All will be well! Keep calm and dream on!

Dear friends, we are living through challenging historical time. All of us in the Board of Directors send you warm wishes to stay well and healthy. Some things are beyond our control. What’s in our control is to take care of ourselves and our communities.

The current Board completes 2 years term. Our team has worked hard and has implemented a lot of changed to take our club to the new hight. Our membership’s record increase of over 20% is our biggest accomplishment that many of you have acknowledged. Our club is growing and blossoming with the new generation and members joining. Although the 70th Anniversary Season has ended suddenly and unexpectedly, we can say that it was an amazing season to remember. Coronavirus has rained on our parade – we had to cancel overnight trips to France, to Tao and to Tremblant. Today we’ve made a hard decision to cancel The Apres 70th Anniversary “Snow Ball’ in the interest of health and safety of our community and in the light of the growing concerns about economical situation. We’ll be back next season stronger and united more than ever to execute on our mission: to inspire and enable members to enjoy winter snow sports in a fun, friendly and supportive community. .

Election night for the new Board of Directors is scheduled for April 30 2020. Please note that we are testing the opportunity to conduct the meeting on-line using collaboration tools. The registration for the meeting will start two weeks prior. The registered 100 participants (maximum capacity of the tools that meets our quorum criteria) will receive an email invitation to join the meeting from the comfort of your homes. Our past President David Manning has started a very important initiative of Club house virtualization, which we have continued. Now we are forced to speed it up.

Please know that very strong new candidates step forward to volunteer for the Board for the next term of two seasons 2020-2022. Election rules and documents are posted on the club’s web site before the meeting. You’ve received by now an official notice of election via email. Remember, our not for profit club is managed by volunteers to keep the cost of our activities and membership low. If you are interested to volunteer – please contact me, current directors or new candidates – they will be building the new teams. It takes many awesome people to run our club.

Below is the list of the candidates for the HPSC 2020-2022 Board of Directors, based on the submissions to Colin Marsh, who is leading Election Nomination committee. Adrian Popescu is a Nomination Committee member and will conduct the meeting.  New nominations can be submitted to Colin via marketing@hpsc.ca.
New candidates for HPSC Board of Directors 2020-2022:

  • President – Justin Graham
  • Marketing – Jennifer Beatty
  • Finance – Clark Seadon
  • Downhill Day Trips – Erika Clark 
  • Communications – Nemanja Davidovic (recently appointed by Board)
  • Social – Amy Lam
  • Downhill Snow School – the candidate will be nominated by the Snow School
  • Directors who are running for re-election for their current roles:
  • IT – Alex Radulescu 
  • Admin – Victor Schroter
  • Overnight Trips – Bill Bates
  • Membership – Ruth Schefter
  • Cross Country skiing – Heather Steel

Spring is taking over from winter. All will be well. The cherry trees will blossom in High Park again soon. Keep Calm and Dream On about big mountains and fresh white blossom of snow… Please stay socially connected on-line!

Stella, HPSC Volunteer President 2018-2020

Spring skiing awaits!

Our March 1 trip to Wasaga. Snow and sun!

March brings spring skiing…some of our favourite skiing. Yes, conditions aren’t always great, but throw in warm temperatures and sunny days, and it feels so good to be outside in the trees.

There are plenty of opportunities to ski this March. As long as there is snow on the ground, and people willing to ski on it, we’ll send buses! Our trips up to March 15 are presently sold out, but the wait lists are generally small, so if you get yourself on the list, you probably will get on the trip.

Mar. 14 – Kawartha Nordic (guided snowshoeing). If Kawartha doesn’t have the conditions, we will find somewhere that does (likely Highlands or Scenic Caves…or maybe Arrowhead)

Mar. 15 – Hardwood Hills (Race #5)

Mar. 21 – Mystery Destination (module will open soon; destination confirmed closer to date). LAST CHANCE TO TAKE LESSONS!

Mar. 22 – Highlands Nordic (module will open soon)

After Mar. 22, we will take the weather and conditions as they come. Many members often ski until the last day of March, so if conditions warrant it and you want to go, we’ll do our best to send buses!

Please note that March skiing can bring changeable conditions – it can be icy, slushy, sunny, snowy, and everything in between. As usual, we will try and find the best conditions if our scheduled destinations don’t work out. Let’s get outside and enjoy the last bits of winter!

When it’s 3 degrees you can have a marshmallow roast! Wasaga, Mar. 1, 2020

Race weekend had a bit of everything – bonus points, a costume preview and marshmallows

Race #3 participants at Horsehose!

Race weekend – races on both days – was a huge success! Thanks to all our participants for their enthusiasm. You all make our club awesome! We had awesome conditions thanks to a 40-60cm dump of snow a few days earlier. Bring on Snowmageddon!

Feb. 29 we held our annual “Choose Your Own Adventure Freestyle Race” at Horseshoe Valley. We start and end from the same place, and there are two courses to choose from – a beginner course and a more advanced course that sends racers up Geunther’s Grind! If racers did both, they got bonus points!

Beginner Winner Jennifer!

Congrats to Graham, Sonia, and Janine, who did both courses. Graham lead the day with the fastest time. And congrats to Jennifer, our “beginner winner”, and to her three friends who did Patrolller’s Hill THREE times. Were they supposed to? Nope!

Mar. 1 at Wasaga we held our annual Pine Trail Classic, a classic only race that winds through the lovely Pine Trail. We started and ended at the fire shelter, where racers were treated to a marshmallow roast courtesy of Linda. Graham and Sonia practiced skiing in costume to prepare for the final official costume race. What a great end to an amazing day of skiing.

Congrats to Graham for his second win of the weekend, and to everyone for finishing in under 25 minutes and getting bonus points!

The podium finish – first to third (left to right)

Racers have one more chance to rack up points for the overall standings on Mar. 15 at Hardwood. It’s our Spring Fling Costume Race! Graham and Sonia are only two points apart at the top of the overall leader board and we can’t wait to see what costumes they have in store for us!

We finished off with a marshmallow roast. Fun fact: sloths like marshmallows