O Canada!

Canmore, Alberta is by far my favorite place I’ve been to. Form the ski trails that are more like ski highways, to the incredibly huge Rocky Mountains that set the most beautiful backdrop one could imagine, I always use Canmore as motivation on those cold and rainy days rollerskiing in the summer. Come to think of it I probably should have made a mid-trip blog post because we were there for 3 weeks and there is a lot of stuff that happened so I’ll try to condense it down to a reasonable blog post. 

The town and the mountains in the background 

The view from the range 

The "Three Sisters" Faith, Hope and Charity 

Hoodoos (weird conglomerate structures) with mountains in the background 

Tall Hoodoo with the Three Sisters 

The trip out to Calgary was pretty uneventful. No flight delays or cancellations and all luggage made it across the border (backpack, duffle bag, ski bag, rifle case). Upon arrival to Canmore, Casey Smith picked us (Welly Ramsey took the shuttle from the airport with me) up and brought us to the Rocky Mountain Ski Lodge. And this brings us to our first story from the trip:

At about 2 AM I wake up to somebody clapping. I look around and see the light on, but welly isn’t in his bed (we were in the loft and Casey was in a room downstairs) I then hear clapping again and hear welly yell “Dude, wake up!” so I crawl out of bed and pear over the railing to see Welly bending over a person laying on the ground. My first reaction is Casey got up to get a snack, fell, hit his head and is now passed out on the ground. Upon further inspection however, I realize I’ve never seen this person before in my life. Welly then yells “Dude, wake up! You’re in the wrong room!” That’s when I realize this guy is some drunk guy who somehow got into our room. After we woke him up and kicked him out we took a second to reflect on the hilarity of the situation. How he got in was our fault, we accidentally left the key in the door so this poor guy was probably saw the key and was just happy to get out of the cold. We saw him the next day walking to his car but I don’t think he even remembered what happened the night before.

Drunk Guy with Welly trying to wake him up. 

The skiing was awesome! When I first arrived there was aboot a 2k man made loop but they were working hard to get more trails pushed out for the upcoming races. By the time of the first race weekend there was close to 8 or 9K. The course its self is pretty hilly but the mountains make it better.

beautiful views all around

Casey doing what ever that is... 

Under the bridge

The first scheduled races of the trip were actually cancelled due to the cold. The legal race temperature is -20*C but the range was close to -25*C so that race was cancelled pretty quickly. But Sunday’s race was trying hard to happen. The temperature when we first got to the venue was about -23*C. so the race organizers decided to delay it an hour in hopes that the sun would warm things up. At the second jury meeting the temperature was actually -20*C at the range but -22*C on the trails. So they decided to cancel it. It’s too bad they can’t predict the future because about 30 mins later the temp got up to -17*C. but its ok because once the temp gets bellow -15*C everything just feels one temperature: COLD!

On the Monday after the canceled races we decided to head up to Lake Louise to ski on an access road that gets groomed in the winter. The skiing wasn’t that good, in fact, it was really bad. But the view was worth the hour and half ski through slow, not very packed snow. On the ski we got to see the Mountain that hosted the Alpine World Cup race that weekend. The trail ended with an “Avalanche Warning! Turn Back!” sign. Didn’t see any avalanches but apparently they happen. (I didn’t know what to say for that part but I hope that’s good haha) after the ski we visited the Lake Louise Hotel. This hotel was a 7 story building tucked in to a little valley between two huge mountain faces. The hotel its self reminded me of a classic 1920’s New York hotel. The lobby was a very big common room where everybody would come to socialize. It had a grand staircase and huge chandelier. Next to the hotel was the Lake Louise. This lake is the picturesque lake you see in calendars, post cards, and nature shots. If I ever win the lottery I will be back to this hotel with my friends and family.

Skiing on the road with Sean Doherty

Trail ends with a beautiful view

Those trails you see are the World Cup Alpine trails. Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin were doing some training runs that day

Banff has a beautiful downtown 

Hotel in the mountains

Grand staircase 

Lake Louise 

Next weekend was much warmer (almost above freezing) so the first races of the season were under way. In the first sprint on Thursday I shot 2-3 (misses) 50% is less than what I would have like to hit but for the first race of the season I’ll take it. On Saturday for the second sprint race I shot another 50%, 4-1. Right after the race I realized I didn’t look at the wind flags while shooting prone so that was the lesson for the day. Standing felt solid. Then for the last race, the mass start, everybody starts at the same time and the first to finish wins. The shooting for the day went 3-1-4-2. Another 50%. My skis were pretty fast so right off the start I moved up to the front (unintentionally) came into the range and had 3 misses. My coach, Seth came out on course and informed me all the misses were close, just to calm down and take good shots. So I did and only had 1 miss and was able to move up to 3^rd or 4^th place. I started getting wrapped up in the race and began to lose shooting focus. That’s where the 4 misses came from. Despite the 50% shooting over the three races I was pretty happy with how the weekend went. I re-learned some valuable lessons you can only learn from racing. And that was the goal of the races. Remember how to race, on the course and on the range. Racing on the range is tricky because you’re not really racing in the “go fast” sense but racing in the “if I do this right I will be a head of those who do it wrong” sense. I was also pretty pleased with my skiing this past weekend. I felt my ski speed was competitive with everybody else in the field. Photos shamelessly stolen from friend Jake Ellingson: (more race photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/105337266@N06/sets/72157649249305869/ )

Start of mass start 

Entering the range during mass start

Right now I am sitting in the Chicago-O’Hare airport on my way to Grand Rapids, Minnesota for IBU Cup Trials. The IBU Cup is like the World Cup minor leagues so qualifying would be a real treat, but will be really tough.

Thanks for reading, I know it was a long post but I hope you were somewhat entertained to see what I was up to. Friend me on Facebook, Follow me on Instagram: @Brhalligan4 and twitter: @bhbiathlon

P.S, in case you missed it here is the MWSC highlight video from Canmore: