Lately: Transitions

I am proud to say that I filmed this weekend. My buddy Pat hooked it up and Saturday morning I found myself in a parking lot with sleds unloading left and right. Avy danger was high but I still had a good feeling on the way up. We had a mish-mash crew of skiers and snowboarder which set a cool social tone for the day. Until about 3 PM we just lapped some trees and repeatedly got stuck.

Towards the end of the day Jeremy Acland and I tried to film some hits. Retrospectively I should have reeled back a bit and gone for some more simple shots. Instead I lined up the biggest hit in the zone and bailed hard twice in heavy deep snow. Live and learn I guess. Jeremy laced a 360 and some cool 180's despite the chest deep fudge. Few times have I felt as exhausted as I did at the end of that day. We ended up at Mile One restaurant in Pemberton and I had the best BLT of my life.

The start to Sunday was crazy! We showed up at a zone at 8:30 AM only to learn that their parking lot had been full for over an hour. It was a major holiday in BC and we briefly considered not sledding at all. We rendezvoused at a zone called Brandywine. Brandywine is the most popular sled zone in Whistler and we headed in expecting a totally thrashed slope. As we turned the corner to the main zone we saw that the main wall hadn't been touched at all. It was like someone had picked out all the peanuts and raisins from the trail mix and left the M & M's. I got my first shot of the season first run then tried some other hits but ultimately lost focus and played around the rest of the day.

 Just the M & M's left

The plan for now is to rehab my ankle this week until the conditions improve and I get my truck back from the shop (turns out not having a rear bumper is illegal), then it's non-stop go time (knock of wood) until the end of April.

Lately:

I'm happy to say that for the first time in a while I'm busy. I've submitted one college application, have just a few weeks to wrap up a pre-requisite course and then finish another. By March 1st I'll be done with anything school related and I'm so stoked to stack footy for two months straight after that. Probably more stoked than I've ever been about anything. The bunged ankle is at 85% at the moment. I put some days in on the hill and the skill and focus is there, but some muscular asymmetries are noticeable.

After the shit show that was the last six months, I'm not taking anything for granted. It's kind of baseless but I think I'm going to be a better skier now because of that. One example was when the crew built a jump a few weeks back. I had to be pushed into going up to session it (thanks Peter). I didn't want to try anything and was ready to work the camera all day. I thought I'd try the jump and ended up getting first hit after a round of rochambeau. Initially I was psyched out because of my ankle. Two hits later I had a new trick on camera. Not a great shot but a shot, and only 4 days into the season.  I relied on my brain committing to the trick and it just happened. I hadn't been through that process since I broke may ankle and it was crazy. I think how fucked up life is got drilled deep in my brain and I was like "ok, it's simple let's just get this trick".

The ankle is pretty sore after a few days skiing so I'm taking a week off until this next storm hits. It won't be 100% by then but hopefully it's good enough to ski and continue the healing process*. It's gonna be crunch time the next few months. I'm excited.

*knock on wood