Dream training

Have you ever taken a big break from a sport and then come back better and more skilled than when you stopped? I have always felt that time off from sports can truly benefit oneself.  We dream for hours every night and rarely remember much of those dreams. Could it be possible that we are spending a large portion of that time training in a safe environment?

For years in the fall I would start to have skiing dreams. Usually the ones I remembered I was skiing fast, really fast and completely out of control. I would typically hang on  the whole way, bouncing recklessly off moguls and bumps. I think this dream was always insecurity based and my fears of not being good were being lived.But it was a yearly session of dreams, I remembered those but what about all the ones I never remember?  Could I be spending hours practicing?

The last few years I have picked up mountain biking. I bike hard and fast all summer, training, and doing all sorts of dorky things to hone my skills. I feel lots of evolution during these months but it seems the most drastic change is during the off season. Each year when I have returned to biking I have always had more control and understanding than when I left off.  Better balance, better feel for the bike. I never remember training but somehow I have progressed without doing anything in real life.

Lately I have been working on butter 360’s. I am nowhere near getting it but I keep trying. Anytime I am out with the kids I am trying to get on my tips and butter around. Aiden said to me” Dad that trick is so easy, when I start doing tricks that will be the first one I do. That’s how easy it is…” Its not that easy for me. Then the other night I was dreaming of the move and pulling it off tonnes. I knew it was a dream but I could feel the weight transfer and the pressure I needed to butter the tips around. The body was learning the motion and I felt like I was progressing; in my dreams. I was learning the skill and knew I needed to bring this back to real life. I even understoof that I could hurt myself in the dream and I wouldn’t be hurting myself in real life. Then, a few days after the dream, I was out and trying them again, and I was so much closer to understanding them. It wasn’t a ‘hallelujah ‘ moment where I started nailing the trick, but it was a lot closer and more fluid than ever before.

I guess I just have to keep on working them in real life, dreaming them at night and then perhaps one day I will be able to butter a 360….and make it look cool….

Life has been full of guiding, lots of great skiing but no big lines to blog about. Just great skiing.  Today was pretty epic. really awesome snow, screaming and hollering the whole way down.

So Good

Things are  still good, the winds come through and feel like they have wrecked the place, then you  give it a few days and ski the right aspect and BAMM its good.

We have talked about Terminal direct to the Vaux for awhile but never linked it up.  Today we headed up the Pearly rock trail and up the south side of Terminal.  We were trying to stay in cell service in case Jeff got a call from Becky. They are two days passed their due date and ready to have a kid at any point. So the second we wrapped  to the south side of Terminal Jeff put the burners on and ran up to the ridge so as to be back in service.

It was a pretty long tour up to that point, we all seemed to be feeling it, probably  the 8 km and 6000+ feet. Getting down to our line we wrapped a large rock with a 7mm prussic  and tied our two 30 m rando ropes together. We could have skied directly in but the top part was rocky and rotten so we all took the security of the rope. It was also blowing really hard on the ridge and we didn’t want to dilly dally.

This part of the line was steep and decent skiing, with a little unknown bottom. It worked out pretty well  and we were soon on the Vaux glacier.

I have dreamed about skiing past this glacial bulge for years and wondered how it would all work out. It was incredible how well this did work out, the roll in was perfect settled powder. Great confidence inspiring turns to start the second part of the line.

From there the line was smooth and playful gullies led us downward. A tiny wrap around and BAM a new line skied. How many years will I be able to keep skiing new lines, I wonder? It will tap out at some point but for now it still remains endless.

STS Connector

The other day Aaron skied the STS couloir, to safely enter he belayed Mark. Mark cut away the cornice and then Aaron coiled up the rope and snowboarded in. Leaving behind his poles…… Thinking we could turn a mishap into and adventure we went up Cheops prepared for everything.

I had dreams of skiing this wild ramp.

But once we were standing under neath it, it did not seem like the right choice. Lots of faceting near the rocks made the upper ramps questionable and overall it did not feel like the right time. It is probably a better line to ski in the spring when there is more snow and  the snowpack is more stuck to the rock slabs. Since it felt like plan A was not going to happen we started looking into other options. As we headed up we thought about the West face of cheops and how wild our last ride down there was; so we started looking into plan B, which exited a couloir we have never skied.  Plan B looked Ok but as we studied it more it looked thin and rocky near the top and also perhaps better with more snow…so onto Plan C.

Plan C, was a line I kidded about skiing the other day and then found ourselves dreaming of today. Looking at it from all angles, and taking shots of the  rappel it started to look like the best option. A connector from a line Aaron and I skied years ago into the STS. It looked like full on adventure on a sunny day.

We gathered Aaron’s poles on the way by and by the time we got to the ridge it was blowing up to 50 km an hour. Ridge to summit looked challenging under the pressure of these winds so we decided to get into plan C.  We set up an anchor off a t-slot and walked into the line on rappel. We got some great views of the line and decided to head down it. Since the anchor was still in place I ski cut the first thirty meters on belay and then I unclipped and headed down. Wind smeared softness with some hardness in spots, minor sloughing and bammo out on the face.  Chancey snowboarded down. 

Getting around and into the next part of the line required some down-climbing. At this point it was blowing constantly up to 70km with ice pellets blowing into us. All around us appeared blue and perfect, while we were in a wind tunnel of ice shards.  It was “REAL” though.

After the rock step we regrouped on top of the connector and set up a t-slot and an anchor around a rock. Nice and safe we rapped 10 m down.

Then skied into our final pitch.

Working our way around a few little cliffs and ice bulges we finally joined back up with the STS couloir. Plan C Connected….