Hey everyone, Dan here. You might remember me from such Sue’s Outdoor Crew adventures as Kawartha Reboot, Bonjour Quebec City, or Hiking Gros Morne. Well, this week I’m stepping up from my regular position as editor in chief and second-in-command, and taking control of the keyboard to write about something Sue won’t do: Skiing.
After a seemingly much warmer than average December, winter is finally upon us here in eastern Ontario… sort of. As I write this in early February, it’s 4 degrees and it spent all last night raining so that any snow we do have will either be melted, or turned into piles of ice and slush. You see, unlike most people (or so it seems), I actually enjoy winter. Real winter. The kind of winters we used to have in central Newfoundland when I was a kid. The kind of winters where you had to dig your way out of the house after a snowstorm. The kind of winters where, if you stepped off the ski-doo track in the woods, you’d find yourself stuck in snow up to your chest. I miss those kinds of winters, and we just don’t get them here.
Despite the lack of snow, and as if I didn’t have enough expensive hobbies already – photography, music, and mountain biking – I decided a few years ago to give winter in Ontario a real try, so I signed Hayden and I up for some downhill ski lessons and we both fell in love with the sport immediately.
That first year, we visited local ski hills like Batawa and Brimacombe a few times and started building our confidence and skills. We’re actually really lucky to have a great little ski hill just a 20 minute drive from our house. It’s convenient and a great place to learn, however we also found ourselves getting bored of the short runs and limited options. So, on the advice of a friend, I decided last minute to book a trip to Mont Tremblant to closeout our first season on the slopes. That trip got us really hooked on skiing, and a tradition was born.
This year was our third year travelling to Mont Tremblant, which is about a five-hour drive for us, so in order to get a full day on the slopes and have time for other activities, we left home just after lunch on the first day. That got us to the resort with plenty of time to grab some food and spend an hour skating on the ice rink next to the hotel. Unfortunately, I forgot my phone in the hotel room so I don’t have any pictures, but I did bring my GoPro so we took turns taking some videos. Around the same time that we started skiing, I also started to teach Hayden to skate, at least as well as I can, given how awful I am at it! But he really enjoys it and is getting better every time we hit the ice.
After a short skate, we headed back to the hotel to relax and went to bed early because we wanted to start skiing as early as possible. As part of our hotel stay, we received a “first tracks” pass, which gave us access to the gondola before the public, so we had to be ready to go bright and early.
Getting to the top of the mountain first is awesome because there are very few people there that early. However, it also meant that there were only a couple of lifts operating and we had limited options for runs if we wanted to get back to the top again. That fact, combined with a little bit of enthusiasm and overconfidence – we had just completed two lessons in the previous weeks – led us to decide that our first run of the day should be a blue run. We were obviously way past green runs at this stage, right?
‘No more blue runs! That was crazy!’
I must say that, thanks to those lessons, I didn’t have that nervous feeling I used to have when looking down a steeper run. We skied over to the top of the nearest blue run, looked over the edge and decided this was totally doable. We were ready. And off we went without hesitation. As usual, I sent Hayden first. I like to use him as a test subject to see exactly how dangerous something is – I mean there’s no sense in us both being carried off the hill by ski patrol – plus, I like to keep an eye on him. Keeping track of him also helps me to focus on something other than my own mortality.
The good news is that I’m writing this, so you know we survived and even though I fell a couple of times at the start, I actually thought it went quite well. Hayden didn’t fall at all, and I thought everything was going great until we got to the bottom and he said to me “No more blue runs! That was crazy!” I thought that was strange given that we’ve done steeper runs, but I guess this one was so much longer that it freaked him out because there was no end in sight. Either way, after that excitement, we stuck to the easier runs for the rest of the day, which was probably for the best – we got to practice our skills, enjoy the day, and live to try again another.
The lifts at Tremblant stop at 3:30, and we finished our last run at around 3:00, so we squeezed every possible minute out of the day. Hayden didn’t even want to stop for snacks (whaaaaat?) so aside from lunch break we skied all day. We were both pooped and crashed at the hotel before going to grab some pizza – quick tip: go to restaurants around 5:00 and you’ll have the place to yourself.
It had already been a long day, but there’s always energy for sliding and tubing (another free perk that comes with the hotel), so after supper we headed to the tubing hill for some more fun. There are two options: Zipfy sleds, or tubes, both of which are a blast. The best part is there is a magic carpet to pull you to the top of the hill, so you don’t need to walk or drag the tubes to the top – which was good because we’d be doing enough of that at Winterlude the next day!
That was such a super read….read it out loud to hubby and he said it was awesome to hear about such an enjoyable weekend. Looking forward to seeing everyone soon. <3
GREAT JOB DAN!!!! Love your style of writing and descriptions of things. Hope to see a few more posts from you in the future! Cheers! 🙂