January 19, 2022
Dear HPSC Friends,
It has been a long haul to finally get to this point. We are very happy that this past weekend, after nearly two years, the HPSC Snow School was finally able to again provide lessons to our members. And despite the cold on Saturday at MSLM I understand that most who participated were very happy to be back. I personally was excited to reconnect with a number of our members at Blue Mountain on Sunday. As a reminder, lesson registration opens up on the Friday one week prior to the trips.
While we are all disappointed that we are not able to run buses just yet, we are closely following the public health guidelines and will start bus trips as soon as it is feasible.
I personally want to thank all of our club volunteers who help make the club run. Please remember that we are a fully volunteer run club and without the time and passion put in by your fellow members we would not be able to function. Much like all of you, we have been frustrated by the ongoing pandemic. And although we have not been able to function as we would have liked, the amount of work that has been put into planning has far exceeded what would be required during a regular season.
One thing that the pandemic has shown is that many people in the GTA are tired of being stuck inside and have a strong desire to get outside and enjoy the winter. The snowstorm/blizzard on Monday provided the opportunity for many of our members to do something that has been virtually unheard of in Toronto in a long long time, the ability to do some urban skiing and snowshoeing. I personally snowshoed down to my local Starbucks on Monday, while a number of other members posted photos of their urban snow sport adventures in the HPSC Facebook group. And with the exception of a very short warm up, the forecast for the next two weeks in favourable to keeping most of this new snow in the city. Enjoy it!
Cheers!
Justin Graham
President, High Park Ski Club