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.