The weekend after the Scumshine 5000, I teamed up with my buddy Max and we entered the Powder 8 competition at Lake Louise. What is it with me and taking the fun out of skiing powder! I dusted off my synchro skiing skills (It has been 4 years since I have paid CSIA dues, but I found synchro skiing relatively easy). We put together a solid run, and I skied pretty much as close behind Max as possible (my ski tips hit his tails on a couple of turns). While we were synchronized, I was a little out of position, almost skiing beside Max at one point. We failed to qualify, but that was OK as the lift tickets were cheap, and there was some pow to be skied in the bowl that hadn’t opened to the public yet! Thwarted on a dawn patrol mission of deep pow by closed highways…BLAST!
Then the weekend after that (family day weekend), I went for a solo backcountry ski mission. Although it is a realization that I need more touring partners, it was fun to crush some vert solo and if you go to a popular area, it is a relatively safe way to get some training and some pow skiing in. You can work on your race change-overs.
Now for the main event: We hit up Kootenay Pass on the way down. What a cool area! Nice short laps and you can ski right to the highway! We were a little unprepared for the west Kootenay cold (Since when does it get cold there?), and the snow was a little wind affected, but some good turns were had. Ainsworth hot springs was definitely WORTH it: we had a nice circuit of main pool - cave - cold pool and did multiple laps.
Off to Whitewater, the snow in the alpine was also wind hammered, inbounds was skied out, but I had some fun inbounds runs, and the new backside chair opens up a whole new world! Ran into Ian Gale, shit, looks like some tough competition in the race tomorrow!
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