I find there’s a similar parallel with bikes; look back 10 years, and no-one wore helmets. Now it’s perfectly acceptable and normal.

But anyway. I just came across a really interesting report from the Canadian Ski Council. In it, the Council reports that helmet usage – especially among youth – is up significantly over the past four years.

According to the report:

“… usage has increased from 67% of all skiers and riders in 2006 to 71% in 2010. This is significantly higher than in the US, where reports found that 57% of skiers and riders wore helmets in 2010.”

The report has a couple of really interesting caveats, though. For example, usage in the 35-44 age bracket did not increase. Moreover, Ontario and British Columbia have the dubious honour of least usage, with 67% and 66% usage respectively. The keener province? New Brunswick, with 95% usage. Wow.

• Fernie
• Nakiska
• Kimberley
• Mont Tremblant
• Mont Sutton
• Whistler Blackcomb

A new 2500′ run, improved night skiing, a faster, better lift and more snowmaking are among the improvements the resort will be rolling out this year.

All in, the resort spent more than $4 million. You can read more details about the upgrades here.

If you live in southern Ontario and you haven’t checked out Holiday Valley, you really owe it to yourself to visit at least once. Personally, I equate the resort with Ontario’s Blue Mountain, but with better facilities, much better runs, and fewer lines. While both are similar in vertical, hence I draw the equation, Holiday Valley is a lot more fun to ride.

You can find more information on Holiday Valley, including a write-up of my visit, here.

Most are opening in a limited capacity, though, with plans to open more lifts and runs as weather permits.

In years past I have headed up north to attend opening day, but this year I’m going to pass. Because Ontario hills are so small, “limited capacity” tends to mean really, really limited – to the point that you’re actually pretty bored within an hour.

I’ve got next Friday off work, though, so maybe I can convince Josh to head up to Blue Mountain. More lifts should be open by then.

Anyway, on the upside, it looks like it’s going to snow all week long in Ontario’s cottage country, so it’s likely I will get some turns in before the holidays. I’ve got excess vacation time, so if the resorts open up shortly I might take a day off and head up there.

I can’t believe Alberta is getting slammed with blizzards today. Sigh.

Watching this video makes we want to get better at park riding.

We had pretty low expectations for the day, as Blue reported 9 runs open, a 50cm base, and discounted lift tickets. Furthermore, Josh had been there a couple of times in March and said the conditions were ass; he said the snow was lumpy and there were puddles everywhere. I prepared myself for maybe two hours of riding and to get very, very wet.

Temperatures hovered around 10 celcius, so both of us were in full-on spring gear mode. I wish I had taken a picture. Josh picked me up wearing a base layer and a Metallica Kill ‘Em All t-shirt (“I used to wear this shirt underneath my clothing,” he said, “but then I realized the shirt was awesome.”). I wore a base layer, Burton hoodie and a pom-pom toque.

Once we got to Blue, we were extremely pleased with what we encountered. There were only nine runs open, but they were nine good runs. Usually when a ski area announces a limited amount of terrain is open they throw in stuff like learning areas as “open runs”. Not yesterday. To add to our excitement, there were virtually no line-ups (unheard of at Blue) and the snow stayed together pretty well throughout the day. Josh and I did run after run until we nearly collapsed; it was a great way to end the season.

Oh, and I did the whole day without a knee brace!

I’ll likely get three days of riding in, making it my first significant riding experience of the year (I don’t really count the first turns).

What many folks don’t know is that we maintain several ski resort guides here at Highly Obsessed, including one on Mont Tremblant. I plan to give the Tremblant one an overhaul after next week, though after re-reading our Tremblant guide a few minutes ago I realized I thought we did a pretty good job!

You can view the supplement online here.

I haven’t read through the whole thing but at first glance it looks pretty good for a free magazine. Highlights include:

• A look at the highest ski resort in the world (it’s in India) and the influence of Canadians there;
• Profiles of many Canadian olympic hopefuls, including some members of the Canadian snowboard cross team and Canadian para-alpine ski team;
• A really handy guide that provides an overview of all the major ski resorts in each region of Canada, including facts like vertical drop, average snowfall and number of runs.

Even the ads are pretty good. Sporting Life has a pretty extensive catalog of gear in their ads, and Canada Post published a large profile of the story and people behind the Canadian freestyle ski team.