Fucking Calgary ski community: how does it work?
So I've lived here for about a year. I've been skiing... not as much as I'd like, but some, and more next season. What I haven't figured out is this:
where the hell are all of you?
I moved from Vantown, where there was a pretty solid ski community. As in 30 or so people who actually knew each other pretty well. There are 3 local hills there near the city (like under an hour from downtown to lodge) and X people skied at Grouse, Y people skied at Seymour but you all knew everyone and would see them at premieres or rail jams or whatever, or hit Whistler when it dumped. If someone wanted to hike up a hill and build a jump, or hang out somewhere with beers and ski movies, or fill a car to Whis, it wasn't a massive undertaking to find a bunch of people who were down. So that's the context I'm coming from and maybe I'm just being nostalgic.
Moving here, though, it's very strange. Because it seems like EVERYONE here skis. Whereas Vancouver had lots of snowboarders (duh, asians) it seems like they're a noticeable minority here. Where in Van a large proportion of skiers are gapers on Atomic carving skis, it seems like everyone in Calgary is a powhound. Plus, it's a smaller and generally more friendly city. It has solid access to tons of ski areas. So I would think the ski community would be much more vibrant and tight knit here.
Unfortunately, and maybe I've just missed it, but it seems to me like Calgary HAS no freeskiing community. Because of Freshtival there isn't really a premiere tour, just one big three day thing, and even that isn't like IF3 where there's a mini-convention attached to the theatre. I see almost zero talk of this or that event on here. Is there some stonecutter-like society that holds secret meetings somewhere in Mission? Are yall chillin in Banff or something? Is it just a thing where everyone has their circle of a couple of friends who ski together, and that's it? Someone explain this shit to me. Because it seems like a huge waste of potential.
