After a week of illness I wasn’t exactly feeling on form when I set off for Canada for a fortnight of skiing. The local chemist had said
to me the previous day, “The most important thing about flu is not to push your body too hard too quickly”. Of course, in my warped mind,
a fortnight of skiing is not pushing your body hard so I jumped on my BA flight to Vancouver regardless!
Nine hours later and I was picked up in Vancouver by Andre, the owner of my Whistler accommodation for the holiday, who kindly put me up
in his home in north Vancouver for the night. Needless to say, I went straight to bed in the hope of a miraculous overnight recovery from
my fatigued and achy state!
The next morning started with a jolt as the alarm went off at 6am. I was heading to Whistler (Cr-eek-side!) for my first day of
instruction from the guys at Yes Improvement at 8.30am! The reassuring thing was that I was no
longer feeling achy. However, when I hit the slopes with the instructor, Windall, I realised that I wasn’t feeling anything at all;
including my legs. The whole first day was spent with JLS (jelly leg syndrome) and I was relieved to make it to my studio apartment intact
enough to fall straight to sleep at 4pm.
Fortunately, Monday morning was a different affair altogether in that I finally felt human again. Human enough to eat 4 weetabix. Human
enough to feel aches and pains. Human enough to ski. And ski we did… launching off with Lincoln, our high mileage instructor for the
week, we wasted no time in finding all the steep and deep powder skiing available on Whistler mountain.
Monday was to set the pattern for the rest of the week with Lincoln, the highlights of the week being my first trip up Spanky’s Ladder
and into Ruby Bowl on Blackcomb along with the video filmed by our group for the entertainment of the other Yes Improvement guests. All of this was of course conducted in fantastic fresh powder snow all week.
Lincoln is also the guy that I have to thank for spotting that my knees “bend in strange ways” and referring me to George, the
best bootfitter in town. On Wednesday evening, George proceeded to grind the cuffs off my 300GBP ski boots, drill new holes and refit the
cuffs. All this to align the boots with my freakish leg angles. Fortunately, the net effect was a signicant reduction in A-Framing which
made my skiing look better with virtually no effort on my part! Nice!
Skiing with Yes also had additional benefits; namely that it introduced a very sociable element to what would otherwise have been a fairly
solitary ski-focussed trip. Tuesday evening was spent in the Brewhouse, Thursday apres was in the GLC and the conclusion of the week
(along with the video screenings) was in Miles’ restaurant. This meant hanging around with a bunch of Aussies (who didn’t seem to enjoy
talking about the Ashes or the Rugby world cup!) and a few brits too.
The main purpose of my trip was to complete my CSIA (Canadian Ski Instructor’s Alliance) level 2
qualifiction (the teaching part of which I achieved last April). This meant that what should have been my extra days off (Wednesday and
Sunday) were spent practicing for the exams on Monday and Tuesday the following week. Sunday was interesting because I found that my skis
were not performing very well on hard-packed snow so I did the only logical thing and went out and bought a new pair of skis (after a 2
hour demo run it should be said!).
When Monday arrived I was nervous… very nervous. It was almost as if 11 months had been spent waiting for this moment. Add to this the
fact that I was about to ski on brand-new, untried skis, and was still adjusting my skiing to a new boot alignment and you might imagine
how I was feeling. Anyway, the ice was broken (sorry!) by our instructor, Stephen, who proceeded to explain to me, in front of the rest of
the group, how to do up my (newly aligned) boots properly!!!
A significant number of my level 2 group (making up 8 of the 72 people taking the qualification in this sitting) had been skiing with ski
improvement companies such as Base Camp and the International Academy for 12 or more weeks with the sole objective being to pass their
level 2 exams. Although I ‘only’ had to do the skiing part this time, I returned for the final ceremony on Friday to find that 12 weeks
of preparation certainly didn’t guarantee success with the full pass rate running at about 60%.
One of the things I was nervous about before taking the level 2 exam was skiing the bumps. Although I had taken extra time to improve my
bumps skiing, I was nevertheless delighted to find that unlike when I took the level 2 exam last year, bumps were not on the syllabus this year. This meant it was time
to concentrate on the wedge turns, basic parallel, and short turns, forming 3/4 of the assessment. However, that was until Tuesday
afternoon when I was introduced to Vincent Lafontaine, the CSIA program director for the West of Canada, who just happened to be
overseeing our Level 2 course! Tuesday afternoon was spent skiing and demonstrating to Vincent and this culminated in our free run. As we
headed up Emerald, the target slope for our free run didn’t look too bad, but when we skied down to it, it was a full on bumps
run. Anyway, one by one we headed down there and I just about stayed on target (“Stay on target… stay on target”) enough to reach the
bottom in one piece. So that was that… all that remained was whether I’d passed or not.
The results ceremony for those of us only taking half of the qualification was conducted in front of all 72 candidates and, knowing that 5
of us were taking the ski-only exam, I was shaking with nerves when I spotted only 3 level 2 badges ready to be handed out. Sure enough, only three
people passed, but I’m delighted to say that I was one of them. Very shortly afterwards I was in the pub and celebrating with the rest of
the Yes crowd. This culminated in a bit of a pub crawl round Whistler and a dance with the Bacardi girls and a mini-Elvis (it’s just not
right!). I can only imagine what would have happened if I’d not passed!!!
Wednesday to Friday were spent free skiing, either with others or on my own. Thursday was particularly special with runs down Ruby Bowl
from Spanky’s, Couloir Extreme, The Blowhole and Cougar Chutes all completed by lunchtime! Friday night allowed a little time to pack for
my return home the next day and I managed to hit the slopes before 9am in order to get some last minute runs in. By mid-morning I was
getting fed-up with the lift queues (Saturday is the only day when this is ever a problem because of the locals visiting from Vancouver)
and decided to do some in-bounds “back-country” skiing by hiking up Flute mountain. The hike took about 30 mins after a long traverse on skis. By
the top I was pretty hot and ready for a good ski. Having assessed the shoulder of the mountain that I would ski down, I located the
entrance and ploughed down into what I found to be lots of steep and deep Extreme Pow™. This descent turned out to be the run of the week with my symmetrical
turns leaving sweet fresh tracks in the snow behind me.
After catching up with Neena, a friend from week one, for a couple of sunny runs in the afternoon, it was time for me to head home. As I
relaxed on the bus ride back to Vancouver, the sun set spectacularly over Howe Sound and I was left thinking about my break and trying to
work out how soon I could return!
