ONTARIO BACKCOUNTRY FEATURE
FINDING SHRED-WORTHY TERRAIN IN SOUTHERN ONTARIO IS A HARD-FOUGHT WAY OF LIFE
Off-Piste On words :: Maddie Johnson We’re leaving the ski area. Can you blame us? The ungroomed, untouched and unadulterated terrain that lies beyond the resort boundaries is the stuff of skiers’ dreams. As wintery air moves across the Great Lakes, the wind picks up moisture from the water and releases it over the escarpment as lake-effect snow. It’s a siren call for skiers and snowboarders to strap on their gear and score tracks. And while a healthy number of ski resorts and nordic centres operate in the area, more and more people are opting to venture off the groomers. B.C. and Alberta may offer the biggest, deepest and most consistent backcountry/sidecountry in Canada, but if you ask Greg Sturch, it’s no duopoly when it comes to earning turns after a thick snowfall. “It’s fun, you feel good and it’s adventurous… All here in our own backyard,” said Sturch. “It’s everything that skiing from a chairlift isn’t.” Sturch has been skiing Ontario’s backcountry for more than two decades, and he’s learned a thing or two about lake-effect snow and the opportunities it presents. A
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Collingwood native and avid skier, hiker and mountain biker, Sturch is on the escarpment all year round, always keeping an eye out for clean lines and an open pitch to explore as soon as the snow sticks. He said when it comes to the Ontario backcountry, “It’s very opportunistic.” You can watch the forecast, but it’s only somewhat reliable. Instead, you have to be strategic; when the snow falls, you drop everything, call your buddies and make your way out as soon as you can. One call will often be to long-time friend Brennan Basnicki. Basnicki grew up a ski racer then became a race coach, splitting his time between Collingwood and Toronto, but he said he was never the best among his racing friends, and would opt for powder trips over training camps any day. For him and other lake-effect warriors like Laura Tombolini, making the jump to the backcountry was in part a product of being tired of long lift lines. Both Tombolini and Basnicki said they have basically given up on resort skiing in Ontario, especially on weekends. Fortunately, unlike the resort rush after a snowfall, where there’s about 20 minutes before it’s tainted, the beauty of touring the escarpment is its vastness. If you put in the work, which means really studying the public trail