Sean Valentine THANKS

Long Time Red Mountain Racers Coach Sean Valentine has retired. Sean has been with the Race Club fo 32 years, I know he does not look old enough. The 32 years is as a racer and coach. Sean developed as a racer through his childhood to the National Team and World Cup Competitor. After his racing career he came back to Rossland, started a family and coached the club that he developed from, lucky for us!

I have had the pleasure of working with Sean with the race camps we used to run and most recently with the Red Mountain Academies where he was in charge of the Race Academy and me of the Freeski Academy. I will definitely miss this relationship. Thanks Sean for everything.

The photo is of Sean and Linda Schultz.

Christof and Britta Wieser: Legendary Heliskiers

While staying at the Beluga Lodge in Methven we had the honor of meeting Austrians Christof and Britta Wieser.

We noticed and elderly gentleman checking the weather conditions on the Internet with the obvious and familiar anticipation of a skier in need. Mick Fordham then noticed that the powder skiing photos adorning the Belugas walls featured Christof and Britta. He struck up a conversation. It turns out that they heliski in Methven for an extended period every summer, and that their passion for Heliskiing extends much further.

Christof is currently recorded by the Guinness World Record Book as the "Worlds oldest active Heliskier". Cristoff is 81. He and Britta were in New Zealand for six weeks this season, climbing aboard the Helicopter every possible day.

This is Christof and Britta's Heliski history.

Christof was in his mid sixties before he even tried Heliskiing:

New Zealand: Four Million Vertical

Last Frontier Heliski: Three Million Vertical

Tyax Lake Heliski: Three million Vertical

Himilaya: Three Million Vertical

In the Photo are Mike Manara, Myself, Christof, Britta, and Kevin Larkin

Steve Horrigan at Treble Cone

The skiing world is a small world, while hanging out in the lodge at Treble Cone I ran into Red Mountain skier Steve Horrigan. It was nice to have a coffee and catch up. I usually always see someone i know when I am at Treble Cone, it has become an expected circumstance.

Great to see you Steve, sorry we could not do a few turns.

FIRST SNOW...........in Colorado

On our way back from New York our flight was delayed by three hours causing a forced overnight in Denver. We landed in Denver at 8:00PM. It occurred to me that my friends Nigel and Pam from Winterpark were having a party that night (I am on Nigel's mailing list). So instead of booking into the airport hotel with Dawn and kids, I took advantage of the opportunity, rented a car and drove 1.5 hours to show up at the party. I love being in unexpected places and situations.

The bonus-it was raining in Denver and it actually started snowing on the way to Winterpark. This photo was taken from the highway the next morning.

Murray Dee Rest In Peace

My Friend Murray Dee passed away in a Bicycle-Truck accident last week. He was on the bike.

Murray was the first co worker I met in the Whistler Ski School in 1987. I was the typical nervous new guy from small BC ski resort, showing up for day one of work and training with the Whistler Ski School. I happened to get into the 4 person gondola with Murray and a couple others. Murray immediately put me at ease and made me feel welcome. I have had that exact feeling every time I have seen Murray since.

Murray was a career Ski Instructor. He was 49.

http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/pique/index.php?cat=C_News&content=Murray+dee+1638

ABC Nightline

After an overnight delay in Denver we are all back in Rossland, a world away from New York. What a great experience. Other than the expense, it was nothing like what I had expected. Service everywhere was great, people were polite, people were relaxed, it is a city I would love to go back to.

We did not have to do an interview for Good Morning America, which I am happy about as I think they over sensationalised the incident in the first clip. Another ABC show called Nightline wanted to interview us but we decided not to based on the Good Morning America segment. However, the Nightline segment was a much higher professional standard. Here is a link to it, sorry but you do have to go through advertising to see it.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerindex?id=8553800

After we passed through Canada customs today, Simon commented that the officer did not recognise him. I guess his 15 minutes of fame are over. I think this topic has one more blog post in it and then I promise to get back to Canadian Ski Quest and Rossland life.

New York City

Well here we are, New York. The last place i expected to be last week. They could not interview us yesterday and today is 9/11. Just fine with us, we are having a great time, it is nice to see the kids out of their element.

Stunned Husband

Our cougar incident has made "Good Morning America". Here is the link that describes Dawn's heroics and her "stunned husband". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBMVucssnWY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Frosslandtelegraph%2Ecom%2Fnode%2F3186&feature=player_embedded WARNING: American sensationalism at work.

Here is some news: "Good Morning America" is flying the family to New York City tomorrow, if you can believe that? It is for a possible further interview on Thursday morning. We are somewhat amazed, and grateful for the invite, but we are going. Why not? I thought it would be good for the family.

Simon's Progress

Simon is doing very well in his recovery. He is actually at a friends house at the moment on a play date. His main problem now is that he is self concious of his skinhead hairstyle. It does not seem to help when people say he looks just like his dad.

He is asking questions about cougars and is revealing what he remembers. He has told us that they have long whiskers. When his friend Harmon ask about it, Simon replied by simply saying "it was yellow" they then went back to playing with thier cars. His best statement was when he told Dawn "I think you hurt the cougar more than it hurt me" When Dawn asked why he thought so, he showed her how the cougar was cowering when she hit it. So innocent he is.

Back to the Scene

I went back to the scene of the attack on Thursday with Washington State Wildlife officers and a team of cougar hound dogs. The photos below are of the scene of the attack and of the water bottle Dawn used to beat off the cougar (which was still there). Dawn was at the place where the officer is, I was about the same distance up the trail again from where the photo was taken, and this is about the place where i was when the cat released Simon. You can see that we were basically in the alpine. One scary thing is that the Houndmen determined that the cougar followed us all the way back to the car. they made this determination as the cougars scent was most powerful near the carpark and progressively got weaker as we went up. There were also tracks going down along the trail.

Dawn Manning Cougar Fighter

We as a family, as many people have already heard, have just gone through a very traumatic experience. Everything will be OK! I would like to say thanks for all the well wishes and offers of help. I feel it will be helpful to talk about it, so here it is.

On Wednesday Sept 2. We were on a family hike up Mt. Abercrombie which is just over the border in Washington State. This is an easy hike, ideal for kids.

We were in the sub alpine near the top, two hours from the trail head when Simon was attacked by a cougar. Dawn and Simon were about 50 meters behind Isabelle and I and our two dogs. Simon was immediately behind Dawn. The cat pounced on Simon and dragged him off the trail (holding him by the head), Dawn started screaming and was bashing the thing repeatedly with her water bottle. I heard the screams, I assumed it was a wasps nest they had stepped in, when we realised what was happening, we ran screaming towards the cougar. It had dropped Simon, and was standing about 3 meters away and then disappeared into the bush. Simon's face and Dawns hands were covered in blood. We wrapped a shirt around Simon's head and hiked full speed to the car, it took just over an hour. I carried Simon. He did not cry or complain once, he has been amazingly brave.

Dawn beat a cougar off with only a water bottle, amazing!

We then drove to Trail hospital where Simon was treated.

We are all traumatised by the experience, we seem fine until we talk about it. We breakdown when we do.

Night Powder at Broken River

By Mike Manara

After the Canadian Ski Quest group departed on Saturday I made my way back to Broken River, where I ended up skiing the next 5 days, and I was quite fortunate to have hit a storm cycle which brought close to a meter of snow over the last 3 days (it still snowing, as I left after turns this AM) The snow was unbelivable, as good as any powder day in Canada. Yesterday the hill was closed due to high winds, but they opened for night Powder skiing. Here is Mike Manara at Broken River in New Zealand under the lights