Most simply this blog is about about a trip to Canada, which many people have called a midlife crisis. This is probably true, why else do you take six months off work travel 4200 miles and blow your daughters university fund on a whimsical holiday. I will be spending my time living in the mountains in the town of Canmore Alberta enjoying all that the mountains have to offer; skiing, climbing, hiking, ice climbing, backcountry skiing, ski mountaineering and many other exciting things. But at its heart I think my midlife melt down is actually a quest for happiness.

Sunday, 18 January 2015

So what did I learn after my first week skiing in Canada, eh?


Now down to the real business of my blog; first maybe I should rewind a little, instead of just diving straight in.

Over a few beers my friend Steve planted the idea in my head that I should learn to ski. I can't believe that this hadn't occurred to me before: I love snow, mountains and being outdoors; I was born to ski. I could complain about how I had a deprived childhood because my parents didn't ski or that I was to busy 'studying' and too poor at uni to go with my flatmates, or that my wife thinks skiing is an elitist sport -but I won't.  The fact of the matter is I never really got round to it. I always meant to learn.

Now here I am roughly in midlife and suddenly I need to learn to ski quickly so I can go skiing with Steve next time he goes.  It was pretty obvious the best thing to do was to take an intensive ski course abroad, and hey, why not become a ski instructor while I was at it.

I found the perfect course; the minimum skiing entry standard of which was roughly three weeks' worth of holiday skiing, equating to being able to perform linked parallel turns. Awesome, what's a linked parallel turn?

May last year saw me ski for the very first time at the Snowdome. Sensibly I had a day's instruction to get the basics, but I didn't like the patronising style of the instructor so switched to you tube for a much better and cheaper alternative. Five sessions later I looked like this.....



Pretty rubbish, eh?  But that was one week's holiday skiing under my belt, right?

Next off to France with my brother [also a complete beginner, the one in yellow] for a long weekend's skiing, Dec 2014.  Three days: one week. Potato, patato. A little better, but not exactly parallel ....



With my ski instructor's course starting on 11 Jan 2015, I arrived in Canada on New Year's Day ready for a new start, and terrified that I wouldn't be good enough for the course. The only thing to do was to push my very limited skiing limits to the limit.

After five days skiing by myself, I have learnt a lot about skiing in Canada. So I thought I would share:

  • Sandwiches freeze when skiing
  • Tiger Balm and Icepacks are a daily requirement
  • -25C is very cold
  • Learn what the piste signs mean before skiing and obey them
  • Bamboo canes mean hidden danger; not - ski here
  • If you leave your leg vent zips undone expect to get snow in them when tumbling
  • Skiing can be scary


  • Skiing can be dangerous [maybe I’ll tell you about my first day scare sometime]
  • Chairlifts aren't as scary as I thought
  • Landing in powder is like landing on a bed of feathers
  • Ice hurts
  • Avalanche cannons sound like IDF and apparently make me jump a little
  • Trees are forgiving

  •  I am very glad I brought an expensive helmet
  • Skiing on piste you only have to worry about speed and people, off piste there are all kinds of dangers - rocks, trees, cliffs and avalanches; but at least there are no people.

  • To get ski fit, do a kilometre's worth of lunges a day before breakfast – not quite there yet
  • I can ski a little, but I can’t ski as well as my route selection would suggest 

  • Skiing is AMAZING!!!

Did I make the linked parallel turns entry standard?  We'll see :-)








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