Bad Snow!!!

So is it possible to go from never having skied, to a ski instructor in 9 months? Absolutely. I’m still not quite sure how, but I passed my three day assessment, so can now consider myself a qualified ski instructor with the CSIA (Canadian Ski Instructors Alliance), even if it is only level 1.  I was reasonably happy that I would be able to pass the teaching element of the assessment, but not so sure about my skiing. I was pretty certain the course examiner hated it; it felt like he punitively made me drag my poles for three days rather than letting me ski. After explaining the next drill he would turn to me and say, “Andy, you just drag your poles.” Turns out, it did help my skiing a little bit; I now do it all the time.

I am very pleased to have passed my course, perhaps even a little proud. The kids all seemed genuinely pleased for me, the consensus being that I worked really hard and deserved it. But does any of this actually mean I can ski well. No, probably not. I can ski better than I did before, but I’ve got a long way to go before I am a good skier, but why don’t you judge for yourself.

 

Verdict: Clearly bailed a jump, wobbly skis, a little bit ploughy, lack of mobility, poor separation and not much angulation. Ski instructor in training.

So what now I’ve finished my instructor’s course? What have I been up to? [certainly not writing my blog, it’s been a while, sorry]. Skiing of course!!!

Mostly I’m consolidating and putting into practice what I’ve learned, and trying to improve my deficiencies. As well as putting my new found instructor’s skills to good use.

At the insistence of my wife, I dared to give her another lesson, which hopefully went down better than my first attempt. I decided to unleash my killer, fix-all, ultimate drill upon her [the basketball drill]. At present, Charlie’s favourite film is ‘Finding Nemo’, and all I could think of while watching my wife traversing the slope bouncing an imaginary ball was Nemo’s disabled fin flailing around. I’m not sure with whom the fault lays: instructor or student. After working on this for a couple of runs though, I’m sure her skiing improved in the afternoon.

 

 

Having Fun

What better way to celebrate your second birthday than learning to ski with your newly qualified ski instructor dad. Another thing I was wrong about. We found some half-price strap on kids’ skis, which we thought would be fun, but actually only made her scream and cry. Even though she asked for them, desperately wanted to go skiing, and claims to have enjoyed it all and wants to go again.

 

I have been musing on the fact everyone keeps saying the snow is bad this year; and how this means very different things to Canadian’s and Brits.  I see that England has had its usual centimetre or two of snow, and whilst apocalyptic panic doesn’t appear to have set in, the news showed the usual chaos – Bad Snow. Here the temperature is at least 15˚C above where it should be, everything is melting and there has been hardly any snow. Ski resorts such as Fernie are rumoured to be on the verge of closing early; and it is the one of the worst ski seasons in years – Bad Snow.  Still from my somewhat inexperienced and possibly naive standpoint, things are pretty good; I’m skiing on something most days, even if it is warm and icy.  Got to be better than sitting in an office – right?

In search of good snow, we decided to venture further afield with a weekend trip to Golden and the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort. Golden, not so much. A small town that appears to have seen its best days, or they are a long way in the future. We did find a great bar, doing awesome burgers with an open mike country and western night; which was pretty pleasant, but the day we put aside for sightseeing was optimistic. KHMR is the ‘Champaign powder capital of Canada’ and could have been amazing, if only it had some snow – see comments above. The lower slopes were frozen solid hardpack with no snow, pretty much like trying to ski on concrete, only slippier. The upper bowls looked like they held so much potential; if only for a foot of pow. I had some fun playing around, but didn’t fancy tumbling down the double Ds without something a bit softer to land on. Awesome views and so much promise though. Probably worth a reshow on a pow day. We did see a wolf on the way home though. 

 Best Run of the Day

Golden High Street

Wolf Den open mike night

 

As I sit here sipping a beer, writing my blog, listening to DJ Gammer on HappyHardcore.com, “Can we get much higher...”, and reminiscing on the last few weeks, I am struck by the thought – life is good.  

EEK!!!

I found myself saying eek, and worse, a lot this week.  Mostly this was related to the skiing; as things seemed to step up a notch in terms of terrain.

I had an amazing instructor, who really helped me this week, but whose favourite saying is “steep & deep”.  We were very lucky to get plenty of the deep as we were blessed with some good powder days.  However, this just encouraged the instructor to throw the lesson plan out of the window. Wait there are no windows: in the air, in the trees, off a cliff. Instead we mostly went in search of the steep; this I did not feel so lucky about: Eek. 

It turns out steep and deep is usually found on off-piste black double diamond runs.  If you don’t know much about how North Americans classify their runs, all you need to know is that most Black DD routes have a sign at the top stating ‘Warning, Extreme Danger....’. They are generally in avalanche zones, very steep, have plenty of rocks and trees, and maybe the odd cliff. F***ing EEK!!!

Needless to say these runs significantly tested my ability to override thoughts of self preservation.  I found myself completely and utterly outside of my comfort zone; something which appears to make me completely forget all that I have been told about how to ski. The result of which is generally an uncontrolled, ever accelerating form of falling that inevitably ends up with me ejecting from my skis and tumbling down the slope.  But hey; its powder so always a soft landing, and at least you can’t see the rocks. Eek, ouch, eek, arrghh. I wonder why I can’t follow simple instructions, such as; ‘always look down the mountain’ when challenged by terrain?  I’ve never had great control of my body, but it generally does roughly what I ask.  

My skiing boundaries were definitely extended this week; I’m not ashamed to say at times I was pretty petrified, particularly moments before we literally dropped in to a Black DD.  On the plus side, regular black piste runs now seem pretty tame in comparison, and I seem to have more body control when skiing them. So maybe the lesson plan didn’t actually go out of the window, and the instructor is actually a genius: I am a better skier now. Will I go in search of my own ‘eek’ moments when I am skiing after my course?  Hell yeah. I want to be able to actually ‘ski’ them and there is immense pleasure from making it to the bottom alive.

As well as having a good instructor I was in with a good group of kids this week. Some of whom I have skied with before and have begun to get on with quite well. The kids were more than happy to wait patiently at the bottom of the sketchy runs as I tumbled down, probably much to their amusement. But more than that, one of them was always on hand to help me put a ski back on when I was sinking knee deep in powder, or had words of encouragement and cheered when I made it down with something close to skiing – even if shouts of ‘Andy the snowman’ were how I was first greeted. The kids seem to have some respect for the fact that I am following them down Black DDs with almost no skiing experience. I couldn’t have asked for a better group and now have a genuine respect, almost verging on camaraderie with the kids. Eek, I’m getting old and sentimental.

I also learnt: that ‘New Car’ has a huge blind spot; eek drive carefully.  It rains in Canada, which promptly freezes turning roads in to ice rinks; eek watch out for the lorry drivers who appear to not notice.  Chimneys don’t work too well when they are very cold; eek watch out for the smoke filling the house. A cougar [which I have learnt are more dangerous than bears] stalked a man on his way home from work, a couple of streets away from us; flipping eek.

The week ahead sees me taking my Level 1 instructors’ assessment Tue-Thur – eeekk.  This seems to have come round very quickly; I just about feel ready.  But only time will tell if I can go from never having skied to being a ski instructor within a year. Pass or fail I have had a great time, learnt a lot about and improved my skiing, learnt than skiing is fun and met some great people. 

This week’s eek moments have brought some happiness, and I am a better skier for them; but mostly it was a week I was glad to survive.  Bring on the assessment!!!

New New New

This week has been a week of new things; all of which, as far as I can recall, have been for the good. I know that doesn’t sound like me.

In another step towards experiencing the perfect Canadian life style, we brought a big fat North American car.  Back home we drive a fairly ordinary Ford Focus: functional and simple, with its 1.6 litre engine. So our Dodge Caravan with a 3.3L engine and more gadgets than you can figure how to work is quite a big step up. The minivan gobbles up skis, buggies, bags of shopping, all with plenty of space to spare; as well as drinking Gas, but that doesn’t matter because it is so cheap.  The car is so much better than our Focus, that we are already trying to work out how we can get it home. Charlie has taken to affectionately calling it ‘New Car’ and doing a little dance before getting in. Becky is grateful of the large armrests and handholds she can grip whilst I get used to the size and new road position; exclaiming watch out every time I get within two feet of the kerb.

After examining my skies one of the instructors was amazed I could even make it down a slope in one piece.  It turns out the ‘Beasts’ I purchased from eBay, not knowing the first thing about skies, are more for the expert skier – too long, too stiff in the tail, way too stiff in the nose, all in all too aggressive for a mere beginner such as myself. Happy to blame my poor performance on the Beasts I promptly purchased a new pair, meeting the recommendation of the instructors and more suited to my style. I shit you not, I have been absolutely amazed at how easy it is to ski in my new Blizzard F600s.  They don’t fight me and try to throw me over at every turn; they actually help me glide through my turns and provide me with a soft springy kiss as I exit them. Yeah New Skis!!!

Good job I replaced them too; with just one more week of instruction before my three day assessment I don’t have long left to master skiing. As well as the new skis we had a private  one to one lesson on Friday [having picked up my new skis on Thursday], a few pointers from the head instructor combined with my new skis, have transformed the way I ski.  Hopefully I am close to the desired standard.

New to skiing? Take lessons. I’m not just saying that as a prospective instructor.  I have firmly started to believe that with good instruction, learning to ski can be so much easier than making do with You Tube or having a bored instructor at a snowdome. Last week we went right back to basics, learning how to snow plough correctly, and how to teach a complete beginner how to go from never skiing to skiing parallel. I learnt so many things that I think I was already supposed to know. Because I learnt how to balance in the most basic way, I can even ski on one leg now; in that slightly patronising way that instructors do.

I have a new speed record of 84Mph, although I not sure I believe the app.  Whilst I feel like I am skiing scarily fast at times, I don’t quite think I have reached that near-death speed. Because I am too tight to pay for a complex app, I only have a very basic one; it doesn’t provide a run speed profile or record for how long you were at you max speed.  Mostly my max speed seems to be in the low 50s. So until I hit 84Mph again I will take it as an anomaly. But chasing speed is addictive; with me striving to override my desire for self preservation this could be a dangerous combination. 

I hadn’t crashed properly for a while until today; I was practising doing things my mind didn’t want to do and took quite a fast backward tumble.  It’s good to be reminded of my mortality and the need to further improve my skiing.  I have noticed that I seem to crash more when I am by myself; I am not quite sure of the reason why.  Let’s hope my new quest to override my self-preservation only extends to skiing.

The temperature here has been a funny old thing.  In our first week we were faced with bone chilling -20˚C; last week people were exclaiming spring had arrived early as we got to +7. On Wednesday I found myself skiing in just a baselayer, until the sun went in and I got very cold, very quickly. A good lesson learnt in a nice safe way. Is it a coincidence that locals were exclaiming it was the worst start to a ski season in 30 years when I was in Val D’Isere?  However despite the spring-like temperatures, my right hand seems to get very cold indeed [probably as a result of my old injury] at a mere -5 it is quite painful; this has lead me to make yet another new purchase.  After doing much research I have bought a set of mittens which were described on a review website [outdoorgearlab.com] as ‘quite simply, ideal for people who get very cold hands’.  As the temperatures have dipped again and we once again have a fairytale covering of snow all over, I hope this turns out to be true.

On Sunday I decided to use my new found knowledge of how to teach skiing to completely overwhelm my wife with tips and instructions; causing her to have her own mini-breakdown. I think I need to work on my teaching style. I am sure there is a rule about not teaching your spouse and or siblings how to do anything. I placated her by buying her a new set of skis too.  The event was reminiscent of my dad teaching my mum how to drive many years ago; that day ended with my mum throwing the car keys across of the car park at Sherwood Forest.

Charlie is embracing her new found Canadian identity:

Pancakes & Maple Syrup

Anyone for Ice Hockey?

As well as new material goods, this new year has really been a new beginning: a new start. Whether it is temporary or not, I do seem to have found new happiness in my life. This is making me appreciate what I have anew.