (Dobermann GSRs ski me to my on-piste happy place), and despite excellent coaching and lots of gate time with very good fixed-heel skiers, I’ve never really mastered it, for my reactions are tele-based, whereas for fixed-heel, I still occasionally have to think, and having to think usually means something quite unpleasant is in my immediate future. All the more reason to keep on keeping on practicing fixed-[del]hell[/del]heel skiing.
The Last King (a movie about the Birkibeinar’s winter of 1205-1206 epic long distance ski journey that was key to a succession struggle) is out on Netflix now. Lots of skiing, although the boots and bindings are not period authentic.
First couple of days on snow this year, and my thighs are screaming. Short day on Sunday, longer day today with a bunch of top-to-bottom runs chasing my wife who was in GS heaven.
Sweet!
Nothing a beverage or two won’t fix Telemark.
We just finally committed to Texas spring break trip to Utah. Flights are daft, so 24 drive here we come. On the plus side it does mean we can bring the full quiver of skis for what ever early march conditions await.
Thus begins 8 weeks of leg work.
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There’s a lot of painful truth to the “earn your turns” adage. :eek:
Up in Bethel, ME, watching the snow puking on down and laying out the powder boards for tomorrow. 
Two more days skiing left until we head for home.
We’ve been very lucky with the early season weather, three days at the beginning of the holidays when it was bright and cold, two rather grim days when a front came through dumping rain, snow and yo-yoing temperatures, but then clear and cold again after that.
It is a busy time of year here but no real queues even though the pistes get bashed and lumped up by mid-afternoon. No matter, we are usually ready for a swim and sauna by then anyway.
The kids are coming on in leaps and bounds. My little lad is pretty fearless but his discipline and safety awareness this year has been excellent and my daughter has finally found her confidence and can keep up with her brother easily.
I also gave the family a little treat today when I was performing a slow turn on the edge of the piste and some soft snow gave way allowing my edge to run under an ice boulder which hilariously tipped me over into about three feet of powdery snow that took me three attempts and several minutes to get out of.
Did the family help? did they arse. Did they piss themselves laughing? why yes, yes they did.
We are now finished for the day here as you may have guessed and tonight’s treat is a swim and sauna at the Tauern Spa with a cold beer and cocktails served to us while we lounge in the hot, salty pool as the sun goes down and the temperature drops and the stars come out…lovely!
Sounds like a lovely day! Here’s to your next two days being as enjoyable. Are your kids at the “let’s try to hip-check dad off to the side” stage of their skiing development yet? (My neighbours’ daughter started doing that when she was four – now she’s fourteen and into snowing boarders when they sit in the middle of a run.)
My local lift area opened one of it’s nice runs yesterday, so after cross-country skiing I put on the teles and hoped on the lift. Unfortunately, the first pitch sucked The Big Lebowski. We lost our Nov and early Dec snow in a deluge of rain, and a lot of freeze/thaw in the last two weeks has left the run I was interested in starting with a hundred feet of Zamboniski at 30 degrees. I was hoping for something both earlier in the season and lot more relaxing. (It’s a bit of a conundrum, for the key to true ice is sensitivity and subtlety, but you sure don’t feel like being sensitive and subtle when the ice isn’t giving you much to work with.) It made for interesting skiing last night. I shouldn’t complain, though, for I had the run entirely to myself – only me cycling through, getting reacquainted with my dancing partners, lightly holding them on the ice, then rhythmically bending them into the pitch and petite sautéing from arc to arc in the snow.
Not so much that but they do like to get a ski-full of powdery show and when I’m not watching flick it up into my face, they are also trying their best to skid-stop a ton of powder in my face as well. They never do it to their mother for some reason.
They also shout “loser” when they go past me. (They are starting to go past me far more often.)
They also seek out the jumps more than I do.
Let’s face it, it is a parent’s lot in life to be overtaken by their kids and be taunted by them. It is the natural way of things.
Incidentally. we did have beer and cocktails in the pool tonight, very nice it was (though we did have to explain to the kids the concept of “sex on the beach” and why a “safe sex on the beach” didn’t have alcohol in it) . There was no moon and when we swam to the far end of the pool away from the lights and most of the steam the stars were incredible.
And for the record I think “accidentally” covering inconsiderate boarders in the middle of the piste is very bad and wrong and could not in any way condone such actions.
What I don’t like about boarders more than anything is the noise they make. If they ride close behind it sounds like a catastrophe in progress all the time.
I spoke with one of my friends at the hill today who is an extremely good alpine skier (instructor and racer). Her daughter is a fifth generation skier.
Her daughter skied in utero up until two weeks prior to her birth. My friend said that her daughter kicked and moved about a lot during and after skiing.
Her daughter made her first post-birth attendance at the ski hill at four weeks of age, but stayed inside the clubhouse in the care of other skiers in her family when my friend was on the slopes, only being away from her baby for about fifteen minutes at a time.
Her daughter learned to indoor “ski” at four months of age shortly before she learned to walk. Her mother put her in tiny ski boots and skis on the living room carpet while supporting her upper body. The ski boot and skis provided ankle support, so the daughter was able to shuffle along (with her mother still supporting her upper body) prior to being able to toddle without skis and boots.
At two, the daughter was able to ski on the bunny hill, but still did not have enough strength to ski real hills.
At four, the daughter was comfortably skiing beginner slopes.
Last year at age five the daughter was comfortably skiing intermediate slopes, and occasionally venturing onto an advanced slope (the best GS run in Ontario) when it held snow and was not icy.
This year, at age six, the daughter is not bounced around as much by the snow, and by any adult standards is an intermediate recreational alpine skier who has very good technique, but does not have the strength or the weight that expert alpine skiers have.
The mother says that her daughter’s skiing has progressed as her daughter’s strength has progressed.
As far as skiing with kids being a chore, see if your hill has a program for ankle biters. It is not uncommon for hills to have programs for kids as young as four. While the tots are having fun learning to ski in a small group, you can have a bit of time on your own on the slopes.
OK, so much for alpine skiing. Now let’s have a look at cross-country skiing for kids. It is aerobically better for you and your kids than alpine skiing, and develops coordination and timing just as well as alpine skiing. The boots and skis are far lighter than alpine gear, which makes it a lot easier for wee ones to ski with the gear being an extension of their bodies rather than heavy platforms to which they are attached.
Perhaps more importantly, I have noticed a difference in ski cultures between cross-country and alpine skiers. The kids I have come across cross-country skiing have all been really nice kids. Happy, playful, polite, well mannered. Unfortunately, I can’t say this about all alpine skier kids that I have come across. Yes, by far most of the alpine kids are terrific too, but I have noticed a small minority of them who are assholes in the making – inconsiderate, rude, vulgar, spoiled brats.
Here in Kanukistan there are instruction programs for cross-country skiers of different ages. The youngest program is for kids four and under. Yes, under, thanks to the gear being so light.
Another big plus for cross-country skiing is that you don’t need any infrastructure. If there is snow, go ski it. It really is as simple as that. Want to make it exciting and develop some skills? Find a slight grade, do a bit of shovel work, and build your kids a cross-country playground. Here’s a video of just such a playground. Show this to your kids and see what they think.
The fellow who popularized skiing in Canada, Norwegian-Canadian Jackrabbit Johannsen, cut many of North America’s first cross-country and alpine trails, and built many of our first ski jumps. He skied with Roald Amundsen (the first person to ski to the south pole), and with Firdtjof Nansen (the first person to ski across the Greenland ice cap). At 93, he worked his way back to Norway as a bosun’s assistant, at 95 he climbed and skied in Iceland and Greenland, and recovered from a broken leg. He skied arctic ice fields at 100, and continued to ski until he caught pneumonia and died at 111 years and 204 days, thirty years ago on 5 January 1987.
The first running of the QUEBEC-KANDAHAR CUP DOWNHILL was in 1932, with the Mt. Tremblant course set by Jackrabbit Johannsen, who submitted the race report to the Canadian Amateur Ski Association. The following is an excerpt published in The Canadian Ski Annual 1932, pages 18-22:
*“Our party of competitors, officials and friends left Montreal on Saturday afternoon, March 12, and skied in from Lac Mercier station to Manoir Pinoteau, where we spent the night. The following morning at daybreak we started up the mountain, and of course used our skis all the way up. This gave all competitors an equal chance to become acquainted with the terrain.”
“The start was made at the Fire Ranger’s tower on top of the mountain with the finish near the lake. The competitors started with one minute intervals. The upper part of the mountain, from the tower to the Fire Ranger’s cabin has a slope of about thirty degrees and is covered with a nice stand of spruce and balsam with a few windfalls and other obstacles usually encountered in the Canadian woods. It was left to the competitors to choose their own way down this part of the mountain. The lower part of the run, from the cabin down to the finish at the lake, went through more open country, where more or less the same trail was followed by all contestants, and where most of the heavy timber had been cut or burnt, then over some ledges and finally through some second growth hardwood. The run gave the competitors a splendid test in typical Canadian country.”*
Downhill racer Peter Gillespie also made a report to the CASA which included:
*“About halfway down the top part I passed someone with his feet in a tree and his head hanging down the hill. He had given up the unequal struggle and was resting quietly.”
. . . .
“About this time everyone began to pile up and I passed two people wrestling together in a heap of rocks. Someone in front of me fell down and I ran over him, then he got up and ran over me. By this time there were bits of equipment strewn all over the place, mitts and caps, broken ski poles and pieces of ski.”
*
For anyone alpine skiing the Flying Mile at Tremblant, or cross-country skiing the Maple Leaf Trail through the Laurentians, or skiing any number of hills and trails cut by Jackrabbit in eastern North America, you are skiing in the tracks laid by a giant.
Thank you Jackrabbit, for leaving us with your legacy of skiing. We are better for what you have given us.
We got two semi-epic New England powder days, somewhat moderated by long lift lines because all the upper lifts were on wind hold. But what was open kicked ass, especially in the woods. One day on my new AT setup, the other on tele. The new AT skis are great in soft snow, not great on hardpack. Unfortunately, with the high winds you had to ski through a lot of wind scraped terrain to get back to the lifts.
Tomorrow is tele instruction practice at the 250’ hill I learned to ski at many moons ago. Always a fun time.
More like four feet. We’re getting pounded.
I hear the term is “Grays on Trays”.
We’re back home now and I’m sad but looking at the weather right now I realise how lucky we were with the weather.
Where we were this time last week has had two feet in the last day or so and the temperature highs are around -25C and windy…not nice.
Still, we are back to the same place at easter so if it dumps a load now we should be sitting pretty in April.