Preparing for the new season!

It’s hard to believe that summer has already come and gone and we are on the cusp of another ski season. Let’s hope the wet summer translates into a snowy Winter – and one that begins in November and stays until at least Easter! 

Sasha & I have had an active summer with plenty of golf, cycling, and ultimate Frisbee three nights a week. We are stronger, fitter, and ready to challenge ourselves this winter on the slopes.  

Our plan is to start the season early and get at least 25 days on snow before the holidays. We start in mid-October shortly after thanksgiving when we’ll be travelling to Zermatt, Switzerland for the second time for a two week training camp on the glacier. Once again we’ll be with Sandy Gardner and his myswisstrip program. 

I’ll be taking my Level 2 coach during the first week. Sasha will join me for the second week as we both focus on training for our Level 4 CSIA. 

We’re hoping that by having a more active summer we’ll find the sweet spot on our skis sooner so that we can get the most out of the short winter in Ontario. 

I’m back on Head skis this year. I’ll have three pairs in rotation – my CHIP XRC’s from last season which are great all mountain skis, a world cup race stock Head slalom ski (but with softer bindings to make them more versatile) and a longer set of Super Shape Speed for the days that I’m skiing on bigger vertical. 

Sasha will likely be back on Atomic this year (ST 12) – although she is considering a switch back to her Lange boots. 

I’ve made some minor updates to our blog that we hope you enjoy. Specifically, we’ve added a pluggin that will make grinandbarrett.ca also a  photoblog – so you’ll be seeing weekly images from our adventures posted to our site starting this week.  

We also encourage you to follow us on Twitter. Links to both our accounts can be found on the top left navigation bar. 

The countdown to snow begins… now!

(photo: Esta Evans, Phil Barrett and Sasha Gollish  at Anik & Jeff’s wedding this summer!)