MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Winter 2019

36 ML BLUE WINTER 2019 Beaver Valley’s best known freestyle skier is 2002 Olympic Aerials silver medalist and 11-time World Cup winner Veronica Brenner. But there have been many other National Team and World Cup freestyle ski champions from Beaver Valley, including Canadian Ski Hall of Fame inductee Meredith Anne Gardner. A World Cup champion in aerials, moguls, ballet and overall throughout the ‘80s, Gardner trained at and later led Beaver Valley’s freestyle ski program. Building on its freestyle ski accomplishments, the Club quickly took a lead when snowboarding arrived on the scene in the late 1980s. It wasn’t long before Beaver Valley was setting the standard for snow park development.With nearbyTalisman Resort—the first to build a halfpipe and snow park in the province—the Beaver Valley area was Ontario’s early mecca for snowboarding. Beaver Valley Ski Club’s Paul Chapman and Vince Jorgenson won national snowboarding championships in the early ‘ 90s with Chapman crowned overall Junior World Snowboard Champ in 1994. In the mid-1980s Beaver Valley developed Freefall, in its new South Bowl, as Ontario’s only FIS-recognized World Cup moguls course. ABOVE 2015 aerial view of the Club. BELOW Ontario’s first slalom racing school was at Beaver Valley, 1950s. COURTESY BVSC