The 2019 Stair Challenge was a great success.

Mother Nature added a challenge for our team in the form of enough snow to close the scenic Parliament Hill staircase. Of course we were delighted with the early snow, which allowed us to ski before the Stair Challenge, and led us to the beautiful Sapper's staircase under the Plaza bridge where we had a lot of fun performing your challenges.

• Athletes recited poems, played instruments, and sang (the Sound of Music was popular, and we all learned some Johnny Cash lyrics).

• Dexterity and physical challenges included 3-legged races, 1-leg hops, running the stairs with a hard boiled egg on a spoon, dances, running while yo-yo-ing, 180 jumps, and many burpees.

• We took the Chelsea Velo Nordic BnB bear crawl sprint challenge to another level by having the entire team complete it.

• Several former club or high school coaches challenged their athletes. A huge thanks for inspiring these athletes to ski, and we are SO happy that we are able to provide an opportunity to keep your athletes in the sport!

Thank you for your costume requests that were creative, included Disney costumes, pyjamas, and made our swimmers wear caps.

Your donations will make a huge difference to our team this year!

We are also grateful to Apogee-Sports for donating a gift certificate to the student who had the most challenges midway through campaign (congrats Nathalie Rowlinson!).

Thanks also to ZIZU Optics who donated glasses to a supporter - we held a random draw: congratulations to François Desjardins who supported Benjamin Racine.

Check out this album for more pictures and videos!