This year will be different. My friend has convinced me to try out a season’s pass to Glen Eden which is located near Milton, Ontario. The cost is roughly the same and the drive is significantly shorter. My hope is that the crowds are much smaller and that the runs don’t get too old, too fast.

So far, there are no DC events trips booked for the season so I don’t yet know where I am going to get my real mountain fix. I am hoping to organize trips to Vermont and Ellicottville in New York, but time will tell if that actually happens.

Does anyone have any opinions on Glen Eden? I’m eager to try it out and post about the experience.

Happy Holidays!

Getting There

This time Sunday morning, I should hopefully be airborne, flying an Air Canada 777 en route to Hong Kong by way of Vancouver. (I chose that flight because as an Air Canada Elite member, I had a decent shot at upgrading to one of their Executive suites. Alas, I have been waitlisted.) In Vancouver, I’ll hook up with my brother, who is arriving an hour earlier via WestJet.

We’ll have a couple of hours to kill before the next Perimeter Bus to Whistler, so it’s likely we’ll have a beer or three. My cousin, who operates the best burger restaurant in Vancouver, is going to pop by to say hello.

Staying There

Despite now having visited 10 times, I’ve only stayed in a hotel twice: once at the Listel hotel and once at the Mountainside Lodge. The rest of the time I have rented condos or houses. This time, however, I’m staying at the Hilton Whistler, and I’m definitely excited to check it out. We’ve got a suite, so we should have plenty of room to spread out and relax.

Riding There

As I’ve mentioned, conditions look off the hook for early season! They’ve had more than eight feet of snow this season already, with more than 4,300 acres already opened. Most of my favourite non-bowl areas (Garbonzo area on Whistler, Crystal Chair on Blackcomb) are now open. Another 50-80 cm are expected tomorrow and Sunday. So this has the potential to turn into an epic couple of days of riding. (There’s also the risk that conditions will be crazy and zero visibility. I’m praying that’s not the case.)

You can be sure that once the trip has concluded, there will be a full report! I’ll also update my Guide to Whistler, which I’ve maintained since 2006.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s return to blogging about snowboarding, I am heading to Whistler for a few days next week. With a baby due in January, I knew my annual week-long trip to Whistler to ride was not going to happen. I had resigned myself to skipping this year entirely, but some vacation days to burn and a fair bit of snow recently have changed my mind. As a result, I’m heading up Sunday (the 27th). The plan is to ride two days, and come back Wednesday.

I know conditions can’t possibly be like what I experienced in 2010, but with up to 80 centimetres scheduled to arrive by Tuesday, I’m hoping to encounter some pretty good early season conditions. Whistler only has a couple of chairs operating right now (green chair, red chair), but with Blackcomb opening on the 24th and a big dump of snow on the way, I’m hoping available terrain will expand greatly by the time I get on the hill on the 28th.

Regardless, it will be fun.

It’s been more than a year since anything has been posted at Highly Obsessed. And even when we did post some stuff last year, it didn’t last long. It’s been a struggle the past couple of years.

So, what happened? It’s not like we enjoy snowboarding less than we used to. Personally, I found myself riding fewer total days; instead of heading to Blue Mountain or Mt. St. Louis Moonstone for a few day trips, I was saving it for trips to real mountains like Whistler or Jay Peak or Tremblant. So I was only riding maybe a dozen days a year. I guess this made me feel like I wasn’t much of an authority on snowboarding anymore.

And in a way, I don’t think it’s going to get any easier. We are going to have a baby just as snowboarding season gets into full swing. My job is never slow, and I do a fair bit of travel is involved. I also like to spend time working out, playing video games, and reading. I also play hockey and ultimate frisbee. So there never seems to be enough time in the day already.

But with all that said, a funny thing has been happening. This blog refuses to die, and I find it both interesting and inspiring. It gets all sorts of traffic, regardless of season. People still email me constantly with questions, contests and news. I still get the occasional ACL tear inquiry (and I’ve had laser eye surgery, another topic which seems to garner tons of questions, so I’m happy to answer those, too).

So I started to think: do I really need to be on the mountain 100 days a year to maintain an interesting snowboarding blog? I don’t think so. And do I still love to snowboard? Hell yes. So I’ve decided to fire up the blog again, and I’m really looking forward to it.

The timing is right, too. A week today, I will leave for a quick, four-day, pre-baby trip to Whistler. I didn’t want to miss out on Whistler this year, and they’re getting dumps of snow regularly right now. But all that is for my next post.

Adam

(Image courtesy of Tommy Ironic)

So says Holiday Valley’s Pat Morgan, who is organizing a new contest series known as the Eastern Snowboard League. It’s a three-event series that will take place at Holiday Valley in Western New York, Big Boulder Park in Pennsylvania and 7-Springs (also in Pennsylvania). ESPN’s interview with Morgan is here.

Personally I think it’s a great idea. It channels the ‘us vs. them’ mentality that I think exists a bit with riders repping small hills vs. west coast folks. I’d encourage them to have a look at expanding this north of the border if it takes off.

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

You can read about recent sales here. Among the notable ones: Aspen.co for $22,500, and Breckenridge for $8,499.

Within the industry, we view domain names like real estate. If you get the good ones, they’ll only increase in value!

The article basically surmises that elite athletes in sports like running and cycling focus almost entirely on motivating themselves to do better and improve. Recreational athletes, on the other hand, try to almost distract themselves from the challenge in order to simply complete it. The more an athlete can tolerate pushing themselves and straddling the line between performance and all-out blowing up, the article suggests, the better they do.

Sounds simple, I know, but the article makes it sound like a science.  :)

Steve and I actually talk about this a fair bit when we discuss cycling or running. I was a lousy recreational runner for many years; I would run a 30-minute 5k or 6k every five days or so and tell myself I got some exercise. The problem, though, was that I really wasn’t pushing myself to get any better, nor was I really achieving what I set out to do (lose weight).

About this time last year I joined a gym, and got much more serious about getting in shape. I started running several times a week, and still do. I run the same distances, largely, that I ran before, but I’m always trying to run them hard and fast. By always pushing myself to work harder and exert myself further, I have found the results have slowly started to come. But it sure takes a lot of time and dedication, and falling off the path for even a couple of weeks means the results start to unravel a bit!