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Category Archives: Canada
Banff-Lake Louise gets tons of fresh powder this weekend
Banff-Lake Louise is preparing for up to 30-40 cm of fresh powder by Saturday morning. Heavy snow is forecast to fall over the next 36 hours over the mountain park regions of Alberta.
Kicking off the new year in style and just in time for the weekend, what better way to burn off that turkey/Christmas chocolate/adult beverages than by plowing through fresh powder at Canada’s Big 3 Resorts.
Happy New Year, we’ll see you on the slopes.
Learn how to make those cool ski flicks
By Jerry Rice
While it may not be as celebrated as the School of Cinematic Arts at USC, the Canadian Mountain Holidays Film School has put together some impressive productions.
The CMH Film School, in Revelstoke, British Columbia, is where nascent ski filmmakers come to sharpen their skills. The program is featured in the February issue of Ski Magazine.
“Our legs ache from a day spent blasting arcs in the high alpine, and now we watch as Guy Clarkson, a cinematographer who owns Raven HD, makers of award-winning documentaries, dices and splices clips as fluently as he skis,” writes Joe Cutts.
Clarkson comes with an impressive resume: besides film work, he’s a licensed pilot, sailor, rancher and military trainer. And he’s been to the top of the world, watching the sun rise on Mount Everest.
The film school’s courses aren’t cheap, but they come with lots of neat bonus features. The cost of the Feb. 4-9 session at CMH’s K2 Lodge is $6,080, and the March 28-April 1 course at Revelstoke is $4,038. Both include lodging, heli skiing, equipment and meals.
In the story, Cutts recalls a recent crash course on editing with Clarkson.
“We go through footage he shot on a professional-grade camera and stuff clients shot with their GoPros and his guidance,” Cutts writes. “We’re learning the techniques and decision making that make the magic happen — how to have the skier ski into the shot, how to fade out on a spray of snow, even how to ski for the camera ourselves.”
For information, visit www.canadianmountainholidays.com. Here’s a sample of their work:
Red Mountain: North America’s last great undiscovered ski resort
By Richard Irwin
Savvy Skier
Many call it the last great undiscovered ski resort in North America. And with its latest expansion, Red Mountain certainly is poised to become one of the largest.
The British Columbia resort is adding another mountain and 1,000 acres of terrain. That’s on top of the two mountains and 1,685 acres that it already has.
“The scale of this expansion is a true game-changer for Red Mountain Resort and for the community of Rossland,” said CEO Howard Katkov. “The management team has spent the last eight years carefully reinforcing the company’s infrastructure, investing $50 million in the facilities and completing world-class slope-side accommodations. Now we’re truly ready for prime time. We’ve consciously kept a low profile while we diligently readied ourselves for this massive expansion.”
The addition of Grey Mountain alone is close to the size of Mt. Baker Ski Area in Washington. The total acreage will make Red larger than Jackson Hole, Wyo. And the resort will join the top 3 percent of North American ski resorts with 2,682 acres of skiable acres.
Continue reading “Red Mountain: North America’s last great undiscovered ski resort” »
Rossland offers lots of fun at winter carnival in British Columbia
By Richard Irwin
Savvy Skier
The handmade bobsled barreled down the icy city street, zooming past an ambulance and police car sitting at an intersection. Residents rushed out into the street to see if the brave young men crashed on the busy boulevard below.
Welcome to the Sammy Samuelson Bobsled Race, one of the most popular events at the Rossland Winter Carnival in British Columbia. The quaint old mining town bills itself as Canada’s oldest winter carnival.
They say a Norwegian miner by the name of Olaus Jeldness started it all back in 1897. They insist Olaus invited friends to the top of nearby Red Mountain for an infamous “tea party.” Afterwards, the pioneer strapped long wooden sticks to their feet and sent them barreling down the hill. He called them “skis,” and that’s how the sport got its start in Canada.
Well, Olaus would be proud to know that neighbors are still barreling down the streets of Rossland — albeit in handmade bobsleds that are long on imagination and short on engineering.
Continue reading “Rossland offers lots of fun at winter carnival in British Columbia” »