Learning to Ski Steeps with “Extremely Canadian”
This year myself and Spring at Pebbleshoo have set ourselves the goal of training and educating ourselves a lot more in regards to the activities we’re interested in. Being honest it has felt like our ski game has been stuck in 2nd gear for a while now. We both took an intro to skiing a few years ago, learning how to do a downhill wedge and ski bunny hills but apart from that we’ve been simply trying to teach ourselves the proper technique. It hasn’t worked. So recently we had the opportunity to take a 2 day Steep Skiing Clinic with Extremely Canadian out of Whistler. Our expectations with this clinic were to go from being cautious skiers capable of linking a few turns down black diamond runs to feeling confident on double black diamonds and skiing more fluidly and aggressively. Day 1: Our Mettle was really tested on the first day. It was awesome! It was a slow progression through the day of skiing steeper and steeper snow. First, after meeting our guides at the Whistler Base, we did a warmup ski run so our instructors could determine our competency and expectations. After watching our ski form we were split into groups and myself, Spring and two others were assigned to Extremely Canadian guide Peter. First up we did some laps on a groomed blue run so Peter could watch us and give us advice on how to improve our form. For balance we practiced picking our uphill ski off the snow while we completed a turn. I found this incredibly helpful right away and realized my balance was all wrong. Peter was great with giving individual advice to each of us to help us iron out our own specific issues. Next we practiced pole planting form. Something we’ve been sorely neglecting and it was definitely needed. From there, after warming up and some guidance, we cranked it up a notch and hit our first black diamond run, Whistler Bowl. We’d never skied it before but Peter was great with getting us into it safely. Skiing Moguls, but not as we knew it We did a few laps of Whistler Bowl, working on a few different techniques while getting used to the steeper angle. One of the techniques that stood out for me was skiing on top of moguls rather than between them. I was so focused before on trying to stay in the runnels between the moguls that I’d never thought to just ski the bumps on top of the moguls. The rest of the day was a mix of exploring the various bowls on Whistler Mountain and skiing steep...
Salomon Speedcross 3 Trailrunner Review
Bottom Line: These runners were extremely comfortable right out of the box. I didn’t encounter the usual “breaking in” period that I have experienced with other running shoes. They are a fairly lightweight trail runner with a burly cleated tread which is great for technical trails and all-weather conditions. I have found that the tread wears out fairly quickly on Salomon shoes, but overall they are such a comfortable trail runner that I highly recommend them. How I chose it: I had owned Salomon trails runners previously, before I was doing any serious trail running, and loved them as an all around walking/hiking shoe. I also had a few trail running friends that highly recommended the Speedcross. Observations since using it: The lacing system is excellent. Unlike traditional style laces the Kevlar Quick-Fit system works with one pull and won’t loosen. There is even a handy tongue pocket to tuck away the laces, which I personally love as it keeps things from flapping around. It is a one-time tighten before you leave the house and you are good to go for hours. When I ran my first 50km trail race last year I used the Salomon Speedcross and I didn’t have to adjust them once in the 8 hours I was out on the trails. There was no breaking in period required for these shoes. I took them out of the box and went for a run without any issues with rubbing or blisters. They are as close as feeling liking like a slipper as a trail runner could. The fit is very precise. I have narrow feet and find that once I tighten the shoe it molds nicely to my foot which makes for a secure fit, making for more confident footfalls when running on technical trail. The toe box provides enough room to not cause issues with any rubbing or pressure points, which also helps to delay the onset of black toe nails. There is an 11mm drop in this shoe, which is simply the difference between the height of the heel and the height of the toe when standing; zero is the equivalent to standing barefoot. So there is a pretty substantial drop in these shoes which is more akin to a traditional running shoe and will support people who are heel strikers. I personally mid-foot strike, but haven’t found these shoes to cause me any issues. Pros: Lacing - Excellent lacing system with tongue pocket to keep lace ends out-of-the-way. Comfort - Super comfortable from date of purchase. Fit - Secure, precise fit due to locking lacing system and the mold of the shoe. I feel...
Early Season Ice Climbing
Since our week long trip to Canmore last Winter, Ice Climbing has become a passion of ours. This past season has seen us put a lot more effort into Climbing in general. Climbing is not just a full body sport, it’s a full everything sport. It’s physical, mental and emotional. It’s the perfect activity in my opinion. I can understand why people give up everything to live in a van and climb full time as a dirtbag. Climbing gives you almost everything you need to feel a sense of living fully. Ice Climbing, however, tends to not have a huge following. Even within the climbing community only a small subset of climbers will learn to climb ice and stick with it. For most it appears to be a novelty activity to do once, take some photos of and then never do again. Not for myself. Something about the aesthetics of it appeals to me. Swinging sharpened Ice tools and kicking serrated barbs of steel into walls of frozen water. Seeing layers of ice shatter and explode or feeling the ice tool make a satisfying “thunk” as it bites solidly from a perfect flick of the wrist. All ice is not made equal either. Time, weather and location can have a dramatic effect on the properties of the ice you will be climbing. The type of ice you climb in the morning can be completely different to the type of ice you climb that same evening. To rock jocks that have never been on ice I try to use this analogy, “Imagine going to your favorite granite rock climbing area only to discover when you get there that the rock has now changed to limestone with bands of gneiss running through it, and instead of a 5.10b crack you now have a 5.11a face climb. It’s that kind of flux that you have to be prepared for with ice” Or put simply by a friend of mine as we geared up at the base of a climb: “Ice Climbing is just badass, that’s it, everyone knows it” What follows are some accounts of the Ice Climbing trips I’ve been on in the past few months and what I’ve learned from those experiences. Mount Baker Seracs: Spring wrote about our experience at Mount Baker here: “Mount Baker: Ice Climbing“, so I won’t labor the details. I was really psyched to get out on glacier ice. From all my glacier experience the number one rule has always been to avoid going anywhere near crevasses but on this trip our goal was not only to find the deepest, darkest cracks in the glacier...
What gets us Stoked, X
So this is the 10th and final installment of our video series. We will be continuing to share videos on our blog just differently. If you’re on a computer you can look on the right hand side of this post you will see a new box called “Recommended Videos”. These are videos we’ve watched that have thought us something, inspired us or have just got us stoked and psyched to get outside and push ourselves. So here they are, our final 5 videos in our “What gets us Stoked” series. Enjoy! Are you Wreckage or Salvaged? Exploration Trail Running in Winter The promise of Youth… Inspiring! Being in the...
