I’m a French Canadian born in the prairies and raised on the east coast! I also spent two years on the West Coast in Banff, Alberta, between college and university then moved back to Montreal, where I live now. I learned who to ski on artificial snow in Quebec and quickly joined the local mogul team when I was a kid. At 13 years old my best friend brought me into the park for the first time and that’s where I spent most of my time as teenager. I then moved to Alberta, tried ski touring and fell in love with it. I also worked as an instructor on the big mountain program at Sunshine Village, Banff.
My style is weird. I like to get out of my comfort zone and try new stuff, especially in the backcountry, but I’m also a big fan of just playing around and have some fun wherever I am, however the snow is! Don’t be surprised to see me hit rails with tech bindings or hit some hard packed moguls with powder skis. I don’t take myself too seriously and my skiing definitely reflects that.
My #1 goal this season is to get better at ski mountaineering and take advantage of what this knowledge will allow me to do. As much as I like to go ski touring in deep powder, climbing a mountain with your skis strapped to your backpack, crampons on your feet and an ice axe in your hand is super fun too! So I’m looking forward to hike some couloirs and have fun skiing on the way down!
I will be based at Ski La Réserve, where I am a season pass, but will drive to New Hampshire pretty often to ski some steeper lines there. I'm active on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/vinnyhamel/) and share some cool adventures on http://www.estski.ca/equipe/. See you on the mountains!