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Sasha & I are in Mont Sainte Anne this week taking our level 4 Instructors course. Located about 8 hours north-east of Toronto or about 3 hours north of Montreal, Ste Anne is a great proving ground for instructors looking to achieve skiing’s equivalent of a kung fu black belt – the level 4.

We spent our first day working on ski improvement and skiing mostly on the front side (or the steep side) of the mountain. With over 2 feet of fresh snow on the ground from the last 24hrs, the conditions were fantastic.

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This season marked the opening of Revelstoke in British Columbia – one of six new ski & riding projects in British Columbia.

On the edge of the Selkirk Range, Revelstoke will be offering over 6,000 feet of vertical which is the longest in North America.  With light snow, huge vertical, and massive amounts of acres to explore, we’re putting Revelstoke at the top of our list for this spring. We have a friend working at the mountain and hope to bring you an insiders view of the mountain soon.

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Last year the entire world was suffering from one of the warmest winters in memory. Global warming had apparentely arrived and the evidence could be seen at glaciers and ski resorts around the world.

World Cup races were being cancelled due to a lack of snow and athletes trained on roller blades in the rain… well accept for our Canadian athletes who benefited from skiing on our own Farnham glacier

It seemed like every mountain or resort not named Whistler was suffering from a brutal season.

This season thankfully started off with lots of snow and enough consecutive cold days for Eastern resorts to make millions of gallons of snow to compliment what mother nature sent to us.  As a result many resorts opened in late November and had substantial terrain open by the first week of December – including Blue Mountain in Ontario which bounced back from a brutal holiday season last year. As a result, you can expect planned resort upgrades to the Orchards to begin this summer.  

Thanks to the early season snow and snow making, Eastern resorts are well prepared for the January thaw that hit us last weekend. If you are planning a trip to your local hill or mountain this weekend, you can still expect great coverage and nearly all the terrain to be open.

The longer term forecast is calling for colder weather to roll in starting Friday of this week and continuing into next week.

Our season has been saved by the early snow and cold whether. wOOt!

In an earlier post last week I joked about “safety first” going too far in Ontario and speculated how far resorts will take it.

Turns out one of my predictions is already in practice at Whistler, B.C.

If you are ripping it too fast down the lower side of the mountain at Whistler, you will now get a speeding ticket!

Knarly Karly – a friend of a friend who carves a mean turn on her snowboard was busted at the bottom of the hill for going too fast and was advised that the fine would be charged directly to her edge card.

Enforcing a slow zone with speeding tickets does make sense – especially when you have over 15,000 people on the mountain at one time with different abilities… but let’s hope enforcement stays restricted to the bottom of the runs!

Happy Holidays everybody from Grin and Barrett. 

After spending 4 quality days in Collingwood where Sasha rookied her first level 1 course at Blue Mountain and Phil spent 4 days ripping down the hills of Alpine, we’re taking 3 days off the hills to spend quality time with our family before heading to Whistler Blackcomb for a week.

We’re bringing two sets of skis each – one pair to rip and one pair to float.  Thanks to our new wireless card for the laptop, we’re planning on posting updates from Whistler with pictures and maybe a small video or two.

We’ve also discussed video taping a half dozen or so ski “tips” that we can then post on this site throughout the season. Topics such as – best way to ski powder (assuming we get some), bumps, steeps, or carve down a mountain. Any suggestions or ideas? Let us know and we’ll do our best to incorporate it into our filming.

Happy Holidays!

In the midst of a brutal start to the ski season last year, my friend Pete Partington extended an invitation to visit him in Alta, Utah in time for some New Year’s celebration.

Besides finding good snow and good company, we met Kristen Ulmer who used to star in Warren Miller movies in the mid-nineties and was a pioneer of extreme and big mountain skiing. As it turns out, there are many current and former ski heroes living in and around Park City.  

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Welcome to our ski and travel blog. 

Skiing to us is not just a weekend passion, but a lifetime obsession. When we say skiing – we really mean anything outdoors in the winter that involves navigating some vertical with a sliding device - usually with two planks we call skis… although we subscribe to anything that allows us to carve, float, or rip down a knoll, hill, or mountain. We also both snowboard and will venture on snow blades a few times a year.

We live in Ontario but travel often to either extend or enhance our experience on snow.

We are decidely new-school in our approach and appreciation to the sport - which usually means we’d rather do than tell.

We’ll use this forum to share and recount stories of our travels to near and far away places while also providing insight, perspective and point of view on ski and coaching trends and techniques. We are also big fans of ski racing and free skiing and will be following our national teams throughout the season.

Our blog will be part commentary, part news and part photos and video. Please also be part of the conversation – comment on our articles or email us directly with your point of view, stories, pictures, and video.

The 2007 / 2008 season is off to a great start in Canada - so if the time between posts goes beyond the norm, it’s probably because we are too busy stuffing our faces with powder, steeps, or vertical.

See you on the steep side….

Phil & Sasha