My friend Patrick (see his "Mad Pat" blog) told me about this magical place in Ontario. Sandhill. He had conquered its steep sand slopes. And now I was on my way to Toronto and wanted to see if I can repeat the experience.
Sandhill is a massive, 150-meter high sand dune on the lakeshore of Erie. It hosts a camping ground, a beach, beautiful views, and - according to me and Patrick - a ski slope.
As the readers of this blog know, I have been to many sand dunes. But Sandhill is something different. The scale. The steepness. The ice age has created a wonder of nature on this spot, and it is amazing that erosion hasn't taken it down.
Sandhill is also easy to access; it is convenient to stay in the camping grounds, and it is fun to wash away the sweat from the hot climb by dropping into the lake.
For this trip, I had taken my Orthex miniskis, as I like skiing on sand with them. The climb up was tough, as I kept once again falling down a bit on every step through the soft sand. The ski run was more interesting as in most dunes that I've skied on, the steep hill was almost scary. When I collapsed on the beach at the end of the run, the sand that I had dislodged during the run kept running down for five minutes.
(Original source video is also available here.)
Photos and videos (c) 2014 by Jari Arkko. Tämä artikkeli löytyy myös suomeksi.
This article was originally published in the Planetskier Blogspot article series. Suomenkielisen version tästä artikkelista "Sandhill" voi lukea myös täältä.
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