After that snow dump, my report is short: conditions everywhere should be very excellent! Especially for classic. Even for places closer to the city (Mono, Mansfield, Albion, which is opening Jan. 18). Temps are supposed to rise a bit Wednesday and then drop again. A few more days of grooming should consolidate the bases and make for excellent skiing for both classic and skate on the weekend.
Members have also been having lots of fun skiing and snowshoeing in the city after 30cm of snow fell. Get out and play in the snow!
Horseshoe (tip: Horseshoe is notorious for not reporting accurately. If you want to go, check Hardwood. If Hardwood is reporting sketchy conditions, you know that Horseshoe will be worse)
While we can’t run buses, we know that members will be getting out on the trails themselves if they are able. Someone requested that I do a conditions update so members know where the best conditions are in a particular week. This is the first installment! I will be covering the resorts we generally visit around Barrie and Collingwood, and a couple closer to the city. This is not an exhaustive list.
Scenic Caves has the best conditions with a 30cm base. Highlands reports an 8cm base with track in, a little thin on the Back Red and Hawberry, but I expect the main trails are in great shape. Hardwood and Horseshoe have about 15cm base depths and good conditions, although they still need more snow to build up those bases. They were just able to put in a decent track this week. Wasaga is apparently open with track set and reporting good conditions, although looks like a thinner base (10cm). Closer to the city, Albion is still closed and Mono has skiable coverage, but no track. Probably decent for skating. Mansfield is open but the trails are ungroomed. You are welcome to ski on the trails if you want.
More snow overall not likely to come until next week, so conditions not likely to improve until then. Will be very cold Friday/Saturday. Be careful of those fingers and toes if you venture out Saturday am in particular.
Check back early next week for the next installment!
Before you ski, check out the conditions on the resort websites:
Horseshoe (tip: Horseshoe is notorious for not reporting accurately. If you want to go, check Hardwood. If Hardwood is reporting sketchy conditions, you know that Horseshoe will be worse)
Due to the new restrictions that are now in force in Quebec regarding individuals from different households staying together, indoor dining and other restrictions, it is with regret that we must cancel the February mid-week trip to Mont Tremblant and the Family Day trip to Orford in the Eastern Townships.
The Long Trips committee is monitoring the situation and are optimistic that the tide will turn and restrictions will be lifted in time for our Quebec trips in March.
If you signed up and have paid for either of the two February trips, you will receive a full trip refund from the club. Please be patient as the refund process takes time and can only be done by a very limited number of volunteers.
As a gesture of good faith, if you remain a member in good standing, you will be eligible for one Front of the Line (FOTL) spot if the same destination is offered by HPSC in 2023. This FOTL will be valid until October 1, 2023 and will apply to any overnight bus trips that the club was forced to cancel.
Charter trips are arranged by HPSC but contracted through TICO protected tour operators. These trips can only be cancelled by the tour operator and not by HPSC. This would only happen in the case of a “force majeure” such as a resort closure. At that point, credits would then be offered to members booked on that trip in line with destination policies.
To quote the famous New York Yankee Yogi Berra – “It’s deju vu all over again!”
Last season we had to make the tough decision to cancel all daytrips and bus trips. This year, we were very optimistic that we would be able run a close to normal season – but then . . . . OMICRON!!!
The biggest difference this season, compared to last, is that the provincial government has not shut down Ontario downhill ski resorts. This means that we can still provide lessons and run drive-up only trips beginning on January 15th (signup open this coming Saturday). Cross-country trips are bus dependent and will only run when we start to run buses.
To make this clear: We have NOT cancelled running buses for the rest of the season. We will re-evaluate buses on a regular basis and will start bus trips as soon as we can.
We understand that there has been a bit of information overload regarding the upcoming season – but we are attempting to keep members informed of changes as they happen. As you can guess, this season has had a lot of changes requiring us to be very flexible.
I want to wish all of you a very happy New Year! And hope we can all soon get out on the hills and trails to enjoy the sports that we love!
Communication Director Nemanja Davidovic, informed the board that due to increased work responsibilities he needed to resign as Director of Communications. Long time member Suzanne de Grandpre was appointed by the board at our December meeting as the new Director of Communications to complete Nemanja’s term.
I would personally like to thank Nemanja for all his work on the board and his assistance and help in transitioning Suzanne into the role. And I look forward to working with Suzanne.
To read more about Suzanne, see below:
“Having grown up in Alberta, I started skiing in Banff and Whistler during university. After a hiatus of a number of years, I moved to Toronto and wished to get back into skiing. I didn’t even know people skied in Ontario until I joined High Park Ski Club, of which I have been a continuous member since 1998. My time in the club has consisted of everything from day trips to overnight trips to Quebec and the US and, of course, the charter trips which I eagerly anticipate every year! I have made many friends and gained many fond skiing memories over the years. The excellent instruction I received from our amazing instructors has taken my skiing to new levels. It has also been a most gratifying experience giving back to the club as a volunteer, director, co-trip leader and bus captain. I am looking forward to continue serving the club as Communications Director.”
“Around the same time readers first started turning pages of Ski Canada 50 years ago, Paul Marner, then a 14-year-old grade 10 student from the burbs of Toronto, was busy cooking up with his French teacher the first of countless group ski trips to Quebec. The young entrepreneur and definitive “freeskier” quickly learned how he could ski on someone else’s dime. (All it required was hours of organization and sales talk.) By grade 13 he had 500 students in buses heading to Quebec City during Christmas and March Breaks. Half a century later, Marner’s still at it with Merit Travel.
Most of the “lifers” in the ski-biz have worked directly with resorts or ski gear and clothing manufacturers, while Marner was the guy who got bums onto buses, planes and, indirectly, to ski shops. More than 250,000 by Marner’s count—and only one ski trip with a murder, but that’s a story for Ski Canada’s and Marner’s 100th anniversaries.
Before Breakaway Tours was founded in the early ’80s though, Marner worked for Majestic Travel and set up his own ski shop, Ski Connection, in the agency’s basement. “We leased skis and did tune-ups; as well, I used to buy close-outs of clothing and skis,” says Marner.
After Majestic and Breakaway Tours, Marner headed up Gotta Travel, which morphed into Ultimate Ski & Golf Vacations. (Remember Ultimate’s red carpet “Excite Flight” direct charter to Tremblant from the free parking at Toronto’s exclusive Executive Terminal?) Cross-promoting with Elan, Labatt, Bacardi, Columbia, Avalanche and radio stations like Q107, it was tough to curb his enthusiasm for our sport. He still has a copy of the formal response from the White House following his gracious invitation to U.S. President Ronald Reagan to take a ski break while discussing acid rain and the DEW line with Brian Mulroney during Quebec City’s Shamrock Summit.
Marner has since settled down with Merit Travel Ski Vacations, offering more than 100 resorts from the best of B.C., Alberta, Quebec, U.S. East and West and the Alps. And like many who have worked in the ski industry a long time, he’s at home leading a group of skiers.. As Ski Canada celebrates its 50th anniversary, they hope for a much better winter than the last. Certainly there’s more anticipation than ever for making travel plans and the memories that will follow. “
Home Smith Park, December 25, 2020 Photo by JK Graham
December 22, 2021
HPSC Friends,
I would like to wish all of you the very best of the holidays!
As you know we have been planning very hard, as best we can, for what we had hoped to be a close facsimile of a normal season. But the one thing we have all learned over the last two years is the need to stay flexible. During the last three weeks we have gone from being fairly optimistic of starting the season, weather dependent, on time, to having to make the following announcement.
As we have stated repeatedly, the safety of our members is our top priority. Therefore, due to the rapid increase of COVID cases due to the Omicron variant we have made the decision to pause the beginning of the season. And to start, unfortunately, we will not be able to run any buses.
Downhill daytrips will begin on Saturday January 15th and continue as scheduled as drive-up only events. This means that we will offer lessons by our Snow School. To participate you will need to register via HPSC for lessons, but you will need to purchase your lift ticket directly from the resort. For the Wednesday trips we are still discussing with the clubs how tickets will be handled.
Due to the changing situation, registration for each week’s trip will also open one week prior to the first trip and continue on a weekly basis. Registration will close for the weekend and Monday trips as usual on Thursday at 6pm. Due to new requirements at the private clubs, we have had to move up the registration deadline as well to Thursday at 6pm. So all downhill trips will now close at the same time. Registration for the first week will open on January 8th.
On the cross-country side, all trips at this point are postponed until at least January 22nd, and will only run if we are able to run bus trips.
Our plan is to continuously monitor the situation and to start running buses when it is feasible, so please read all communications carefully from the club to stay informed.
Further, due to the revised regulations announced last week regarding the need for a PCR test for any trip outside of the country, even for less than 72 hours, the Long Trips Committee has made the decision to cancel our yearly trip to Holiday Valley for this season.
Never a dull moment!
Happy Holidays! Enjoy the season and please stay safe. And if you are able to, get your booster shot when you can.
As you may be aware, last year the Board of Directors prepared a detailed COVID Protocol document. The document has been updated for the 2021/22 season and is posted on our website.
One area that members should be aware of is what to do if they test positive for COVID after being on a HPSC trip/event.
If a member tests positive within 14 days of being on a trip/event, they MUST contact the appropriate Director (Downhill Day Trips, Director of Cross-Country and Snowshoeing, Long Trips, Social) ASAP. You should inform the Director if you were in a lesson and the name of their instructor if possible. The club will then contact all possible close contacts in a lesson or on the bus. You should contact any people you were with outside of the bus or lesson.
All impacted members are encouraged to get a PCR COVID test and to self-isolate as recommended by public health guidelines. All affected members are put on 14-day suspension (from the date of possible exposure) from all club activities. The suspension will be lifted earlier if they are able to provide the club with a negative PCR test result. If a member on the contact list subsequently tests positive during the 14-day period, they must inform the club. The original COVID positive member is suspended from all trips/club activities until official clearance is provided to the Director of Membership.
If the club experiences two or more cases of COVID-19 on a trip/event that are not from the same household, this is considered an outbreak. All trips/events in that portfolio of the club (Alpine or Cross-country, Social) will be immediately cancelled for 2 weeks.
If a second outbreak occurs, all trips for that portfolio of the club (Alpine or Cross-Country, Social) will be cancelled for the rest of the season.
The snow is starting to fall more regularly and some of the local hills have already opened. It was fantastic to see posts from members who got out early to Mount St. Louis and Horseshoe Valley this past weekend.
While this year will still be a somewhat different experience, it will still be fantastic to get back to skiing regularly this coming season. Let me assure you that your HPSC team has been working continuously with the resorts to work out the details and procedures we will need to follow as the resorts work out the rules. Keep following the announcements in SnoBiz and the HPSC Facebook group to stay up to date.
And just a reminder that registration for all trips will be restricted to only those who have provided their vaccination proof to the club. If you haven’t done so yet, please send a copy to vac@hpsc.ca . Only the Director of Membership has access to this email address, and all documents are delated after verification – the club is not keeping copies of any documents. I want to thank the 72% of current members who have provided their proof for verification.
I am sincerely looking forward seeing as many of you as possible on the hill and trails this coming season!
Unfortunately we have had to cancel our Dec. 29th trip to Scenic Caves. Unforeseen operational issues combined with the lack of winter make it impossible to run the trip.
The first trip is still tentatively scheduled for Jan. 2. Keep an eye here, on the website and on our social media channels for updates.
