One Two Ski: Combatting the Canadian Cold in Powder Peaks

From Sun Peaks Facebook Page - I wish I took this though!!

Around 17 days skiing (since Boxing Day) at Sun Peaks, BC, Canada so far - and mountain muscles starting to moan! Did you hear? It's the best season for 25 years for Sun Peaks.

Snow Ghosts (the trees, not us) - taken by our Sun Peaks ski buddy, Barry at the top of the Crystal Chair

A well-deserved day off today to catch up with writing and wait in for a parcel to arrive: brand new SWANY mitts which will help us combat the cold which has just set in today. I'm going to be reviewing them - and other cold-conquering merch - over the next week or two and comparing them with heated gloves by VOLT. Although the SWANYs don't have battery-powered heating like VOLT, they have a zip pocket on the top of the hand for those handy and cheap carbon heat packs. It will be interesting to see which work best in minus 30 C!

A mid-morning stop off at the Vertical Cafe where Rupert (left) is working for the winter. I'm sporting my new VOLT vest over Kari Traa merino (on right)

I already tried my brand new heated vest by VOLT yesterday - both during skiing in the day when the temps started plummeting and during the evening when we popped out to the Cahilty Creek Kitchen and Taproom for après ski - and it was phenomenal. It has heat pads in the centre of the back and each side of the chest making you the person everyone wants to cuddle!! If your torso is warm, your body is less likely to reduce circulation, and hence warmth, to toes and fingers. I couple the VOLT vest with a Patagonia thermal onesey and a Kari Traa merino layer with either my really cozy Obermeyer ski suit or my equally warm and technical Alchemy of Ride outfit. The Kari Traa has a handy hood, too, which is really warm under my helmet and means no gap at the back of the neck.

Headwall - a long and pretty steep black run leading down to the Sunburst Bar & Eatery- easy in untrammeled pow,
tougher when it's churned up into bumps!

My old VOLT vest - battery pack fits in a pocket

I had the previous model of the VOLT women's heated vest for over 10 years and, using it around 30-40 ski days per season, it managed to last that long before the battery eventually croaked. This new version looks pretty similar but they have upgraded the design to be more fitted into the waist which is a more flattering touch. Add a faux fur collar and it would be positively stylish!! Great idea, actually, if it was removable - you wouldn't want it for skiing but you could attach it for après....And, of course, VOLT makes men's equivalents too.

My Bearpaw après ski boots are wonderful for getting around Sun Peaks which is pedestrianized in the Main Street area (and snow-groomed daily) and is linked to all the accommodation via walkways through forests, over little bridges, around gorgeous homes and condos. Really picturesque pathways regularly groomed and manicured by the municipality.

Manicured pathway back to our condo

The Bearpaws are SO warm you don't even need socks in them on warmer days - they have been treated with NeverWet® technology and have a sheepskin footbed. But for minus 30 C, I couple them with Smartwool merino socks for total toasty toes! Just what you need after a tough day on the slopes.

I'm trying to decide if I need Boot Gloves for my trusty old Nordicas (which now appear to let in snow on the top somehow after over a decade of wear). One of my sons and my husband have them and swear by them. But I have never needed them before due to heated boots keeping my toes warm and no snow leakage until now. Moreover, one of my Therm-ic boot heater batteries has just given up the ghost and I haven't got a replacement yet. So I have one warm foot and one freezing cold - and both sets of toes getting damp from leaking snow as we've been skiing powder now every day since Boxing Day.

Hood on Obermeyer jacket is big enough to fit over my helmet - a real bonus on windy chairlifts!

Another necessity in this really cold spell is a balaclava/face mask. Mine is by Seirus Innovation and is great until all the slobber and melted snow start to make it really soggy and then cause it to freeze solid. That's when I have to go indoors to warm up and hopefully find some kind of heater to defrost and dry it off. Has anyone made one that doesn't do this? Or is it just because I'm a downhill drooler?

Resource Links:
https://www.sunpeaksresort.com/
https://cahiltycreek.com/
https://www.facebook.com/DryGuyDryers/
https://www.seirus.com/
http://www.swanycanada.com/
https://voltheat.com/collections/heated-vests
https://www.smartwool.com/shop/womens-wool-socks
https://www.karitraa.com/en/clothing/base-layer/
https://www.patagonia.ca/shop/baselayers
https://obermeyer.com/
https://www.therm-ic.com/en/35-batteries-warmers

Warming up our boots before heading out into the minus 30 C!!

More cold weather tips next week but, for now, here's an article about a couple living in the French Alps, also featured in our latest book: A Worldwide Guide to Retirement Destinations.

The French Alps are calling to an increasing number of migratory boomers who want year-round outdoor activities: wintersports from December to April and biking, hiking, and watersports the rest of the year. Elaine Deed and husband, Gavin Baylis, recently retired to Villeneuve, a village that’s part of the ski resort Serre Chevalier, in the French Alps.

Elaine Deed in the Serre Chevalier pow

Serre Chevalier, photo credit Zoom

“We’re totally on board about being ‘retards’ in the French mountains,” says Deed, quoting Sacha Baron Cohen from Borat. “We were a high-flying, air-kissing media YUPpie couple in the 80s/90s, living in on-trend Clapham, London. Gavin was Deputy Advertising Director of the Evening Standard and then Digital Marketing Director for a top advertising agency, I was Fashion Director on Cosmopolitan and then Fashion Features Editor on Tatler. After our twin daughters were born in 1990 we bought a house on the seafront in Worthing and kept a small London flat. Eventually we both went freelance, I was styling fashion for advertising campaigns and celebs for magazines like Hello, while Gavin launched his creative web design company.”

Elaine with their two Jack Russells - touring terriers!

Empty-nesting motivated their pre-retirement mountain move. “It was around 2011 when our daughters were 21 that we realized that, without dependents (except for two Jack Russells) instead of our usual one week skiing holiday a year, why not do a month?” Deed explains. “Six weeks even? This became a whole season in 2013 when we bought an apartment in Serre Chevalier. We were in our 50s but planned to be skiing till our teeth fall out.”

Gavin Baylis at work

By 2013 Deed’s career satisfaction really began to pall: “I realized I was in danger of slapping the next celebrity with an ego bigger than their brain, while squeezing them into designer gowns much smaller than their proclaimed dress size, for a Hello fashion shoot. It was then I knew it was time to say farewell to the fabulous but frankly vacuous world of fashion.” So, needing to continue working both for finances and for continuing professional development, the couple blended their skills into a new enterprise called Style Altitude. “It’s an online ski and snowboard site which perfectly channels my editorial and feature writing background, Gavin's advertising and web-work, our skiing and snowboarding experience plus our chosen mountain lifestyle. I, also, now edit websites for other clients and write their blogs.”

Tree skiing in Serre Chevalier

It’s not a two-man band, though. Style Altitude now has a team of talented contributors who all ski or snowboard, establishing a reputation for original features on worldwide wintersports, often edgier than other online sites. “Not just pro videos and resort reviews,” says Deed. “For instance, ‘Can You Be Too Old to Snowboard?’” They post a daily ski blog throughout the winter. “Put 'Daily ski blog' into Google and we usually come up first,” she says. “Plus very popular daily reports on ski conditions and weather reports from the Alps including a live webcam of the pistes in Serre Chevalier.” They also promote Protect OurWinters, the charity dedicated to mobilize the international outdoor sports community against climate change.

Serre Chevalier, photo credit Zoom

Official retirement didn’t start for Deed until 2018 when, at the age of 64, she was able to take her UK state pension. “Thanks to the UK government constantly changing retirement age for women, it has seemed I'd never be old enough, an ever distant goal,” she laments. “It has been so unfair for women of our generation, with the UK state pension moving from 60 for retirement to 67 almost overnight; we've lost thousands of pounds with absolutely no say on the matter.” Baylis took his Associated Newspaper pension a couple of years before. “But we don't really think of ourselves as retired. It sounds too much like a pair of old skis only good for hanging on the wall,” Deed points out. “The Who sang in the 60s, 'I hope I die before I get old' as if life loses its appeal if you're not forever young. We're fortunate to be still working and have more time for shredding as in powder rather than grey hairs. In a way, we're better off than when we were young both financially and with free time to enjoy life. Better shred than dead.”

View from their apartment

In terms of practicalities, establishing their new lifestyle in France was a cinch. Having skied there before, they homed in on a favorite area where they bought a two-bedroom apartment. “It’s south-facing with an amazing view overlooking the pistes and forests of Villeneuve in Serre Chevalier,” Deed describes. “For a while, we considered selling our UK house and buying a chalet here but, you know what? It's great having an apartment rather than a house when it comes to maintenance and cleaning. Quite frankly I'd rather be skiing than vacuuming.”

Gavin Baylis on tour

Baylis can do web design from anywhere thanks to the Internet and most of his UK clients have no idea that the mountains are now his office. “If it's a powder day, though, he'll suddenly be 'in meetings' and have to get back to them when he's 'at his desk',” says Deed. The couple’s earlier property investments in the South of England—which boasts the highest real estate values in the UK— were pivotal in sustaining their new lifestyle, with rents becoming a regular income. Having a reliable maintenance crew back in the UK makes the business of being a landlord easier, too.

Proximity to family and friends in the UK means that Deed can fly back regularly. “Our daughters usually visit at Christmas —who doesn't love a white Christmas in the mountains?” she says. “Friends come out here if they ski or snowboard, even a few we hardly knew who decided they are suddenly our best friends seeing as we have an apartment in the Alps!” Facebook and Instagram also help them keep in touch: “I know exactly what my ex-assistant at Cosmo, niece in Bali and second cousins in Ireland are up to!”

When the couple returns in summer for a few weeks holiday, they stay with their daughters as their own properties are rented out year round. “It's a tad cozy for four of us and the two Jacks, so we often plan to be away in the summer such as in Madagascar where one of our main clients is based, or go to see friends in Cornwall. Then there's always Airbnb.” Other regular customers include Prime Media, Joy Goodman Agency, Prestel & Partner. “Ironically two of Gavin's clients are Thy Will Be Done and Dementia Care, websites that are useful preparing for our old age,” says Deed.

Everyday lifestyle in the mountains means skiing all winter and spring and continuing even after the ski lifts close with ski touring. This is also a good alternative during busy sections of the season, such as February holidays. They have a large likeminded tribe to ski with, enabling more regular friendship contact than they had in the UK. “We ski with quite a few 'geezonaires'—as in old 'geezer' seasonaire skiers,” Deed describes. “Over the hill? No we're all on the hill and off the pistes. Most of us are POWS, as in Pensioners On Wide Skis, doing powder like there's no tomorrow which when you're over 60 is a definite consideration.”

Many of their friends are also ski tourers: “There's nothing like the peace of making tracks up the mountain, skinning in the backcountry. We're quite as evangelical about walking up the mountains—avoiding the hordes—as riding down, thus getting closer to heaven. No, hold the funeral parlor, I mean untracked snow heaven, skiing down in your own white world.” There is also a very active après-ski social life in and around Serre Chevalier. “We have an FNC, Friday Night Club, on What's App which is more of an ENC as in Every Night Club! Great socially but not for the liver,” says Deed.

The couple is famous around the pistes for their accompanying “Powder Hounds” as their Jack Russells come along for the ride particularly during spring. “I think they are possibly the only ski touring Jack Russells in the world as mostly you see bigger mountain dogs like huskies, German shepherds and border collies,” Deed points out. “They are incredibly tough little dogs but on deep powder touring days we might have to put one of them, who is hairier and gets snowballs in her fur, into Gavin's backpack to ski down. Locally, they're known as les Rando Chiens.” They also travel to different resorts in the winter for Style Altitude: “Serre Chevalier is only around 40km from Italy, not far if the snow is better over the Col du Montgenevre and 30km from the legendary backcountry of La Grave,” says Deed. “Also we travel to Austria for the UK Ski Industry ski test every year and, sometimes, further afield such as Japan for that famous Japow!”

Summer means cycling and Baylis also kitesurfs, detailing his adventures on another popular website, which is targeted to kiters and windsurfers. “I regularly run and enjoy 'skyrunning', trail-running high in the mountains,” says Deed. “I'm a bit like Forrest Gump: I just put on trainers and head up - and have a running blog: www.therundiary.com. Sometimes Gavin cycles while I run to one of the cols like Galibier or Granon close to where we live.”

With Brexit looming this fall, the couple were concerned about the ramifications for their residency status and also healthcare. Their experiences with the health service in France have all been good and they rate it highly compared to the UK. “You don't have to wait a week to see a doctor or be on their register, unlike back in the UK, just turn up and pay maybe €30 for an appointment,” Deed explains. “Plus they do tests such as blood really quickly, with the results online. In Briancon, the main town of Serre Chevalier the hospital is particularly au fait with broken bones and ruptured ligaments as it’s used to ski and mountain bike casualties, so handy for potential aging ailments like hips and knees.”

Future plans are Brexit-dependent, too: “Maybe to live in the mountains all year,” says Deed. “We've left it too late to apply for French citizenship pre-Brexit so we're waiting to see how post-Brexit turns out and how welcome we'll be in France!”