Today's skiing reminded me why I love the sport even though my left foot was hurting throughout (bad alignment and contorted footbed) and I was feeling tired before I'd even started! After a number of horrible weather days, yesterday was much better and the sunshine broke out in the afternoon at the same time as Harmony lift opened to access a week's worth of alpine powder snow. You see whilst the village and mid mountain had been getting rain all week, the alpine lifts had been shut as a result of a daily deluge of new snow. Unfortunately I was only able to manage a half day on the slopes yesterday so I set myself up for a big day today...
It started with morning session and in bright sunshine, skiing with Natalie as our instructor for the first time this season (one of the two Interski representatives from Whistler... the other being her husband Russ!), we proceeded to ski fresh powder lines from the Roundhouse down to Garbo, then all the way down Dave Murray to Big Red. Quite a way to start the day! Dave and I then skied another run on Emerald rather than skiing down to the bottom and changing into civies!
Next up it was training and although everyones' favourite trainer, Guy was training, he was still recovering from the knee injury sustained during the technical champs so was taking a low intensity teaching session only. This meant that Dave and I jumped into Benoit's group with the intention of ripping up fresh powder for the day. Our expectations were met by a day spent charging through the VD trees, Whistler Bowl, West Bowl, Glacier Cirque and T-Bar bowl. Most of the day involved either deep powder, steeps, trees or all three! Bearing in mind that I was on my lovely narrow carving Nordicas (yes I'm now skiing more often than not on my new Nordicas rather than my Salomons!), the powder was a challenge but fortunately it was one that I was able to deal with and to enjoy.
Benoit kept the day fun by keeping his directions brief and to the point, whilst keeping skiing to a maximum. I had a super day and although I'm pretty achy as a write this, I think it was all worth it! I needed a day like today to remind myself how much I love skiing. It's great to be going through my last week out here and still loving my skiing, but I have no regrets about coming home next week. I feel like sleeping for a week... but I know I won't be allowed!
