Saturday 4 January 2014

Powder hunting in Fernie..

Having spent a week in Fernie I am definitely in love!

It is completely different to the average European resort. There aren't very many groomers. A large proportion of the terrain isn't piste bashed and there are a plentiful supply of trees.

On my third day it started to snow, and suddenly this place comes to life. All the nasty looking steep tree runs suddenly become a play ground.

The next day it hadn't stopped, 33cm overnight halfway up the mountain and even more up top and it was still going.

Fernie is made up of five open bowls and two were closed while avalanche control were doing their thing. We had fresh powder in the morning and then again when currie bowl opened later in the day.

Some don't like the fact that cedar bowl didn't open at all that day, however this just meant we had a fresh bowl to play with the next day:


At the end of this line of people is a rope! A magical rope that means all the terrain on the other side is closed. If you look carefully there is a man in orange who is about to open the area.

What followed was a race for the fresh powder. I snook in just below the crowd and got fresh lines all the way down!

Monday 23 December 2013

Courchevel April 2013: The happy couple

Having only went skiing once in the 2011/12 season I was determined not to repeat a single trip season so I went on a end of season bash. The highlight was a fancy dress competition, all I won was a measly t-shirt..

Fancy dress time!

It has been glorious weather until I ditched the salopettes and ski jacket, then it decided to rain, snow and reduce the visibility to a few meters at time!

I wasn't alone, my friends made up the other parts of the wedding..

The happy couple!

The start of the obsession..

Apart from a school ski trip I only started skiing at the grand old age of 26, I'm now 28 and have quit my job to spend a season learning to be a ski instructor in Canada.

I started with a single week in Andorra at Soldeu. Before going I did a day at the snow dome at Milton Keynes which put me in good stead for my first day on the real slopes. The day started with a skiing assessment to see what level we were at, I'd booked in for intermediate lessons as I didn't want to be put in a beginners lesson.

We did a single run down a green slope watched by the instructors. Somehow my day skiing at Milton Keynes got me in the top level intermediate class - I was somewhat shocked. After the assessment was finished they took the 8 of us to the closest chair lift. The route down was much steeper than the one we did the assessment on - quite frankly I was petrified, it was the steepest I'd skied since my trip back at school! And by petrified, I mean hooked!