Saturday 24 December 2011

Ski day 12: Smiles on tour

Vert: 4,520 m   YTD cum vert: 57,750 m
Runs: 14    YTD cum runs: 156


I was SnowHosting today, and got to lead my first ever mountain tour, for 6 nice folks from Ontario. It helps a lot that I grew up and learned to ski in Ontario, because I know what their mountains are like and have skied many of them. There are many things that differentiate Western skiing from Eastern skiing.


The first is vertical per run. This is the first year that my vertical per run has dropped below 400 m (1,300 feet). Last year my average vertical per run was 560 m (1,837 vertical feet) in 850 runs. Folks from ontario are used to at most 210 m (750 feet) per run. So my tour group was impressed but very tired at the end of only 10 runs.


The second thing that differentiates our skiing is snow. Ontario has mostly man made snow. Sunshine has no man made snow (except on the last tiny bit of the ski out). Ontario skiers don't get the "deep powder" experience that we westerners get all the time. So it was seriously fun taking them to a special stash of untracked powder we Snowhosts know of but save for tours. I even let them all get first turns in 20 cm (boot top deep) powder. The expressions on their face during and after the run were worth the price of admission. One fell, laughing her head off the whole time. They all had an awesome time.


The really funny part is that today wasn't a great day (see my other blog here for a report on the ski conditions). But it was great for them. And that's why I'm a SnowHost.


No pictures today as my camera batteries died on the first photo.

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