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| The 2023/2024 downhill day trips season came to an end on Saturday, March 23 at MSLM. It was a great way to wrap up the season with a surprise cold week with some snow in Toronto and the ski resorts. A huge thank you to the volunteer downhill day trips team! On a weekly basis, these are your volunteers who worked hard behind the scenes. We had 53 day trips planned for this season, and this team did all the work to coordinate them, even for the trips that didn’t run. Saturday Trip Coordinator: Bishu Basuroy Sunday Trip Coordinator: Michael Hardtke Monday Trip Coordinator: Sheila Moshonas Wednesday Trip Coordinator: Fran Burgess Day Trips email inquiries: Jason Tsang Bus Captain forms: Heidi Gay Thank you to all club members who volunteered to be bus captains on all our day trips! Thank you to Downhill Snow School and all instructors for organizing, teaching lessons and clinics, as well as the MSLM race series! We had an unseasonably warm winter, but we still got quite a few weeks of trips with full registrations. I’m already looking forward to next season and hoping for a lot more snow and winter! |
Celebrate the XC season with a wine and cheese ski day in the sun!
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| While we are hoping to run more trips, the reality is that this coming weekend may be our last. It will be sunny and warm, so come celebrate the season in the slush with your ski friends. Saturday we will be at Scenic Caves and will hold our annual wine and cheese in the log cabin before we leave (departure time remains the same, we will just end our ski day a bit early). There are lessons and guided snowshoeing. The Sunday crew (if enough register) will be headed to Hardwood for one last glorious day in the sun. Register by Wednesday, Feb. 28 at 6pm. March can be unpredictable and if we magically get more snow, you know we will be on it and will try to run more trips! But as much as it pains me, the forecast is just not looking favourable at the moment. So get it in while you can! Heather, Director, XC Skiing and Snowshoeing |
Mogul Masters Clinics!
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| The One Day Mogul Masters clinics are back. The dates are Saturday, February 24 and March 2 at MSLM and Monday, February 26 and Sunday, March 10 at Blue Mountain. For more information visit the Downhill Ski School page. For registration go to the registration page on the HPSC website. *Important* Click the Mogul Masters option not your step level. |
Sign Up for Downhill Day Trips!
All February day trip registrations are now open for the bus. Drive-up options will continue to be opened on a weekly basis on Saturdays by 7:30pm.
Be on the look-out for the confirmation of:
- A downhill day trip on Family Day Monday, February 19th
- An extended après-ski social at Mount St. Louis Moonstone on Saturday, February 24th
There’s still lots of winter left, let’s get out to the hills!
Questions?
You may find the answer to your questions under the FAQ section under both the Downhill Skiing & Snowboarding and the Cross-Country and Snowshoeing tabs on the website. As we are a volunteer run club, this is often the fastest way to find out answers to your questions, such as bus pick-up locations and departure times and the deadlines to register and cancel for day trips.
New members can also reach out to their assigned Club Ambassadors for assistance but remember that they are also volunteers. Please allow time for refunds as they are also handled by volunteers.
The website also provides email addresses for specific areas. Please send cancellation requests to cancellations@hpsc.ca, not to info@hpsc.ca as this is only a general information email.
We have faced many challenges this year with a late start to the season and unpredictable weather issues. Always check the Day Trips Status page on the website for up-to-date information regarding day trips and any last minute changes such as the addition of a second bus.
Downhill day trips need bus captains!
We cannot run bus trips without bus captains. There’s a fun way to meet new members, help run day trips and cover the cost of your next bus trip, $35 in savings!
Day trips bus captains help lead our Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesday trips. Bus captains are responsible for preparing and delivering bus announcements on the day trip, taking attendance, answering member questions, handing out lift tickets and completing end of day paperwork to be submitted to the Director of Downhill Day Trips.
Bus captains receive 1 bus voucher for every trip they captain (value of $35).
Please attend an upcoming Zoom call to find out more information and to get some basic training on Thursday, February 1st, 8:00-9:00 pm.
Please email daytrips@hpsc.ca to register.
Cross-Country finally has snow!
It was a long, frustrating wait, but we are back in business! Many of our ski areas got walloped with snow this past Sunday. It really does take just one good day of snow squalls. We ran our first trip to the snow globe that was Scenic Caves last Sunday and we are preparing for many more.
January 20 we are headed to Highlands Nordic and January 21 we are headed to Hardwood Ski and Bike. Both should have great conditions as it’s supposed to be a cold week.
Register for trips here: https://hpsc.ca/Cross-Country-Day-Trips-Registration. We are still opening trips on a week by week basis, be we should be able to move to our normal two-week registration window at some point soon.
If trips are full (people are keen to ski!), put your name on the waitlist. If enough people want to go, we can check with the resorts to see if we can bring two buses. Or, if there are cancellations, you could get moved on the trip. As I have mentioned, we know people like to ski Saturdays, but we can’t accommodate everyone who prefers that. Sunday often doesn’t fill up as quickly.
Let’s get out and enjoy winter!!!
IMPORTANT Update for Downhill Day Trips Drive-ups
Starting this season, Drive-up registrations will be opening on a weekly basis. Every Saturday by 8 pm, drive-up registration for all day trips will open for the following week.
A great benefit of being a member of HPSC is that you don’t have to be on the bus in order to take advantage of our free lessons. To ensure the best possible experience, we require drive-ups to register for their lesson. To manage class sizes and the number of instructors, we need to restrict the number of drive-up spots. The snow school and our day trips teams monitor the numbers closely leading up to the registration deadline and open up additional drive-up spots based on the numbers on the bus. These additional spots are first offered to those on the drive-up waitlist.
When a member “no shows” it means that others who may have wanted a lesson are not able to participate and we may have more instructors than necessary, which costs the club since we have paid for transportation and partially subsidised instructor lift tickets.
Over the last couple of seasons, the limited number of drive-up spots were booked up very quickly weeks in advance. However, since there is no financial commitment (unlike booking the bus) or penalty, there is a higher number of drive-up no-shows.
Starting this season, to hopefully reduce the no-show rate, we are opening drive-up registration only in the week prior to the trip, so you have a better idea of your schedule and the weather. This means that drive-up registration for all day trips will now open on the previous Saturday evening and remain open until the regular deadline, Tuesday by 6 pm. Further, to reduce the work for our refund team that handles cancellations, since there is no refund involved, we are allowing drive-up registrants to self-cancel up until the standard registration deadline.
IMPORTANT update for Downhill Day Trips Drive-ups:
| Starting this season, Drive-up registrations will be opening on a weekly basis. A great benefit of being a member of HPSC is that you don’t have to be on the bus in order to take advantage of our free lessons. To ensure the best possible experience, we require drive-ups to register for their lesson. To manage class sizes and the number of instructors, we need to restrict the number of drive-up spots. The snow school and our day trips teams monitor the numbers closely leading up to the registration deadline and open up additional drive-up spots based on the numbers on the bus. These additional spots are first offered to those on the drive-up waitlist. When a member “no shows”, it means that others who may have wanted a lesson are not able to participate and we may have more instructors than necessary, which costs the club since we have paid transportation and partially subsidised instructor lift tickets. Over the last couple of seasons, the limited number of drive-up spots were booked up very quickly weeks in advance. However, since there is no financial commitment (unlike booking the bus) or penalty, there is a higher number of drive-up no-shows. Starting this season, to hopefully reduce the no-show rate, we are opening drive-up registration only in the week prior to the trip, so you have a better idea of your schedule and the weather. This means that drive-up registration for all day trips will now open on the previous Saturday evening and remain open until the regular deadline, Tuesday by 6 pm. Further, to reduce the work for our refund team that handles cancellations, since there is no refund involved, we are allowing drive-up registrants to self-cancel up until the standard registration deadline. For the first week of January trips, drive-up registration will open on Saturday, December 30. |
Reminder: Cross-Country is not permitting drive ups
Another reminder that cross-country is not permitting drive ups for lessons this year. We simply do not have the instructor capacity to accommodate it. This likely will be the case for the next few years, as it takes time to find and train new instructors.
If you signed up specifically to drive up for XC lessons, please email membership@hpsc.ca and we can refund your membership. You may still drive up for alpine lessons (and need to be a member for that). Thanks for your understanding.