Content about Outdoors

During a round of golf you may find yourself in a situation where you need to either curve the ball or hit it low to avoid hitting trees or other obstacles. Here are some tips to help you get out of these situations.

Unfortunately, glorious memories of nature’s autumn display mingle with great angst and panic of the coming school year. Nearly a half century later I can reflect back on those gut wrenching emotions and understand why I was so troubled by September.

Stoneflies were coming off in big numbers earlier in the day, with massive Mayfly hatches in the afternoon followed by Caddis hatches in the early evening. That's not unusual, but the Mayfly hatches were exceptional.

“I borrowed his sister’s bike, and it was love at first ride,” she says. Her falling for the sport reignited Troy’s passion and soon they decided to make the move to the Crowsnest Pass fulfilling their dream of living in the mountains. “That’s when we started riding in Fernie, and I can honestly say that out of anywhere I have ever rode my bike, Fernie is easily my favourite.”

As everyone knows not all golfers are the same size or have the same build. Therefore, the “set up”, otherwise known as the “starting position”, is going to be different for everyone. What everyone doesn’t know is that the main goal to the golf swing is to create a repetitive motion.

“When I moved here, I thought my days of athletic competition were over. But you move here, and you see people like Jimmy Vallance going for his bike rides. Linda Socher cruising down the highway on her ten speed. You go for a ride with Mark Kanane, and he kicks your butt and you think… ‘I’m not old!’ And I was 31 at that time. Now I’m 42, and realize Fernie is amazing for keeping you young.”

Flying down Oh Dear, just about to take a corner I hear Emily scream ahead of me and see something small and black at her feet. “Is it a bear cub?” I ask until I realize it’s a dog. Then I see a sweat ridden John Merritt running towards us asking between breaths which trail he’s on. My bike partner thought it was the strangest site, but to those of us that frequent trails in Fernie it’s a farily normal occurrence.

“What community are you from?” When asked this common question how do you answer? I typically say, “I was born in Saskatchewan, raised in Springbank, studied in Edmonton/Victoria, but since 1983 I have lived in the Elk Valley/Crowsnest Pass.”

Mike Rumpel came across his athletic abilities “late” in life. “My first solo race was in Utah. Jesse Mong approached me on a whim and I had no idea what I was getting into. I discovered that 1. I enjoyed it and 2. I was pretty good at it,” he says. Mike was always active growing up but mostly just “participated”.

There are two things that people from Fernie know for sure - powder and partying. Essentially, we love powder snow and will go to great lengths to ensure that we get the most of it. However when the snow is MIA, there are only two options - go hunting for snow or party it up; we chose to do both.

Welcome to Fernie! This town is one of a kind, nestled at the base of the Elk Valley, surrounded by beautiful terrain and mountains that provide the perfect backdrop to the day to day lives of those that live, work, play and visit here.

Most people harbour imbalances in their bodies from the activities they do in daily life without even realizing it. For example you might ski every day causing the front of your legs to be stronger than the back of your legs, you may hold your baby on your right hip all the time causing your lower back to be stronger on one side, or maybe you have an old injury that you have compensated for and never retrained. Whatever your habits, chances are you have imbalances in your body that can be a ticking time bomb to injury if not addressed. Even if you have pretty good balance, training your balance can not only prevent injury but improve your overall strength as well, just ask any professional athlete.