I live and train in Squamish, BC, Canada. It is claimed “the outdoor recreation capital of Canada”, and I am about to tell you why. I am a Junior Canadian biathlete (cross country skiing and shooting) training as a member of the Biathlon BC High Performance Team. With minimal funding for sport in Canada, our team is constantly searching for inexpensive but effective training opportunities.

Every fall season, the biggest struggle for our sport is to get as many on-snow training hours as possible. The benefits of skiing on snow at this time of year have to be considered against cost and difficulty to get there. I think we found the perfect solution.

The access road started about 2 km from my house, and travels straight into the surrounding mountains. It was foggy when I woke up, and no snow on the ground. In a matter of about 2 hours, my coach and I were hiking thru ankle deep snow, with our ski equipment and clothes for three days.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but it was about a 13km hike to Elfin Shelter (where we stayed for 2 nights). It was another 6 km to Bishop Glacier, where we found near perfect crust skiing! It was the biggest open glacier I had ever seen, and provided hours and hours of exploring.  After the morning session, we would stop for lunch, and hang up our clothing to dry, before heading out again for the afternoon. I was so thankful to be wearing my Icebreaker Alpine socks. I would take them off from a two hour ski and in 20 minutes in the sun, they were dry and ready to be skied in again. I had more than one pair, obviously, but I used them for everything. The compression around the shin and calf lead for better muscle control during skiing. While on break, the same compression actually helped in quicker leg recovery.  Try, if you don’t believe me!

Back to my story, it wasn’t so much as ski training as it was an adventure! It felt amazing to be the only people in the mountains, and still only 30 km out of Squamish. My coach and I trained there for three days before making our trek back down to the real world. I went on that season to win three gold medals at Canadian Championships and attend my first ever World Junior Championships.

- Matt Neumann, Biathlete