05/09: Tis the season
A propos of nothing, I keep dreaming I’m flying…
On this board, attached to my feet. Through air. Far below is all this white stuff. What do you call that stuff again? I miss that stuff.
I mean, it’s not like I’ve been sneaking into grocery store walk-in freezers to writhe orgasmically against the frost on the walls or nothin’. That’d be silly. Who started that rumour? Lies, I tell you. All lies.
But I miss that stuff…
Last season sucked on this coast. For the safety and security of the free world, it must not be so again this year. I’m not a mad genius or nothin’. But I think I could learn, if it were all that were left to me.
The climate modellers did not consider this: the potentially insane boarder tipping point problem. Tell them to put it into the sims. It matters immensely, I assure you.
On this board, attached to my feet. Through air. Far below is all this white stuff. What do you call that stuff again? I miss that stuff.
I mean, it’s not like I’ve been sneaking into grocery store walk-in freezers to writhe orgasmically against the frost on the walls or nothin’. That’d be silly. Who started that rumour? Lies, I tell you. All lies.
But I miss that stuff…
Last season sucked on this coast. For the safety and security of the free world, it must not be so again this year. I’m not a mad genius or nothin’. But I think I could learn, if it were all that were left to me.
The climate modellers did not consider this: the potentially insane boarder tipping point problem. Tell them to put it into the sims. It matters immensely, I assure you.
03/08: Ski hills in the summer
… are weird. But there really should be a song with that title.
(Checks…)
Nope. Not yet. In fact, the phrase ‘ski hills in the summer’ only returns eight hits in Google, as of this writing.
Presumably, when the spiders make it this way, this will rise to nine…
Slightly more seriously: we were at Tremblant this weekend. Pre-season business. Arranging a condo, getting pass photos taken. There for the day, anyway, as a side effect, so we walked ‘round, did this ‘luge’ thing they’d set up, which is this cars-rolling-down-a-grade thing. Kinda a natural when you’ve got grades anyway. Then hit the beach.
Yeah, we’re gambling a bit on the biggest hill in the east this year. Thought being: rain’s been coming hard all summer, looks like a La Nina year, let’s hope there’s snow…
Ski runs in the summer are… enlightening. You count exposed rocks, try to remember where they are for later. The crowd at the hill’s interesting. I must confess, I was glancing sideways at legs, trying to work out: those ever been used for skiing or boarding?
Yes, that’s really the main reason I was looking at those.
Okay, it’s among the reasons. And I never really drew any conclusions, there. Anyway…
Anyway, the beach was good. Built a sand castle with the little guy. He got a bit of an education in spoken French, as the other little ones running around were mostly using that.
Vignette of the day: me saying to the Francophone mother of those as the castle finally washes out, kids pouring water under it, through the tunnel we’d built, ‘Well, they do say this about castles made of sand…’
Do they say that in French?
(Checks…)
Apparently they do. Guess that’s good. Mebbe not entirely incomprehensible at the other end. It’s sometimes hard to tell.
Anyway: so we’re ready. Or as ready as we’re going to be, I guess.
(Checks…)
Nope. Not yet. In fact, the phrase ‘ski hills in the summer’ only returns eight hits in Google, as of this writing.
Presumably, when the spiders make it this way, this will rise to nine…
Slightly more seriously: we were at Tremblant this weekend. Pre-season business. Arranging a condo, getting pass photos taken. There for the day, anyway, as a side effect, so we walked ‘round, did this ‘luge’ thing they’d set up, which is this cars-rolling-down-a-grade thing. Kinda a natural when you’ve got grades anyway. Then hit the beach.
Yeah, we’re gambling a bit on the biggest hill in the east this year. Thought being: rain’s been coming hard all summer, looks like a La Nina year, let’s hope there’s snow…
Ski runs in the summer are… enlightening. You count exposed rocks, try to remember where they are for later. The crowd at the hill’s interesting. I must confess, I was glancing sideways at legs, trying to work out: those ever been used for skiing or boarding?
Yes, that’s really the main reason I was looking at those.
Okay, it’s among the reasons. And I never really drew any conclusions, there. Anyway…
Anyway, the beach was good. Built a sand castle with the little guy. He got a bit of an education in spoken French, as the other little ones running around were mostly using that.
Vignette of the day: me saying to the Francophone mother of those as the castle finally washes out, kids pouring water under it, through the tunnel we’d built, ‘Well, they do say this about castles made of sand…’
Do they say that in French?
(Checks…)
Apparently they do. Guess that’s good. Mebbe not entirely incomprehensible at the other end. It’s sometimes hard to tell.
Anyway: so we’re ready. Or as ready as we’re going to be, I guess.
… or the alignment of the axial tilt with the position of the sun…
Anyhoo, as that progresses, there are now bags from Tommy and Lefebvre—the local provisioner of gear required for certain sacred rites—in the front hall.
The annual warehouse sale has passed. More importantly: the solstice is more than four weeks gone. Winter, she is icumen in. Or icumen a little closer, anyway. Arrangements are in progress. Passes purchased. Places to stay arranged…
I mean, sure all this flying stuff’s okay as diversion. In this, that other season. But we should be back to real life shortly…
Real life. Y’know… snow… vertical acceleration…
(/Gets faraway look…)
Anyhoo, as that progresses, there are now bags from Tommy and Lefebvre—the local provisioner of gear required for certain sacred rites—in the front hall.
The annual warehouse sale has passed. More importantly: the solstice is more than four weeks gone. Winter, she is icumen in. Or icumen a little closer, anyway. Arrangements are in progress. Passes purchased. Places to stay arranged…
I mean, sure all this flying stuff’s okay as diversion. In this, that other season. But we should be back to real life shortly…
Real life. Y’know… snow… vertical acceleration…
(/Gets faraway look…)
08/04: Sorta fried
Pro tip: driving for some five hours and change, riding for four whole days of spring conditions at Mont Ste-Anne, then getting right back in the car at the end of that last day, just as the lifts close, to drive the five hours and change back can be a bit hard on the body…
Worth it, sure. The first three days were beautifully sunny—was riding in my shorts comfortably again for the middle two (last was a bit chilly for that, first I woulda had to come back to the hotel and retrieve such gear, so did wind up a bit roasted). Got a mild sunburn, too, sure, despite all efforts to keep slathering on UV blocking gunk, but when that’s all you’ve got to complain about, you’ve really got nothing to complain about.
The conditions over there are a bit marginal, tho’, especially on the south side. All la famille were present this time, and on one run, my lovely wife had a little fall into some rocks (nothing awful—one memorable bruise) when we unexpectedly found ourselves with almost nowhere else to go, and I had to shepherd the little guy very carefully through some tiny little two feet-wide tongues of snow between such exposures. Man, but it’s been an awfully thin season. Dunno who tracks this stuff, but I wonder if there are worse ones anywhere back there in living memory.
The cool part of that rock run, tho’: the eldest, our little technical skier, absolutely flew through it all, no issues. After getting the little guy down, we found her waiting calmly for us far, far down the slope. That kid can handle that kind of trouble, no trouble, apparently.
North side, on the other hand, is still pretty much all right. Might even go back for another helping, in a bit, just stay the hell away from the south. Just as soon as I can convince myself I can face the drive again.
Worth it, sure. The first three days were beautifully sunny—was riding in my shorts comfortably again for the middle two (last was a bit chilly for that, first I woulda had to come back to the hotel and retrieve such gear, so did wind up a bit roasted). Got a mild sunburn, too, sure, despite all efforts to keep slathering on UV blocking gunk, but when that’s all you’ve got to complain about, you’ve really got nothing to complain about.
The conditions over there are a bit marginal, tho’, especially on the south side. All la famille were present this time, and on one run, my lovely wife had a little fall into some rocks (nothing awful—one memorable bruise) when we unexpectedly found ourselves with almost nowhere else to go, and I had to shepherd the little guy very carefully through some tiny little two feet-wide tongues of snow between such exposures. Man, but it’s been an awfully thin season. Dunno who tracks this stuff, but I wonder if there are worse ones anywhere back there in living memory.
The cool part of that rock run, tho’: the eldest, our little technical skier, absolutely flew through it all, no issues. After getting the little guy down, we found her waiting calmly for us far, far down the slope. That kid can handle that kind of trouble, no trouble, apparently.
North side, on the other hand, is still pretty much all right. Might even go back for another helping, in a bit, just stay the hell away from the south. Just as soon as I can convince myself I can face the drive again.
Forecast for today sez wet flurries here, turning to snow overnight. Ten centimeters for Tremblant. Twenty for Mont Ste-Anne…
It’s… somethin’. I guess. Could be more impressed, make no mistake. But the Ste-Anne thing is cool. I’m thinking I’ll probably try to slip out there a few times this spring, ‘long as they’re still open.
(/You may file this under ‘does not give up easily’.)
It’s… somethin’. I guess. Could be more impressed, make no mistake. But the Ste-Anne thing is cool. I’m thinking I’ll probably try to slip out there a few times this spring, ‘long as they’re still open.
(/You may file this under ‘does not give up easily’.)
05/03: Whistler in photos
I find myself fondest of those moody shots through cloud. Found myself commenting on the chair to some of those exulting over one of the clearer, brighter days and the beauty of the mountains all around visible for miles and miles that yes, that was all postcard, but I loved the very feel of it when I found myself in cloud near the peak, and there were crags and snow-capped trees looming like ghosts through the mist. That shot of the sun against a steep slope, there, and that high traverse are both from a day and time like that: the peak of Whistler, cloud in a wreath around it, snow coming down out of it. The peak chair would climb up into it, and you were in this whole new, eerily beautiful world.
(/… But y’know, that’s just me. Just gotta be different, is all.)
(/ETA: Added one more—dunno how that got left out.)
(/Click on each to embiggen, natch… Also, warning: 2 MB each.)
So yes, I spent this last weekend at Tremblant. Got to looking at the forecast for the weekend here and the forecast there, and then got to thinking it was the better option. And what with this being a really, really thin season, snowfall-wise, I also got to thinking it might not be wise to wait ‘til the March holidays to do this, which had been the plan, previously.
And man, but the Olympics were all over the damned place, there. Friday night in Le Diable (it’s this brewpub I sometimes frequent), it’s the game against Slovakia, and people yelling. Then it’s some speed skaters, taking a gold, more yelling…
Thought for the moment: I’m not sure ever seen people yell about speed skating before. Not that that’s a bad thing or nothin’…
Saturday night is Jasey Jay Anderson night. That’s Tremblant’s favourite son (can you still call a veteran in his thirties now, a favourite ‘son’, exactly?) taking his gold in the parallel giant slalom. Add a few decibels to the music, to the screaming. It’s written on the whiteboard of the tapas place I sat in a while that eve: ‘Jasey Jay got the gold’…
Me, I saw only his first heat—I only heard his winner. It’s on the agenda to see it, sure—there’s a (rare) sport I’ll absolutely watch, at least. And with the crazy visibility on the course, what I did see was absolutely something to see—big boarders on big alpine boards, screaming out of the fog…
(Makes note to self again to try out an alpine board sometime…)
… but yeah, I’ve only heard it so far. Funny how after a whole day on Tremblant, some of it pushing some more aerial work, some of shepherding a five year old, you do get a bit worn out… I heard Anderson win in the next room, the rest of la famille watching it, while I lay there in the dark working on getting some sleep, letting some stressed joints and muscles settle down. And reflected that the guy out there beating the world cup champion wasn’t that much younger than I am. Impressive.
Sunday night we’d had this plan to eat in the village before coming back. But it wasn’t to be. The men’s hockey team was playing the US for the gold, and damn, but getting a seat anywhere where there was also a TV—which turned out to be most of the places we might have eaten—just wasn’t on…
I was in such an establishment for the first goal, trying to get such a table. The goal scared the hell outta me and the hostess I was talking to, since we weren’t looking, and then everyone yelled all at once…
Anyway, we gave up on the table, headed home, heard on the radio enroute that Canada had won. And getting out of the car at home, you could hear cars several blocks away honking, people yelling…
Presuming it was over the hockey game. Maybe the whole scene. I guess either way would make sense. Fourteen golds in the winter games is a record, sure. And people do go a bit crazy over hockey around here…
They’re talking about this on the radio now about this being some kinda defining moment. I guess I’m okay with that—I guess it was. I don’t really watch hockey, but at least find myself vaguely pleased the speed skaters got some attention, a little more distinctly pleased Jasey Jay and Ms. Maelle Ricker did…
What can I say. I’m not a team player. Sez so right on most of my performance assessments…
In less pleasing news, the season’s ending. There’s grass between the moguls on some of the runs at Tremblant. I wish I could report better… And I get to thinking about the fact the pundits are saying Harper and his fellow assholes are counting on the post-Olympic glow to distract people from the fact that yes, they just prorogued parliament again rather than face the music on some bad shit outta Afghanistan… And I find myself more ‘n slightly pissed off about that, on balance…
So, on a more sobering note, people, let’s get back to work, now. The climate’s headed for the shitter, and we’ve got the fucking dregs of a prairie bible study group who probably figure praying over shit counts as doing something about it running the fucking parliament. And I don’t want my kids asking me in puzzlement, when they’re 15, whether they really vaguely remember something white and cold we used to call snow.
(/Sadly packs away board…)
And man, but the Olympics were all over the damned place, there. Friday night in Le Diable (it’s this brewpub I sometimes frequent), it’s the game against Slovakia, and people yelling. Then it’s some speed skaters, taking a gold, more yelling…
Thought for the moment: I’m not sure ever seen people yell about speed skating before. Not that that’s a bad thing or nothin’…
Saturday night is Jasey Jay Anderson night. That’s Tremblant’s favourite son (can you still call a veteran in his thirties now, a favourite ‘son’, exactly?) taking his gold in the parallel giant slalom. Add a few decibels to the music, to the screaming. It’s written on the whiteboard of the tapas place I sat in a while that eve: ‘Jasey Jay got the gold’…
Me, I saw only his first heat—I only heard his winner. It’s on the agenda to see it, sure—there’s a (rare) sport I’ll absolutely watch, at least. And with the crazy visibility on the course, what I did see was absolutely something to see—big boarders on big alpine boards, screaming out of the fog…
(Makes note to self again to try out an alpine board sometime…)
… but yeah, I’ve only heard it so far. Funny how after a whole day on Tremblant, some of it pushing some more aerial work, some of shepherding a five year old, you do get a bit worn out… I heard Anderson win in the next room, the rest of la famille watching it, while I lay there in the dark working on getting some sleep, letting some stressed joints and muscles settle down. And reflected that the guy out there beating the world cup champion wasn’t that much younger than I am. Impressive.
Sunday night we’d had this plan to eat in the village before coming back. But it wasn’t to be. The men’s hockey team was playing the US for the gold, and damn, but getting a seat anywhere where there was also a TV—which turned out to be most of the places we might have eaten—just wasn’t on…
I was in such an establishment for the first goal, trying to get such a table. The goal scared the hell outta me and the hostess I was talking to, since we weren’t looking, and then everyone yelled all at once…
Anyway, we gave up on the table, headed home, heard on the radio enroute that Canada had won. And getting out of the car at home, you could hear cars several blocks away honking, people yelling…
Presuming it was over the hockey game. Maybe the whole scene. I guess either way would make sense. Fourteen golds in the winter games is a record, sure. And people do go a bit crazy over hockey around here…
They’re talking about this on the radio now about this being some kinda defining moment. I guess I’m okay with that—I guess it was. I don’t really watch hockey, but at least find myself vaguely pleased the speed skaters got some attention, a little more distinctly pleased Jasey Jay and Ms. Maelle Ricker did…
What can I say. I’m not a team player. Sez so right on most of my performance assessments…
In less pleasing news, the season’s ending. There’s grass between the moguls on some of the runs at Tremblant. I wish I could report better… And I get to thinking about the fact the pundits are saying Harper and his fellow assholes are counting on the post-Olympic glow to distract people from the fact that yes, they just prorogued parliament again rather than face the music on some bad shit outta Afghanistan… And I find myself more ‘n slightly pissed off about that, on balance…
So, on a more sobering note, people, let’s get back to work, now. The climate’s headed for the shitter, and we’ve got the fucking dregs of a prairie bible study group who probably figure praying over shit counts as doing something about it running the fucking parliament. And I don’t want my kids asking me in puzzlement, when they’re 15, whether they really vaguely remember something white and cold we used to call snow.
(/Sadly packs away board…)
…that way the hell up here in the middle of nowhere, they couldn’t possibly care less that this is the middle of nowhere.
That is all.
That is all.
21/02: Well, it's about time
So after a truly insanely dry, nearly entirely snowless month and three quarters of riding on increasingly packed and icy hills, I see in the forecast there’s mebbe up to half a metre of snow coming over the next week or so…
(Stares at incoming storm system accusingly, with hands folded over chest, in attitude of irritated spouse waiting up late to ask: ‘And where have you been?’)
(Stares at incoming storm system accusingly, with hands folded over chest, in attitude of irritated spouse waiting up late to ask: ‘And where have you been?’)
Followup to previous: I’ve been working more on landing simple aerials.
I eventually spent several more hours on the kickers at Fortune, working on those, making sure the first two I landed weren’t just some fluke. And they apparently weren’t—I was landing some three out of four by the end of that, with the falls generally nothing terrible—usually, I seem to teeter too far toeward, if anything, and sometimes I can salvage it just with a quick push off from a hand, thus avoiding greater drama. There’s still a lot to tune, there, tho’, obviously—how much speed I want, thus how much air I’ll get, these are all things I haven’t yet quite got the feel of as reliably as I’d like.
And that’s all important. Among the reasons: it’s actually the short landings that are hardest on the body. Hit a high kicker like that too slowly, and you’re likely to land in the flat right behind it instead of on the downslope beyond—which is hard on the legs. I’ve some minor pull of some kind in and around the inside of my left hip socket, now—nothing stopping me from riding, but it is still a bit raw a good day and change after I did it. Happened on one of those hard, flat landings. The only injury I’ve sustained yet doing this.
Meanwhile, today, I was up at Mont Ste-Marie with my lovely wife and the little guy. And in my non-child-escorting periods, I got into the park, there, too.
Ste-Marie’s aerial features are a lot less lethal than are Fortune’s—these sorta tiny kickers mounted into the tops of huge hip jumps—so you do get some serious height if you want it, but then the landing is pretty much right under you. They look impressive—adding it all up, the first set of ramps is better than six feet in height—but they’re incredibly more forgiving than the kickers I’ve been working on until now.
So it was a good ego boost—you go flying up these crazy-looking curved ramps, but then the landing is an absolute cinch. By the end of the day, I was landing them consistently.
As for the little guy, he’s doing great. His mother took him on his first double black today—Ste Marie’s Toronade—and he handled this gracefully, apparently. He’s been doing blacks pretty regularly, now—a subject of some amusement for and admiration from others on the hill. I happened to be riding up over Carole Anne—a black that goes under the lift—while he was coming down with this mother, and the comments from those riding with me were generally of the ‘Man—that little guy’s amazing’ variety—and yes, that was unprompted—I hadn’t yet told them they were riding up next to his father.
Impressive. He and his sister, both, for that matter.
I eventually spent several more hours on the kickers at Fortune, working on those, making sure the first two I landed weren’t just some fluke. And they apparently weren’t—I was landing some three out of four by the end of that, with the falls generally nothing terrible—usually, I seem to teeter too far toeward, if anything, and sometimes I can salvage it just with a quick push off from a hand, thus avoiding greater drama. There’s still a lot to tune, there, tho’, obviously—how much speed I want, thus how much air I’ll get, these are all things I haven’t yet quite got the feel of as reliably as I’d like.
And that’s all important. Among the reasons: it’s actually the short landings that are hardest on the body. Hit a high kicker like that too slowly, and you’re likely to land in the flat right behind it instead of on the downslope beyond—which is hard on the legs. I’ve some minor pull of some kind in and around the inside of my left hip socket, now—nothing stopping me from riding, but it is still a bit raw a good day and change after I did it. Happened on one of those hard, flat landings. The only injury I’ve sustained yet doing this.
Meanwhile, today, I was up at Mont Ste-Marie with my lovely wife and the little guy. And in my non-child-escorting periods, I got into the park, there, too.
Ste-Marie’s aerial features are a lot less lethal than are Fortune’s—these sorta tiny kickers mounted into the tops of huge hip jumps—so you do get some serious height if you want it, but then the landing is pretty much right under you. They look impressive—adding it all up, the first set of ramps is better than six feet in height—but they’re incredibly more forgiving than the kickers I’ve been working on until now.
So it was a good ego boost—you go flying up these crazy-looking curved ramps, but then the landing is an absolute cinch. By the end of the day, I was landing them consistently.
As for the little guy, he’s doing great. His mother took him on his first double black today—Ste Marie’s Toronade—and he handled this gracefully, apparently. He’s been doing blacks pretty regularly, now—a subject of some amusement for and admiration from others on the hill. I happened to be riding up over Carole Anne—a black that goes under the lift—while he was coming down with this mother, and the comments from those riding with me were generally of the ‘Man—that little guy’s amazing’ variety—and yes, that was unprompted—I hadn’t yet told them they were riding up next to his father.
Impressive. He and his sister, both, for that matter.
