Ma n’ Pa
My parents are the most inspiring people in my life.
My dad moved to Whistler in 1977 to chase his love of skiing and the outdoors. He built and lived in the squat cabin in the woods for 8 years off of the West Side Road (about a 10 minute drive from Whistler Village). There’s still a bike route there called “Bart’s Dark Trail” and you can even see his old bathtub in the creek. Dad’s been ski patrolling at Whistler for over 20 years. On the deep days he spends his mornings doing avalanche control so the rest of us can shred the mountain safely.
Mum & Dad
My mum, Sue has so many talents. She paints beautiful pictures on plates, oars, canvas and driftwood among other things; she rides horses, plays guitar and sings, bakes a legendary apple pie and can keep the laughs going all day long. This winter she’ll be in Japan teaching skiing for Club Med at Sahora Resort. Here’s an article about her from the magazine Best Of Whistler (1996).
Spring snow, ski patrol and sirens. Day one in Hakuba.
Our gang arrived at around 2 in the morning at the Morino Lodge in Hakuba after a 4 hour bus ride from Tokyo. In the morning I was glad to learn that the mountain was a 5 minute walk from where we were staying. After a light breakfast we made our way down some switchbacks from the lodge to the base of Happo Mountain. The light was good but it clearly hadn’t snowed in a couple of days and warm temperatures made for some slushy snow. Our crew took about three runs to scope the mountain and look for some good areas to shoot. We ended up skiing a run called Onigiri (named after the triangular rice snacks) that was apparently closed. Near the top we heard a voice come over a loudspeaker and by the time we reached the bottom of the run the local ski patrol were arriving on a snowmobile complete with sirens and a flashing red light. They explained that the run we had ski’d was in plain view of their patrol hut and that it was a permanently closed area. They took our day passes and we had to ski down the mountain. After a little reflection on the walk home we realized that we’d have to be very stealth on our trip if we expected to ski full days. Time for some ninja missions.
