Sunshine Village Race Weekend

Lara just completed another race weekend, again near Banff, but at Sunshine Village ski area, which sounds tranquil and small, but was in fact a huge skiing area, reached by a 15 minute gondola trip from a parking lot, which itself was 7km from the main road, so it was quite remote.
The weather was great, not too cold, and some fresh snow falling, so the problem was more with too much snow (can make skiing harder) rather than the too-little snow that we're used to at Nakiska, where icy patches are common.
On Saturday Lara had two runs on a "Kiddie Kombo" course, which is a shorter course, mixing slalom (small poles stuck in the snow, fairly closely spaced) with grand slalom (more traditional "gates", spread further apart), then on Sunday she had two runs down a longer Grand Slalom course, which even some coaches were saying was very long for kids, with 25 gates to negotiate.
Lara did really well, not missing any gates, on any of her four runs, and whilst her times meant she was some way off getting any awards, that's not the point at the moment, these races are about teaching her to get down in one piece, without missing gates, and to enjoy all the fuss that goes with racing. The faster times will come in the future.
Dan didn't do any skiing this weekend, he was happy to play in the fluffy snow or watch his tablet, and I am happy to stick with skiing with him at Nakiska where I'm familiar with the pistes, and we'll not go somewhere by mistake that might be a bit too hard for him. Or me.
Without knowing it, I did venture out of Alberta and into British Columbia at one point - one of the chairlifts I took on Saturday to the top of the mountain crossed the border, so for a few hundred metres and 10 minutes or so, I finally made it to wild BC, until I skied all the way back into comfy, homely Alberta.
One more treat at this resort is a heated chairlift! The seats are heated, and once you've sat down on it, you pull an orange, perspex cover down over the chair and ride up to the top station in relative warmth and comfort.
To make life a bit easier this weekend, we stayed at a hotel in Banff, so the kids were very excited to go and try out the hotel pool. It wasn't the biggest or best hotel pool we've stayed at, but Lara was happy, and her best ski-buddy Lillian was also staying there with her family, so that worked out well.


Here are a couple of short videos, the first one is the Kiddie Kombo, with very vocal support from her teammates, and the second is the end of one of her Grand Slalom runs:

World Ski Cross Championship

This Saturday morning was the next round of the World Championship of Ski Cross, held at Nakiska. Olga got Lara into position to grab some autographs from the competitors, including Brady Leman, the leading Canadian man, who signed her helmet.
This is one of my favourite photos of Lara, she looks so happy :-)

Norquay Race Day 2

Lara had another good day, racing down a different course today. Still nowhere near the podium, but that's not the point, Here's a video of her first run this morning - the girls race down the red course, the boys down the blue course, it's their time that matters, not who crosses the line first, but in this case I hope Lara beat Brady over the line, just to teach over-enthusiastic parents that whooping and hollering don't help!!)
Before the race all the competitors are taken down the course by a coach to inspect it:

Olga took a photo of Lara on the start line, it's a proper, well organised event:

And here she is, halfway down:

I explored a little more of the resort and enjoyed the view from the top of one black run, down to Banff in the distance:

Dan had a busy day - no skiing today but lots of play, and it took it out of him:

After one of the chairlifts broke down, which meant a bit of hike to get back to the lodge, the staff gave skiers a tow behind a skidoo, so who was I to refuse the offer (I might never get another chance - I felt like a baddie in a James Bond movie!)

Lara's Norquay Race, Day One

Lara had her first race day of the season today, at Mount Norquay in Banff.
She really enjoyed it, even if she wasn't going to threaten a podium place. Dan did a bit of skiing too, and his highlight was winning a race against Papa on one of the green runs. I hadn't realised we were racing, I was speeding up to catch up with him, to tell him to slow down, and he took this as a personal slight, and sped up even more to overtake me. I was very concerned this was going to end in a messy way involving the queue of people waiting for the chair lift at the bottom of the run, but Dan put in a rather impressive stop, turned to me and shouted "I won!". That's my boy, but only once I'd forced my heart back down into my chest from my throat area.
Here is a video Olga took of one of Lara's better morning runs, and some photos from the day.

There's more to come on Sunday...

Dan Skis Freely on the Blue Runs

On Tuesday 29th December we took the plunge and took Dan onto a longer chairlift at Nakiska, that means he had to ski a couple of blue runs (next level up from greens) to get back to the lodge at the base. I held him on his reins the whole time, so there is no video from that first day, but Olga snapped a photo:

Then this last weekend we felt the runs were quiet enough in the morning that we'd let him ski down without me holding him, and he did really well. He didn't seem out of control at any point, though the speed he attained at times had Olga a bit worried to say the least!

And here's Dan following Olga rather closely, but always in control!