| 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.
Cross-Country Ski School special programming is back
New to cross-country skiing? Our classic beginners series might be for you. Join instructor Vera (or Liora, depending on demand) for three consecutive weeks of beginner classes designed for new skiers. You will have the same instructor and classmates and learn to get moving on your skis. You must be available all three dates (January 7, 14, 21) and email crosscountry@hpsc.ca to register. If you can’t join the series, you can participate in our regular beginner lessons.
We are also offering special hill clinics that will give you more practice time than in a regular lesson. Our beginner hill clinic on January 20 will teach you to get up and down hills safely. For more advanced skiers who want to play around going faster (step turns anyone?), we are offering an intermediate/advanced hill clinic on February 4 (TBD as to whether it’s classic or skate). Sign up online during trip registration.
Also for more intermediate/advanced skiers, we are offering a classic trail handling clinic on February 24. Learn how to transition between techniques on the trail to ski smarter and faster. You will need some facility with all the main techniques – diagonal stride, double poling, one step double pole in particular. Sign up online during trip registration.
And for those who just want to get tips for a specific technique, we are offering two dates of skate and classic tips and tricks (February 10 & 24). Book 15-20 minutes with an instructor to work something specific – whatever you want! Sign up online during trip registration.
Please note that on the days we offer intermediate + clinics, we will not be offering any other intermediate/advanced lessons. We may schedule more clinics for later in the season as we assess how its going. If there is something in particular you would like a clinic on, let us know at crosscountry@hpsc.ca.
Downhill Day Trips
| Registration for day trips on December 16th and 17th are now open! Please register at: https://hpsc.ca/downhill-trip-registration-page There will be NO LESSONS on both days. All instructors are training in Mont Tremblant that weekend. January day trips will be open for registration before the holidays. Exact date will be announced on the next SnowBiz. Our awesome volunteer, Lisa Zielger, is creating each and every registration module. For just the month of January, there are 64 registration modules! Please be patient, the day trips team will open registrations as soon as we can. We also can’t wait to register for day trips in snowy January! |
Cross-country ski school special programming is back
| New to cross-country skiing? Our classic beginners series might be for you. Join instructor Vera (or Liora, depending on demand) for three consecutive weeks of beginner classes designed for new skiers. You will have the same instructor and classmates and learn to get moving on your skis. You must be available all three dates (January 7, 14, 21) and email crosscountry@hpsc.ca to register. If you can’t join the series, you can participate in our regular beginner lessons. We are also offering special hill clinics that will give you more practice time than in a regular lesson. Our beginner hill clinic on January 20 will teach you to get up and down hills safely. For more advanced skiers who want to play around going faster (step turns anyone?), we are offering an intermediate/advanced hill clinic on February 4 (TBD as to whether it’s classic or skate). Sign up online during trip registration. Also for more intermediate/advanced skiers, we are offering a classic trail handling clinic on February 24. Learn how to transition between techniques on the trail to ski smarter and faster. You will need some facility with all the main techniques – diagonal stride, double poling, one step double pole in particular. Sign up online during trip registration. And for those who just want to get tips for a specific technique, we are offering two dates of skate and classic tips and tricks (February 10 & 24). Book 15-20 minutes with an instructor to work something specific – whatever you want! Sign up online during trip registration.Please note that on the days we offer intermediate + clinics, we will not be offering any other intermediate/advanced lessons. We may schedule more clinics for later in the season as we assess how its going. If there is something in particular you would like a clinic on, let us know at crosscountry@hpsc.ca.  |
What to do in Buffalo on a Saturday in July?
At the turn of the 20th Century, Buffalo was a very wealthy city with the highest number of millionaires per capita than any other American city. One of these individuals was Darwin D. Martin of the Larkin Soap Company. A company he had started with at the age of 12, rising to the position of company Secretary (equivalent to a CFO now). After commissioning the up and coming Chicago architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a new company headquarters, he also asked Wright to design a home for his own family. The end result was something startlingly modern for 1905, and very different from the traditional homes in the Parkside neighbourhood of Buffalo.
On Saturday July 22, HPSC ran a very successful daytrip to Buffalo to visit both the Darwin Martin House complex, as well as the Martin’s summer home, Greycliff Estate, situated just south of Buffalo on a 70 foot cliff overlooking Lake Erie. Fifty-three members and guests received in-depth tours of both locations.
We followed up the tours with a dinner in the Lafayette Brewing Company located in the historic Hotel Lafayette (built in 1904).
Ikon Pass Group Sale Extended!
Good news for any Ikon Pass procrastinators! Our Group Sale agreement (with our partner Skican) has been extended to May 5th!
If you are hesitant because you are recovering from an injury, or because you are worried you may not otherwise be able to use the pass next year, Ikon has a few different types of insurance:
Adventure Assurance lets you defer the value of your pass to the following year, so long as you defer before December 14, 2023. And it’s free and included with your pass purchase!
Pass Protection and Injury Insurance are also available. See link here for details.
Insurance is not available directly through the Group Sale. The Spot Insurance will need to be purchased directly with Ikon by calling their Customer Support Center at 888-365-IKON after you’ve purchased your pass through Skican. This can be done anytime before October 31 2023.
For further information or to participate in the Group Sale, contact Russ Harding at ikon@hpsc.ca.
Downhill day trips are officially finished for the 2022/2023 season
Thanks to all club members, instructors and new friends that came out to one of 51 scheduled day trips this season. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough interest to run our two bonus April Saturday trips to MSLM.
A huge thanks to all the hard work by our day trips coordinators, Michael Hardtke, Bishu Basuroy, Sheila Tolentino-Moshonas and Fran Burgess. They each put in hours of work before and after every day trip to make them happen.
Thank you also to the following volunteers for their huge contributions:
Lisa Ziegler for creating all the downhill registration modules. Yes! She set up all 102 registration modules (bus & drive-ups)!
Jason Tsang for taking charge of the day trips emails and coordinating all our lift tickets every Saturday for Mount St. Louis Moonstone.
David Manning, Christine Bellerose and Snow School for getting so many awesome instructors for each day trip. Our members love every ski and snowboard lesson. Thank you to all HPSC instructors!
Hilary Childs for your work with processing all trip cancellations and refunds.
And finally, thank you to all our amazing bus captains that made each trip experience smooth for all our members and guests: Andrea Palmay, Heidi Gay, David Flowers, Suzanne de Grandpré, Celeste O’Neil, Kim Wiebe, Rocco Romeo, Martha Wright, Ron Maruska, and Jen Beatty.
It’s now time to enjoy some warm weather in the off season. I’m already looking forward to when the snow and cold will return!
Amy Lam
Downhill Day Trips Director
Thanks for a Great Season!
Thank you to everyone who participated in our cross-country day trips this year. While winter got off to a very sluggish start, we ran 18 trips.
A huge thank you to all our volunteers who make it happen:
- Monica Sauer and Theo Kempe – who make sure that all the bus captains, DODs and guides have all the paperwork and info they need on every trip. Monica also volunteers on our long trips committee, organizing the long weekend bus trips.
- Paul Moser – who does all the trip financial reconciliations and audits.
- David Cloutier – who orders our buses every week.
- Jean-Emile Paraiso and Gayatri Bharadwaj – who create all of our trip modules on the website.
- Howard Gibson – who schedules all our bus captains.
- Linda Lavalee – who runs our new member ambassador program.
- All the bus captains – Monica Sauer, Marjanne Lyn, Carol Collinson, Howard Gibson, Jennifer Meyer, and Claire Patregion. Our thoughts are with Paul Dover, who we hope is well enough to rejoin the group next year.
- Jeff Stainsby – who sets the schedule and does all the post-season administrative work for ski school.
- All of our instructors who taught this season – Jean-Emile Paraiso, Regina Eiras, George Lorenz, Suzanne Denis, Owen Rogers, Nicole Pepper, Vera Polyakova, Adrian Butscher, Liora Freedman, Janine Jorgenson, Elaine Rennet, Andrew Mahoney, Ron Duffy, and Carine Wood.
- Our snowshoe guides – Melain Cheung, Cynthia Johnson, Cynthia Wheatley, and Queena Kwok (who stepped in late in the season and will be leading next year!).
- And the finance team, including Clark Seadon and Lisa Philpott, who ably and quickly dealt with our payment issues this season. Also, thanks to Hilary Childs, Richard Kinread, Steve Jonjev, Judy Chen, and Michele Williamson. There were a lot of refunds this year, due to the weather and the IT issues, and they did a great job.
After we wrap up the season, we will be taking a well-deserved break over the summer. We will ramp back up in late summer, but the schedule won’t be posted until November. You can expect the same pattern – the season will begin December 30 and then we will have trips every Saturday and Sunday thereafter until the snow disappears at some point in March. Registrations for the first few trips likely will open around December 18. Nothing for you to do before then except renew your membership and get in ski shape!
Have a wonderful summer!
Heather Steel
Director of Cross-Country Skiing and Snowshoeing
Bringing a guest? Here’s how to register them:
On some trips, members are allowed to bring a guest. Guests are allowed to come ONCE per season (even if they know multiple members) and members can bring one guest per trip. If people are keen to ski with us, we encourage them to join. The club is only able to run because of its membership-based structure. But guest days are a good chance for people to try us out.
Registering you and your guest happens separately. First, register yourself on the trip. Then, when guest registration is available (typically the last day of trip registration), you can register your guest. Find the trip registration module again and click “Register”. On the next screen click the “New Registration” button. The next page will show the email associated with your account. If it is filled in, click “Next” (if not, fill it in with the email you used to sign up for the club and click “Next”). Then you can choose “Guest” and proceed with registration and payment. Essentially, you are just registering that you are bringing a guest; there is no place where you actually put in their name or other identifying information.
You pay for your guest and your guest pays you back. Remember that you are responsible for ensuring that your guest follows the policies and procedures of the club. You must also ensure that your guest brings a signed copy of our waiver (link to it), or you must bring it for them to sign on the bus. No waiver means they will be denied participation.