We (Mark, THE godfather) and I drove up to Mont Ste Marie to meet up with my family for an awesome weekend in one of my favourite places on Earth. The weather cooperated and we had two sweet days of mountain biking and fun up there. Such a great time of year to be there, so much green!! Not to mention the mountain bike trails up there absolutely kick ass now! Huge props to the VeloMSM crew!

Green everywhere.

Yeaaaa…… Nooo… Higher than it looks!

After that it was back to Calgary to “begin” (I’d already been training for three weeks) summer training there. The first week out here has been pretty hectic and busy. Between double sessions every day and getting organized and settled back at the Dawson residence, I’m pretty wiped out already with one more tough day to go!

Received a sweet package from POC. The new LIDs, stoked on these goggles!

Abby & I started the trip a day early, towing the ski boat and checking out campsites. Abby quickly posted up in her usual co-pilot position!

Decided to go check out our campsite from last year… More on that later.

The view from my Captain’s seat of the houseboat. Interesting vehicles to drive houseboats are. Ramming speed!

No Complaints Canyon. Spent an awesome afternoon in that unique little spot.

Enjoying a Powell sunset from the roof of the houseboat.

As I mentioned earlier, we went to check out our campsite from last year. Powell is dammed, so the water level is controlled, to a point, making for massive fluctuations in water level every year (unlike Muskoka where I grew up and water levels change by maximum of a couple feet per year). We estimated the water level was down about 30 feet (!!) from when we were there almost exactly a year ago.

^ Last year on top | This year below ∨

Last year ^ | This year ∨

Taken from nearly the identical spot both years (the small rock hasn’t even moved?!).. Last year above | This year below.

Needless to say this kind of blew my mind!! But still plenty of water left apparently, and we managed to find a wicked campsite that suited our group perfectly.

After Powell, Abby and I tripped over to Goblin Valley State Park to camp for another night and do some hiking. Another very cool and unique place which my pictures definitely don’t do justice to!

Big ol Goblin.

Miles of these things!

Hiking away from the park.

Some very cool natural features to go through.

Slot canyon!

Overall a really, really awesome trip and I can’t wait to go back. Powell 2014 here we come!

As tough as it is to get motivated for a three week spring camp only a couple short weeks after a long season, this camp has been pretty spectacular.

Trees in Nakiska

We spent the first week in Nakiska really slowing things down and going back to basics (which is pretty much the theme of the camp). Lots of drills, slow skiing, and drill courses. After a weekend off in Banff we moved up to the Sunshine Mountain Lodge, right in the heart of Sunshine Mountain. Ski in ski out, no complaints from this guy, even if it is a bit ‘Shining’-esque! We spent the second week getting into real gates in GS, but still taking things slowly and focusing on skiing, not going fast. I even did slalom (stubbies) for the first time in I can’t even remember how long (sorry, no video, nobody needs to see that!). I ended the week with the speed group, getting 27 runs of gliding and GS in before lunch! Productivity at its best.

6:40am sled to the top of the mountain.

The views up top are incredible, especially first thing in the morning.

We just finished our first day of the final week up here and it was another good one. 7 runs of gnarly, minute long SG, followed by 12 DH runs on the glide track, all before 11am. Looping around on sleds for most of the sessions gets a lot done, and is, hopefully, getting my arms ready for beach season. Haha. But seriously, it’s tough on the arms. The last 3 days of the camp are looking like more of the same, with some sunny, hot weather on the docket. Bring it on!

Sitting on the frozen throne at Goat’s Eye Mountain.

Below is a video from training last week. As mentioned, no slalom in there! But a few glide runs, and a couple GS runs to get an idea of what things look like up here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AQQwakDSAo

Hopefully I haven’t lost the interest of too many people after such a long hiatus, but I’ll be back to regular broadcasting here from now on. Also, the long, long awaited (for me at least!) design refresh should be coming in not too long.

Before I get into what I’ve been up to lately and what’s coming up, check out some photos from a few of theWorld Cup races (both good and bad!) I did this season. All photos courtesy of and Copyright Agence Zoom.

Cool angle from Sölden.

Sölden.

Beaver Creek SG.

Val Gardena DH

Val Gardena DH, crazy angle!

Alta Badia GS. Childhood dream come true to race that puppy!

Val G DH.

Alta GS.

Schladming

I’ve mentioned CAN Fund a few times on my blog already, mainly because my main sponsor, Eric Sprott of Sprott Private Wealth, has been a huge supporter and monetary contributor to the Fund.
But to refresh your memory and explain the new initiative: CAN Fund is a non profit that raises money for athletes across Canada and with less than 400 days to the Opening Ceremonies they have created a fundraising page exclusively for our sport. So my teammates and I are inviting you and your contacts who love Alpine Skiing, Ski Cross & Para-Alpine Skiing to become a part of our Olympic journey by supporting us through CAN Fund.

This fundraiser starts now until June 3, 2013. With every donation you receive a tax receipt. You can donate by clicking on the link below which will take you to the  Alpine Skiing, Ski Cross & Para-Alpine Skiing CAN Fund Fundraising Page. With your donation you will be directly supporting the skiers who applied to CAN Fund. CAN Fund gives each recipient up to $12,000 a year and the money is given right to the athlete.

DONATE online: http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=1707850

If you’ve never  donated to amateur sport, this is a very easy and extremely direct way to do so. CAN Fund makes the donation process painless (literally 2 clicks + your info), so if you’ve been looking for a great way to support our Canadian Skiers, look no further!

Talking about crashes of course! Towards the end of my unsuccessful and fairly short Euro trip after New Years, I fell inside skiing GS, caught my tip in the snow and wrenched my leg around painfully. Luckily the European medical system is pretty kick ass and we got in for an MRI a day after the fall to see if it was anything serious. With the symptoms and pain that I had, we were expecting a torn meniscus, but turns out it was ‘just’ a bone bruise on the top of my tibia, and a strained ligament in my ankle. Good news as far as bad news goes!

After some convenient timing brought Abby and I together for a day in Austria, I hopped on an earlier flight than originally planned to go home for some rest and physio. I spent the four days at home doing a couple hours of physio/rehab stuff each day at Santé Universelle, which is a truly great trio of clinics in Gatineau, Hull, and Aylmer. Big thanks to Marie Claire for helping me out!

As for now I’m back in Colorado prepping for the NorAm GS races coming up in a few days. I had my first day back on snow today, which went way better than I expected! While skiing I couldn’t even tell that I was hurt at all! Walking however is still pretty dang painful (riddle me that?!) but as long as skiing feels good I’m happy!

Really neat ‘anti gravity treadmill’ at Santé Universelle. Running at 40% of your bodyweight is WAY more fun than at 100%!!

Successful tree hunt in CO.

Abby’s grandpa’s 20′s themed 90th birthday!

The coolest cats.

My new HEAD fat boys!! Just a little pumped on these!

Photoshoot with the lovely Abby Ghent :)

Flew across the continent and found winter wonderland. This is just the over night snowfall… in Ottawa?!

Found even more schnee up at the chalet.

Seriously have never seen this much snow in the East before. Take that West….?

My first snowshoeing experience. Snow up to my waist off of the trail!

Velo MSM bike trail experience.

Abby being Abby!

Abby and I in winter wonderland.

Mom and Dad were happy that I came back for Christmas.

Spent a morning skiing with some of the MSM shredders.

I could get used to this…

Mont Ste Marie, or Antarctica?

Poor trees…

Similar story in the GS. I was skiing pretty well, was in the game at the half way point, then missed my pressure on a key turn and fell on the next. Bummer. But, still skiing well!

Being sort of in between ‘groups’ on the team, my plans tend to change quite often and with very short notice. The original plan after BC was to head straight to Europe to train for a few days, then to race the GS in Val d’Isere. After not scoring in BC we decided I would stay in Colorado and race the NorAms at Copper.

Copper didn’t go at all the way I wanted. I was still skiing well, but didn’t have the speed on that track that I would’ve liked. 5th, 4th, DNF, and 13th. The 13th was a bit of an anomaly however… You might’ve seen that bib 89 won the race, with a few other ridiculously high bibs in the top 10. Extreme weather and snow changes are the culprit, and those of us running at the front had a massive disadvantage. After the week I had that was just the icing on the cake and I couldn’t do anything but laugh as multiple people sent me messages asking “what the heck is happening at Copper right now?!?!”.

Right now I’m in Val Gardena, Italy, about to race two of the tracks that I’ve been dying to race since I was a kid: Val Gardena SG and Alta Badia GS!! Had my first run (DH training) down the famous Saslong track earlier today and it was as fun as I expected, actually, probably more so! I ended up 19th as well which I’m pretty pumped about!! Another training run tomorrow, and if things go as well as they did today, I might just end up racing the downhill..

I’m now in Beaver Creek, doing the downhill training run tomorrow, then competing in both the Super G and GS races on the weekend. Fire it up!!

Rippin’ some Super G.

Balancing on my tips and tails in DH training.

Yumping.