Sat, Feb 10 2007 - X-C skiing at Horseshoe Valley (View Original Event Details)
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ning The content of this write-up expresses the views of Lillian and does not necessarily reflect the views of the other participants of this trip. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used ficticiously. Any resemblence to a TOC member is entirely coincidental. In the beginning After much discussion we finally settled on what I sometimes think is the hardest part of any TOC trip -- carpool. Four of us (me, Nancy, Monica, and Daniel) crowded into Jim's car. Since I was appointed navigator, I got to sit in the passenger sit. I was fairly confident of my ability to be the navigator not because of any map reading skills, but because I know how to read words and I'm able to count up to 117, which was the exit number for Horseshoe Valley. This left Daniel, Monica, and Nancy crammed in the back seat. Of course because it was soooooooo crowded back there, Daniel had no choice but to accidentally brush against Monica's leg when he reached for his mug. Horseshoe Valley Coffee break, snow squall in Barrie, and a train later, we all arrive at Horseshoe Valley. David once again kindly offered an informal cross-country skiing lesson, which some of us gratefully took. Others took off for the trails right away. After the lesson, a large group gathered and we decided that we were ready to hit the trail -- an easy one. Merrily we skiied along on flat ground. Oh how happy we were to be outside enjoying the fresh air and the newly fallen snow. You could hear laughter and shouts of joy. It was almost Norman Rockwell-esque. The point of no return However David was bored with the flat ground and wanted to go on a harder trail. We came to an intersection. What to do? Go left which would lead you back to a warm cozy chalet with a hot lunch waiting for you? Go straight ahead where a short but steep hill (a manageable challenge) was beckoning? Or go right which would lead you to an unknown territory? I don't know what I was thinking but I decided to go with David and others for a red trail. At some point we came to a hill and we were forced to herringbone. Herringboning is when you climb up a hill by pointing the toes away from each other and the heels towards each other, like the letter A. It is a very labor-intensive way to go up a hill. It seems a lot more practical to me, to simply take OFF your skis and walk up, but apparently this is cheating. I'm not sure who's keeping score, but I wasn't allowed to do this. So we herringbone up the hill. And keep on herringboning. And continue herringboning. We keep our eyes focused on the bend around the corner because surely the end is in sight. We make it and turn the corner, when we realize another steep slope awaits us. And so we are forced to keep on herringboning. I come to the realization that David is TRYING. TO. KILL. ME. I'm growing faint because of the lack of oxygen at precipitous altitude we're at on the side of the hill. A flat spot that I see at the bend of another corner fuel my hope that the end is near. My hopes and dreams of an easy downhill cruise are shattered into icy bits at the sight of another hill to climb. If Sisyphus were Canadian, his punishment would have been this -- to herringbone a neverending steep hill. Finally we reach the top and one by one we sail down. The rest of the trail is luckily not as arduous as the first climb. I think David was disappointed by this, but the rest of us were quite glad. We took a short break and the women in the group discovered that Daniel had chocolate in his backpack. We descended upon him like the gulls in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (okay, it was more me than the other two women attacking Daniel for the chocolate). Word of warning, or advice to the men, if you want women to pay lots of attention to you, bring chocolate. Finishing the red trail loop and heading back to the chalet took the entire afternoon and we were all exhausted. Even though we had another half hour to spend outdoors, we wearily headed inside to warm up, eat some food, and meet up with other TOC members. While inside we learned that the other participants very sensibly decided to go on trails that did not have an impossibly steep neverending hill and also very sensibly came back to the chalet for lunch instead of staying out for over three hours. We all had a great time and the volunteers of TOC decided to plan another cross-country trip at Horseshoe Valley. Dinner at Boston Pizza Ten of us decided to have dinner at Boston Pizza (Yonge & Sheppherd). During dinner Jim tried to convince me of the grandeur of a pastoral life. He grew up on a farm and the closest town had 450 inhabitants. My elementary school had more than 450 students. Jim of 450 as he will now be called, narrated tales of springtime potato planting (it really was a charming story) and the less charming story of a courtship between a neighbor's son and his sister (he chased her with a freshly butchered sow's tail). I'll be including two video clips of the trip at YouTube. One will be of David demonstrating how to snowplow and the other is of Daniel skiing down. Here's the link to the TOC YouTube experience. http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=torontooutdoorclub
Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Erik Sonstenes at photos@torontooutdoorclub.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.