Arc 'em or park 'em!

Fernie is going through a bit of a dry spell at the moment, which means the off piste in bounds is looking pretty rough. There's plenty of decent snow around, but pretty much all of it is tracked and moguled, so its hard work getting down any slope you choose. Instead, todays lesson was based around technique on groomers and carving in preparation for the race day tomorrow.


We started with a few runs down the newly built skier cross course under the Deer chair, evaluating the terrain and working out the best line choice. We followed this up with a couple of races, most of which seemed to be decided on who had the best line into the first corner. I think pretty much everybody won and lost a race each.

The legends that are Wendy McIntyre and Ruben Bloembergen

After a few races, we headed up Timber for a few short turn drills to prepare for our first decent down Corner Pocket, then up White Pass and up to the entrance. From previous experience i knew the entry to the Corner Pocket chute wasn't particularly pleasant. Luckily Fernie has had a fair bit of snow over the recent fortnight which has hidden all of the rocks down the main chute, just a steady rappel over some tyres to access the very top of Lizard bowl. Usually this entrance promises fresh powder since most people won't fancy the route in, but although the snow was good, there were no first tracks to be had

Corner Pocket rappel

The afternoon consisted of more piste drills and video analysis sessions for steeps and carving techniques. We managed to pinch the sd card so we can see how our skiing is progressing throughout the time we've been here. I can certainly see some improvements ive made to my skiing and the others seem to think so too. I definately have not yet mastered the mountain, but hopefully the learning curve will carry on getting steeper. Unfortunately as of next week i'll have to do this without the help of the one and only Wendy Mac who is our instructor again for the last time!


Warning: This video does not contain any extreme skiing or powder facials. It is meant for training purposes only, viewer discretion is advised!

The day ended with a stretching session with Blair, a local kinesisologist, who gave advice on the primary stretches skiers should be doing before and after a day on the hill. Basically it just proved how inflexible most of us were so im sure we will definately be putting some of these into practice during the rest of the trip! Also just found out that Jenny has kindly arranged for us to have another 'Freestyle Friday' with Luke this week - score!

New SkullCandy toys, maybe my skiing will have some form of rhythm/flow now???