Ontario TR 2013-01-19 - Lakeridge Resort

admafw

New member
Harvey44 said to post from Ontario - well welcome to the flatlands...

First some background:

It's the start of a 6 week ski/snowboard program with a local United Way Agency aimed at kids and families. You get 6 weeks of Saturday evening skiing (3:30-930), a one hour group lesson, and if you need it, a bus ride from town (Oshawa) and back for under $130. If you don't have equipment there is a stock of gear and we will try and provide/fit you up if possible. The hill (Lakeridge Resort) is small (300' vert) but it's owned by a former competition mogul skier so she always makes sure there's at least one decent mogul run set. (Truthfully, the best terrain I'm going to ski within a couple of hours drive.) The program is run by my cousin and I've been an adult volunteer since the program's re-inception (15+ years ago) Our roots go back even further - both my cousin and I learned to ski back to the mid 70's when the original program was created. (This included annual trips to Quebec, Vermont & New Hampshire - staying in youth hostels and skiing some classic mountains back before the days of 200' wide runs.)

The actual TR:

A cloudy, warm afternoon. The weather forcast is threatening rain and a cold front moving in but the actual conditions at the hill are pretty good spring skiing. All the local hills depend on snowmaking and it looks like the hill laid a pretty good base prior to the thaw. (One good thing about Ontario hills, thin cover involves grass/mud, not granite!)
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There's the usual opening day confusion as people get sorted out for their lessons.
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The lessons are the real bonus - the terrain is great - mostly for beginners/intermediates but with a few runs meant to challenge better skiers. (the boarders seem to stick to the terrain parks.) As an example for the kids in the program my cousin and I always take the lessons. Over the years we, and now our kids, have intimidated a whole heard of 18 year old instructors to the point where the hill usually only gives us their best adult instructors. Our instructor this year has taught before at Whistler, Vail and in New Zealand. He watches us take a couple of runs, tells us we all ski with our legs too close together, but is good enough to only suggest minor changes. (One year we had a guy try and take us back to the snowplow?!?!) After the lesson I ended up doing a half dozen runs in the moguls - they were soft, slow and generous to old knees.

The wind picked up (started howling, actually) around 8:30 pm and the showers and cold front arrived. I managed to miss most of it as I had to do a run to Emergency with one of the kids (Snowboarder, minor ankle injury, met mom at the hospital - the joy of being a supervisor/volunteer.) I feel sorry for those skiing tomorrow and through the week as the arriving deep freeze will likely turn everything to sheet ice. The good news for the hill is that it's going to be cold and it's relatively easy to re-cover 300' with snowmaking.

This weekend is ice fishing but I'll be back at it in a couple of weeks...
 
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