Hi,
I'm back from my very first camp in Fernie. I posted earlier on the forums to say that up until now I'd only worked out of the books and videos and had been dying to get to a camp for a couple of years. It was great, highly recommended to all to get the real experience. Our group was skiing with Peter Stone, a totally cool guy, good teacher and a lot of fun. Everyone was skiing better, though I felt when I began the camp I was skiing worse than I usually do due to my new boot setup - my boots are now (hopefully) on the way to Chris in Colorado for surgery. My issue is big calves, using S10W boots. The calves have been pushing me forward, I was finding I'd have to get pretty low to stay in the front quadrant on my turns. This could also be part of old habits for all I know too, but definitely the verdict was for boot surgery to get me more upright. It was nice to ski on shimmed demo skis and get a feel for correct alignment (I'll be getting my boots shimmed rather than my skis so I've not yet had a chance to ski with my own setup properly shimmed, but I'm sure I'll see more improvement after the bootwork.
I was hoping to get some powder skiing in but while I was there Fernie had what was probably a record of 10 out of 12 days of sunshine, with just a light dusting the other days, and wow, some very cold temps toward the end of the camp week. Thursday was damn cold, but Friday morn it was -27C, which "warmed up" to a more sultry -17 by the afternoon .
Being a musician/singer Peter did the impossible and managed to help me find a nice hotel where I could do a contra deal for accomodation/food. This worked out really well, though I didn't save any money cos I stayed longer and spent it on lift tickets and warmer gloves/headgear for the -27 day, hehe.
Anyway, it was wonderful to gain a better understanding of some of the things I'd been reading/watching and trying to work with, hopefully I'll still have a chance to get out on the new setup before the season ends. I'll definitely be trying to do more camps next season funds permitting.
I do read the boards here but don't post much, but I'm around...
cheers and thanks for such a wonderful community. The vibe of our group was that these camps are really special, and that's also from campers who really hadn't read much about PMTS beforehand.
cheers
Julianne