This year we had three members successfully pass CANSI certification courses!
First, we welcomed Ron Duffy to the instructor ranks when he passed the CANSI Level 1 course in January. Congratulations!
Second, Charles Ma and Heather Steel successfully passed the CANSI Level 2 course in February. Congratulations!
The L2/3 course – Heather is second from the left and Charles is last on the right. Thanks to Wendy Grater and Francoise Chatenoud for the excellent instruction!
Furthermore, a few of our instructors are in the process of completing their Level 3 certifications. Hopefully we will bring news of more successes in the coming seasons!
Our instructors are dedicated to improving their skiing and teaching skills to serve our members better. Thanks to all of them for their enthusiasm and dedication to our sport and our club.
Our first race of the season, Frisbee Biathlon, was a big success! Held on the new flat open area at Highlands (Teal’s Tango), members of all levels were able to participate in the fun. While our races are all about fun, there are results. And here they are:
Race #1 – Frisbee Biathlon
David Zoratto & Trevor Leech
John Kane & Frances Zeng
Sonia Dyett & Rob Dyett
Patty McVitty & Jaques Belik
Rubina Khan &
Amanda Hollingsworth
Carine Wood & Ludmilla Chubey
Jennifer Beatty & Andrew Kerr
Maria Bridgemohan
& Charlene Phillips
Our second race of the season was held at Scenic Caves – You Can’t Get Lost on the Northwest Passage Freestyle! It was warm and sunny and 10 skiers, including some newbies, put their skills to the test on a 1.5km course. No one got lost! And the results…
Skate:
Jeff Stainsby
Andrew Mahoney
Jiurong Li
Classic:
Andrew Osmond (who serenaded us in Italian as he crossed the finish line, meaning bonus points for all!)
Andreas Gierke
Andrew Patterson
Race Weekend!
Race weekend returns after a few year’s hiatus. What is race weekend? Races on BOTH daytrips with some serious bonus points! Check it out…
Feb. 29: Our annual Choose Your Own Adventure Challenge at Horseshoe Valley. Choose between two courses – a shorter easier one that uses Patroller’s hill (suitable for more beginner skiers) and a longer, hillier route that uses Geunther’s Grind. If you do both, you get bonus points!
Mar. 1: The annual Pine Trail Classic at Wasaga is back! This is our race director’s favourite race for two reasons: 1. It’s a beautiful course that winds through the pine trees. 2. Someone ALWAYS gets lost. It’s been years and this never fails! There will be bonus points for those who finish the course in under a certain amount of time.
Our races are all about fun! Participants accumulate points through the season and we crown our overall winners at our fun year end party in April. Join us!
On the family day long weekend, a full bus headed up to Sault Ste. Marie to experience some of the best cross-country skiing Northern Ontario – and indeed Canada – has to offer! We stayed in Sault Ste. Marie and skied two days at Stokely Creek and the final morning at Hiawatha Highlands. Both places delivered amazing skiing.
Konstatin is pretty tired after all that climbing!
Stokely Creek is not for the faint of heart. With over 100km of trails and some serious climbing, you are sure to get a workout! But, there are some lovely easier trails too if that’s more your style. And the snowshoeing looked lovely!
There was a huge base of snow, so no worries about bad conditions on this trip! It also snowed all day on Saturday, creating a lovely winter wonderland. Then the network was freshly groomed entirely for Sunday.
Snow all day = happy skiers!
Members had all kinds of fun. There’s 6 huts to explore throughout the network and we hit all of them at some point! Norm’s cabin even offers full tea and cookie service! The sun peaked out on Sunday and gave us views of Lake Superior. Lots of members challenged themselves to climb King Mountain. Others explored the snowshoe trails.
Four of our members – Heather, Paul, Ian, and Jean-Emile – took on the 6 Hut Challenge on Sunday. That’s all 6 huts in one day. And what a day it was. In the end, this foursome skied 40km and climbed about 1000m! You don’t get that kind of climbing in Southern Ontario. They’re waiting for their t-shirts to be mailed.
The last hut!!! Then the death march home commenced.
The Sugar Shack at Hiawatha!
The final day took us just outside Sault Ste. Marie to Hiawatha Highlands, the local nordic ski club. A smaller trail network and not nearly as challenging (thank goodness!), but also beautiful. The sun came out and everyone wished we had time to stay the whole day.
All in all, this trip was a massive success and we’ll add it to our roster of long weekend destinations! Special thanks to trip leader Monica, who always does a fantastic job.
Norm’s Cabin offers tea and cookies to weary skiers! Our members got a little comfortable…
Race Director Heather and her racers at Horseshoe.
We were a little delayed in getting our race season launched this year, but Race Director Heather has scheduled five fun races for February and March.
Our “races” (if one can call them that!) are simply fun group activities. We have fun cheering each other on, there’s usually some kind of fun twist, and lots of bonus points handed out for random reasons. We do prizes by draw (not by finishing time) and if you come to one race, you get an invite to our year end party in the spring. We’ve been told that Linda’s cheering squad has new loud toys!
Trevor takes off from the start line!
You certainly don’t have to be fast, but you should have enough ski skills to ski a few kilometers comfortably.
Here’s the new schedule:
Feb. 8 – Frisbee Biathlon Relay Kick Off! This race is always a chaotic mess of fun.
Feb. 23 – The It’s Impossible to Get Lost on the Northwest Passage (but someone will still manage to) Freestyle at Scenic Caves.
Feb. 29 – Race Weekend! Choose Your Own Adventure Freestyle Bonus Points Extravaganza at Horseshoe. Choose Patrollers or Geunther’s…or both!
Mar. 1 – Race Weekend! Pine Trail Classic at Wasaga. A fun swing through the forest on classic skis only.
Mar. 15 – Please Let There Still Be Snow Spring Fling Freestyle Costume Race at Hardwood. We’ll wear costumes and have a fun skills challenge integrated into the course. Brush up those ski skills!
No point in participating unless you give it your all!
HPSC used to visit Kawartha Nordic years ago, be we probably haven’t been in over 10 years. That changes this year!
We’re got two trips on the schedule, and our first one is Jan. 26. Forecast looks promising!
Kawartha is a lovely ski area. The terrain is rolling hills, so it’s a great place for beginners. There’s combo trails for both skate and classic and some nice narrower classic only trails. The trails are all two-way, which is different than most of the resorts we visit.
They have a big chalet with places to store bags and there are warming cabins with wood stoves through the trail network – perfect for grabbing a snack. Just be careful of the chickadees!
Every year we schedule one trip to the Kolapore Uplands (combined with a trip to Highlands Nordic). When conditions are good, it’s a magical place! This year’s trip is Feb. 8. There’s a wait list, and if there are enough people on it, we’ll add a second bus.
If you’ve never been to Kolapore, here is what you may expect:
No tracks! Backcountry skiing is on ungroomed, narrow trails. Thus, it can be more challenging than skiing at resorts with tracks. We do not recommend Kolapore for beginners.
No facilities! Be sure to use the washroom on the bus before you leave. And you’ll be eating on the trails.
No rentals! You need your own gear, or need to rent in the city and bring it with you. While backcountry skis are preferable, you can ski with your normal skis.
Guided skiing! Likely two guided groups will be heading out of varying difficulties. Choose your own adventure.
With the growth in our membership, our trips are extremely popular and have been selling out early – even earlier than last year!
We are using wait lists this year. This accomplishes two things:
There are often cancellations up to Wednesday 8pm before the trip. If someone cancels, the first first person on the waitlist will be moved onto the trip to fill the spot. There are often many cancellations and many members get on trips this way.
This allows the Director to evaluate if there is enough interest to pay for a second bus. If yes, we’ll add it! Usually a decision on a second bus is made early in the week before the trip, or earlier if enough people are on the wait list.
How does the wait list work?
Click “join wait list” on the registration page.
Fill out all your information. You will not be charged for the trip at this time.
You will receive a confirmation email that outlines what happens when you are offered a spot.
When you are moved onto the trip, you will be sent a registration pending payment email stating that you have 24 hours to pay or you will be deleted. You do not have a seat until you pay! Given the popularity of our trips, we are strict about the 24 hour time frame.
Log in to your account at hpsc.ca and pay the invoice. Welcome to the trip!
IMPORTANT: On Thursday morning before the trip, all payment pending registrations as well as the wait list will be deleted. Any open spots will be available on a first come, first serve basis.
If you are on the wait list, be sure to pay right away to avoid disappointment. We thank our members for their cooperation; this system we feel is both fair to members and minimizes the work of our wonderful volunteers.
See you on the trails!
Pay right away if you want to be on fun day trips!
Our members know how well our club is run. They see it on every day trip. That’s because we have awesome volunteers dedicated to making sure our trips go on without a hitch!
You’ll find bus captain Paul on duty on Sundays.
We’re seeing big growth in our cross-country community, and we have so many members keen to ski every weekend that we’re able to send two bus trips more often. This is amazing, but with two bus trips, we need two bus captains on a trip.
We have a dedicated group of bus captains, but we could use a few more to help spread out the work.
Bus captains act as the group leader of a trip. Responsibilities include:
Taking attendance on the bus and noting changes in people’s registrations
Making announcements on the bus
Ensuring that everyone who came up comes back
Buying and distributing the trail passes
Completing trip paperwork and submitting to the auditor
Being “on call” during the day – if members need help, do your best to provide it (within reason)
To be a bus captains requires only a few things from you:
Bus captain Andrew bought skate ski gear last year!
Access to a computer with internet and an ability to open Word and Excel documents
Time before the trip to organize the paperwork that is sent to you (you should be able to print off a number of documents)
Ideally a cell phone (although we can work around this)
A friendly attitude!
A willingness to pay for the trail passes on a credit card (which will be reimbursed to you after the trip)
Bus captain Anna is always a friendly face on the trails!
We value our volunteers and, as a thank you, bus captains receive complimentary bus and trail fees on the trip they are working.
If you are interested, please let us know at crosscountry@hpsc.ca. Don’t worry – we will provide you with training materials and have you shadow an experienced bus captain before you do a solo trip.
HPSC’s marketing and communications directors – both downhill skiers – tried their hand at cross-country last year! Photo cred: Heather Steel
It’s our annual tradition of introducing downhillers to the pain and joy of a sport that gives you an actual work out 😉 It’s Crossover Day!
Late return means beautiful light at the end of the day! This is why we ski! Photo cred: Heather Steel
We head to Scenic Caves where we’ll have plenty of opportunities for beginner lessons, guided snowshoeing, and a lovely wine and cheese party at the end of the day in the log cabin.
Scenic Caves is located in Collingwood and has a lovely set of ski and snowshoe trails along the escarpment. Beautiful views of Georgian Bay await, and take the opportunity to walk to the impressive Suspension Bridge!
Don’t miss it! While the trip is full, we’re hoping to make this a two bus party. Get yourself on the waitlist. If there’s enough people and conditions are good, we’ll send you all up!
Skiing with friends at Scenic Caves! Photo cred: Michael Connor
Interested in cross-country skiing or snowshoeing but don’t know where to start? Heard of our club but not sure it’s right for you? Just in time, we’ve got two opportunities for you to try us out!
Cross-country has two “test drive” trips coming up Jan. 5 (Scenic Caves) and Jan. 11 (Horseshoe Valley). For these trips, non-members can register for the website and give our club a try before they commit to becoming a member.
We might be biased, but we think our club is pretty awesome. We have more cross-country day trips than any other club based in the GTA (every Saturday and Sunday). We’ve got five pickup locations throughout the city (High Park, Davenport/Yonge, Eglington/Yonge, York Mills/Yonge, and Hwys 400/7). Our ski school has 22 certified instructors, meaning you can get quality lessons on every day trip. And we’ve got a busload of friendly people to travel and ski with every weekend. What’s not to love?
Guided snowshoeing at Scenic Caves last year. Photo cred: Michael Connor.
Jan. 5 we’re headed to Scenic Caves. This is one of the best ski and snowshoe destinations in Southern Ontario. There’s a variety of ski and snowshoe trails at varying levels of difficulty and beautiful views of Georgian Bay! We also have a lovely log cabin to hang out in when we’re not skiing or snowshoeing. There is guided snowshoeing offered on this trip.
Jan. 11 we’re headed somewhere a bit closer, Horseshoe Valley. Horseshoe has a lovely chalet and an extensive ski and snowshoe system through the Copeland Forest. It has a great teaching area if you’re taking lessons with us. There is guided snowshoeing offered on this trip.
You can choose to mope around for months complaining about the cold, or you can join us and learn to love winter! There’s nothing better than skiing or snowshoeing through quiet forests with all the trees covered in snow. If you try us out, we’re sure you’ll love it too.
To join us Jan. 5 at Scenic Caves, register here. To join us Jan. 11 at Horseshoe Valley, register here. You will pay for the bus ($30), group rate on rentals if necessary (prices vary by resort), and the group rate on the trail pass (prices vary by resort). Indicate if you would like to take lessons, as well as your preferred pick up location. Then show up at a pick up location on the day! (Note: it doesn’t have to be the one you indicated during registration). If the trip is full by the time you register, join the waitlist. There are always cancellations and we may add a second bus if there is enough interest.
Club members practicing on the teaching grid at Horseshoe Valley. Photo cred: Michael Connor.
Please visit hpsc.ca to learn about the club. If you have questions, please see the XC FAQ page. This blog has a lot of great information for new members – like what to expect on a daytrip, what to wear, and lessons, If you still have questions, email crosscountry@hpsc.ca.
