Europia so far

So here we are only a day before the start of the World Championships here in Italy. We have been here for just over a week now to give a chance to our body to adjust to time change but most importantly to diet-change. We left Calgary on the 8^th of February and flew to Venice. After about 24 hours of traveling, we found a nice “Aubergo” downtown Venice were we absolutely crashed. A good night of rest later, we woke up early to go for a run along the canals of Venice, one of the nicest run we ever had actually. It was just spectacular. We then made our way to pick up our traveling partner in Landeck Austria.

We spent 3 wonderful days in Reiner’s family in Winnebach in the valley of OtZtal, on a hotel/farm getting immerse in the Austrian Culture.

We made the most of the Austrian snow. On the first ski day, we climbed up the valley just behind the hotel towards a nice summer hut and kept going up the valley and ended up at the top of a 500m long 45 degrees couloir; which we skied with our race skies of course. It was a great warm up run on our first ski day in Europe!

The following day was more training oriented. We skied up a nice mellow trail towards a nice alpine Café called the Nissl Hut, had a coffee break, skied down and climbed up to an other alpine hut (Amberger Hut) where we had amazing cappuccinos and shared traditional food! We also scoped the itinerary for the following day.

On day 3, we woke up to beautiful sunny skies. We climbed back to the Amberger Hut, had an espresso and then undertook the climb up the highest peak of the area, the SchranKroger 3498m. It was amazing! Back down the glacier, we had to stop at the hut once again and get a last great meal before heading back to the hotel. Then, we took the road back to Landeck to have a last minute vertical race against the local Search and Rescue team and drove back to a little town in Italy called Belluno.

Now, the pre-race shopping is done, we are quasi rested and definitively carb loading… I think it is fair to say that we are ready to race! We could definitively hope for more snow as things here are not really covered so racing should be really interesting. Please some some energy our way as we have a week long filled of event coming up!

video of the Ridge Walk up on the SchranKroger to come... Internet is hard to access here!!!

Sunshine 5000 Race Report

The Sunshine 5000 is the oldest race in our Canadian Circuit. For the 7^th year, the resort has been hosting a great event, which usually draws the biggest crowd to the Canadian Ski mo scene. With around 30 racers, this year, the event was a success. With great snow, mild weather and a group of great racer and organizers, nothing could really go wrong!

We traveled mid-day friday and made it through just before highway closure due to heavy snowfall between Revelstoke and Golden… We got to Sunshine village in one piece happy to check in at the Sunshine Mountain Lodge (thx to the Resort for great rate)! Sunshine Village has been getting really good snow coverage this year and we were all pleased to see that this year, we would be able to ski the steeper part of the course without being scared for our carbon skis!!! Speaking of carbon skis, it is now really nice to see how much the gear has evolved with the years. At the start line, there was half the crowd with light gear and 6 with full carbon boots. I am so thrilled to see that the sport is growing in our country!!!!

Saturday morning, the weather was just perfect for a race. We gathered at the start line at mid-station just after 9am. The start of this race is always quite interesting since it is relatively flat for an extended period of time and it takes a while for people to really space out. The course was the same as last year with the exception of the Delirium Dive, which has been closed all season due to very low snow coverage.

Reiner took the lead of the race pretty quickly followed by Andrew McNab (2^nd) (Great work sweet heart!). Just behind were James Minifie (3^rd), Alex Wigley (4^th), Ian Gale and Stano Faban, all pretty close one to the other. On my side, I was just behind Stano! I tried very hard to catch up to the 4 guys ahead but it just did not happen that day!

I think it is fair to say that everyone had a great race and we are now building up steam for our big events next month: the World Championships in Claut Italy.

Congrats to Julie Matteau (2^nd), Billie Velisek (3^rd) and Martha Burley (4^th) on the ladies side. Here are the results and a few pictures after the race!

To follow events in Italy, you can check the following link: http://www.claut2011.org/en/

A bit of Whitefish Powder

This past weekend was a race I always look forward to; The Whitefish Whiteout. Whitefish, Montana is a really nice mountain town located seven and a half hours drive from Revelstoke! This is also where a few friends from the USA National Ski Mountaineering team call home, so this race is just a good excuse to go visit them! In addition, since we could not race last weekend in the Tikki Torch in Golden due to highway closure, I was getting pretty excited to race again!

Half asleep, we got on the road really early on Friday morning Reiner and myself in order to get to Whitefish early enough to go skiing. To our surprise, it started to snow really hard as soon as we got to town. The white fluffy stuff made me forget about our annoying but entertaining stop at the US border where we got pulled over and searched! Skis on, we checked out the race course which was slightly different then the previous years. After a couple of hours of recognition, we went back to town to catch up with friends and teammates and get ready for the race!

We woke up to a blue bird sky, mild weather, calm winds and about 15-20 cms of fresh fluffy snow… ideal conditions for a race…. Except for the fresh snow I guess. The race was delayed by an hour due to avalanche control so we had plenty of time to warm-up, hydrate and socialize. The race started at 10am going up the legendary Thoni Matt ski run. This climb is a 600m push of steep climbing with pretty much no break. The climb is so impressive that an award is given to the 1^st racer to reach the summit (record time being 26:59 last year by Reiner Thoni). The conditions being powdery this year, the record was not broken but Reiner go to the top first once again!

Thoni Matt Hill Climb

The rest of the course was really nice but due to fresh snow, the tracks were not set and it was really technical and slippery skinning… we call that character building! It was really hard to get into a rhythm and also to keep the skins on…Reiner was telling me that at the front, him and Brandon French (US National leader) had a fun go at it, putting in the bootpack and breaking trail the whole way. As for us just behind, the wind was picking up by section leaving very little track. The race was not so much of a battle for the 2 leaders but just behind, we were fighting for 3^rd place, myself, 2 other Americans and Brad, a new comer in the Canadian Ski mo scene. I think we all gave it all we got till then end!

Congrats to Brandon French (US) for his 1^st place and Reiner Thoni (CAN) for the fast hill climb and 2^nd place! Congrats also to Martha Burley from Fernier who we see more and more often at the ski races. Martha finished 3^rd behind Katie French and myself! Thx Whitefish for another great event and a good time! We brought home the "bling bling" with great cash prizes (BIG CHECK) and a Silver Platter! Next stop will be the Sunshine 5000 in Banff on February 5^th just before we all leave for the World Championships in Italy!

Best December Ever

The last month of the year has been full of action and adventures. First, we started the month with a great event hosted by Golden Alpine Holidays. We flew in the Meadows Hut on December 4^th and explored their amazing terrain and raced from Meadow Hut to Sunrise Hut the day after under some amazing blue skies and just above the clouds.

For full race report and results:

http://goldenskimo.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/selkirk-classic-skimo-race/

Then, a few days after, I went and spent a week at Kokanee Glacier Hut in the Kootenays. It was truly luxuary hut living in the middle of a paradise. And to top the perfect set up, a storm rolled in mid-week! No need to tell how much fun we had (after digging millions of snow pits of course!)

Then back in Revelstoke mid December, we had a few really good days on Ursus Minor, Grizzly, Video Peak, closer to town on McPherson, Griffin and Dickey.

I’ll let the pictures explain!

Vertical Race in Calgary

This past Saturday was the first event of the Canadian Calendar for Ski Mountaineering. We traveled to Canada Olympic Park (COP) in Calgary for a 3 hours vertical race. We all knew that the race would be as hard as we wanted it to be and we knew it would be a great way to kick off the season and also work on transitions… since in fact we had to do quite a few of them!

The race had different format, Solo, Team of 2 and Team of Four. Close to 100 racers took part in the event which was amazing and unexpected considering it was the first edition of the Vert 180.

The course was pretty simple, with a start/ finish line just outside the Cafeteria. Then of course we had to climb to the top the hill, take our skis off for a short bootpack and then straight line the “Alpine Pitch” to do it again and again and again….

I was a really fun event because it felt like we were all skiing together. People were shearing each other, kids, parents, friends teamed up for the event. It was really different then our typical Ski Mo Race. It was also kind of nice to be doing a ski race under the spotlight and looking at the city! Event if COP is not the highest mountain out there, trust me, it was still a challenge getting to the top of it, specially close to the 3 hours mark!

The whole Canadian team did very well!

Here are some of the results:

Reiner Thoni, Solo Category: 1^st with 18 laps

Andrew McNab, Solo Category: 2^nd with 18 laps as well

Alex Wigley, Solo Category: 3^rd with 15 laps

Julie, Billie, Lindsey and Dusan, Team of 4 Category: 1^st with 18 laps

Ian Gale & Steve Sellers, Team of 2 Category: 1^st with the record amount of lap of the evening!!! 20 Laps! Great job guys!

On my side, I burned 17 laps in the Solo Category and finished 1^st woman.

Congratulations to all the racers, it was a really challenging race at many levels!

After a nice meal and some time to come down from such energy output, we crawled into bed to get some rest before driving back to BC for a nice ski off Video Peak @ Rogers Pass on our way home! Next stop will be Golden Alpine Holiday next weekend with the Selkirk Classic Ski Mountaineering Race!!! Something to look forward to as well!

For Full Results of the Vert 180 Check Out:

http://goldenskimo.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/vert180-results/

Ski Mo Training Camp

This last weekend was the second training camp of the season for the Canadian Ski Mountaineering Team. We have been long waiting for the precious white gold to come down and we got blessed with precipitation just before the camp so the conditions in the Asulkan Valley @ Rogers Pass were close to excellent for the event. Some team members headed to the cabin early on Thursday just to enjoy a longer stay. As for myself, I made my way in mid-day Friday with a gigantic backpack (maybe not as big as Reiner’s but still) and got to the cabin just on time to have a nice rewarding run down the trees in knee deep powder. We then waited for the other team members to get to the cabin and shared a nice meal. Andrew, Ian and myself then decided to go do some night skiing since by then, the clouds rolled away from the valley and unveiled a beautiful almost full moon. We also wanted to give ourselves a head start by breaking trail for the following day! We had an amazing run back down to the cabin and dreamt of all the turns to come the following day!

We woke-up above the clouds to nothing less then a blue bird day and the valley to ourselves. We skied multiple laps around the cabin exploring the area, looking at the glaciated terrain, taking information on the snow pack and of course making some fantastic turns. We started by skiing conservative lines and built our way up to steeper terrain at the end of the day. It felt so very good to be back on big skis, making turns under the sun in nice deep powder! What a feeling! We all gathered back at the hut for some amazing food once again, sharing stories and reconnecting with one another.

Sunday was a bit more cloudy but still really nice. We first had a quick multiple beacon search (thx Ian for coordinating the search) as Jeff set up a short racecourse for us to practice transitions and technique (thx Jeff for doing that!). We did a few laps just to refresh the memory of our muscles and just to get our mind ready for the upcoming 3 hours race this weekend in Calgary! We then switched the light skis and spandex suits for regular gear and headed back up for a final glory run, packed everything and skied back down the valley. Thx team for a great weekend and see you all the Vertical 180 next weekend for the season opener!

As people were coming in and out of the Asulkan Cabin on Sunday, I realized that people are getting more and more aware of what Ski Mo racing is all about. A few months ago, the International Ski Mountaineering Federation (ISMF) has put together a great video that showcases the sport and describes very well what it is all about. Here’s what we are training for!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8202-Dedbow

Thx to the ACC for facilitating the Camp!

First Ski Mo Race Coming up!

This year, the Ski Mountaineering Race season will get an early start with the first race coming up in less then a month. We will be traveling to Calgary Olympic Park for the first event of the year for nothing less then 3 hours of vertical racing. This should be a great event but definitively not the easiest!