On a steep learning curve in Canada

Experienced skier Lucy Aspden and her beginner boyfriend both got a lift on the slopes of British Columbia

Just follow me and try not to look down,” said my instructor Drew. Nervously, I clipped into my bindings, focused on his jacket and began counting the rhythm between pole plants down the untracked Blackcomb glacier. At the bottom, panting for breath and buzzing with adrenalin, I looked back and my heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t believe I’d got down it.

I’d been in the Canadian resort of Whistler for just 48 hours and already I’d had a skiing epiphany. “There’s a line that most skiers aren’t willing to cross,” Drew had told me. “But don’t worry, we’ll get you over it.” And now I had crossed that line, whooping and hollering, no longer afraid of off-piste. I hardly recognised myself. I’d snow- ploughed in Austrian resorts as a child, later swapping busy half-term slopes for long weekends in the French Alps. I loved these trips, but dreamt of trying somewhere different, like Canada.

Finally, I had my chance on an eight-day trip visiting two of British Columbia’s leading resorts – Whistler and Sun Peaks – with Dan, my new-to-skiing boyfriend.

The trip was a learning curve for Dan, who had only skied once, at an indoor snow centre in the UK. But he joined Laurie, from Whistler Ski and Snowboard School, and together with a small group of beginners, was soon comfortably progressing from snowplough to tentative parallel turns.

Discovering Whistler was no less enjoyable for me. At 8,171 acres, spread

CANADA HIGHLucy and Dan, left, stayed in Whistler and Sun Peaks, right