Day 32 - beginning of the end of the busy-ness

Another week of Adventure Camp started today. I only have one AC kid and he started the day as a Level 2 star, ended the day as a Level 2 heart. Someone must have put him in the wrong level as he couldn't turn at all. I also had a few Destination kids. I got the kids turning on the Magic Carpet then took them over to the Olympic Chair. After lunch we rode down to the village. The sun was shining and no new snow overnight. A big storm is headed our way this week. I'm hoping it holds off until the crazy crowds leave ........

Day 31 - HELL YA!

The two boys from my Level 5 class returned today and I was lucky enough to teach them one more day. I wouldn't exactly say I was teaching them as it snowed 5-6 inches overnight and the conditions were powdery, especially through the trees. Nothing like having kids who are stoked about going through the trees and finding powder. In fact, the only thing they wanted to do was find powder and ride trees (usually the upper level riders only want to ride in the terrain park)...... so we were all a perfect match and it was a great day. We rode a lot and the boys were pretty fast. They were also pretty cool kids to hang out with. I was half wishing they were local so I could ride with them in my free time.

The result of getting stuck in powder after a full day of riding!

Day 30 - pinch me!

OMG! I got up to the CLC this AM only to find myself with another high level class (Level 5)! ROCK ON!! Three kids, two returning from yesterday and a new girl. We warmed up in Green Acres then headed to Marmot trees. Another run from Emerald Chair in Green Acres to the village. LUNCH! After some food and rehydration, Garbonzo Chair to Raven, Emerald to Ego Bowl to work on riding switch, another run through Marmot then back to the village to end the day! Holy crap it was fun! I am keeping my fingers crossed for one more day of bliss as all three kids are coming back tomorrow.

Snow started falling around 1pm. Conditions were packed powder and very very crowded. The holiday vacationers are still here. Luckily, when I'm in uniform, I don't have to wait in those long lift lines. Now that is sweet......

Day 29 - another wonderful day

Jesus must be looking down on me during his birthday week as I was blessed once again with another high level class. A couple of the kids returned from the day before. We rode from 10am til 1pm, then we went in for 45min lunch. Then rode for another 2 hours! It was fun.

Day 28 - toe & hand warmers r my friends

Brrr. When the high temp of the day is -12 degrees Celcius (about 15 degrees F) - it's good to have some toe warmers and hand warmers available. They kept me warm while I was ripping it up with a few of my Level 4!! (yippee) riders. We rode down to the Village - through Ego Bowl - shredded Green Acres - headed in for lunch - kicked a few slides on the CLC box - sideslipped down Raven - ripped up Ptarmigan and finally ended up back in the Village via Crabapple. These are the days instructors live for!

Day 27 - lost in the shuffle

Today is Wednesday, the last day of snowboard Adventure Camp. I had yesterday off so I didn't have any AC kids, but since I've been around the block a time or two, I was elected to keep everything in order at the village until every kid made it up to the CLC.

By the time I arrived, all the classes had been assigned. I was told to accompany the two instructors who had 11 level 4's and 5's. We all took a lap down from Garbanzo to figure if there were any splits in the group (faster vs. slower kids). Turns out, there were 3 splits (perfect, I have a class)..... unfortunately, the third split wasn't close to being a level 4 rider and ended up going to the already existing level 3 class. Sound confusing? Let's put it this way: I ran Whiskey Jack from Garbanzo down to the CLC then spent a few laps on the Olympic Chair, ate lunch, and was finally sent home around noon-thirty where I took Crabapple down to the village.

Day 26 - Christmas tracks

Got a late start up the hill since Santa left so many wonderful gifts under the tree. No new snow overnight but forecasted to snow during the day. We got to Creekside around noon to find Symphony closed, poor visibility, tracked out snow, and people everywhere. Not to mention, the light fluffy powder we had just two days ago was now kinda hard and crusty. We took a ride up Garbonzo Chair and made our way back down to the car. It's great to have a season's pass.

Once we got home, we took Cabo for a hike in the woods. It was snowing and felt very Christmas-ee. I have to work the next 10 days so I am enjoying a bit of time on the couch.

Day 25 - holiday MADness

Before this weekend, we were averaging about 10-15 kids a day in snowboard school. Well, the holidays are here and the madness has begun. 66 kids in snowboard school and that number will be growing day by day as the New Year rolls around.

Once again, I had a shadow and we had a class of ten level 2 kids. The conditions are still great as another 14cm fell overnight. We spent the day on the Olympic Chair. The kids were from around the world: Mexico, England, Texas, Austrailia, and Hong Kong. They had a great time as I let them do a lot of "freeriding". That basically means they don't have to practice turning and can go as fast as they like (in control). Getting back to the village at the end of the day was a drag though. Check out the pic for the line downloading the gondola. And it only gets busier from here!

Day 24 - second time is a charm

No new snow to report overnight but strong flurries during the day. Conditions were so great yesterday, I decided to give my powder board another try. Actually, Kevin shamed me into giving my powder board another try and I was glad he did!!

Even though we stayed on easier green runs, it was easy to find untracked powder along the sidelines of the runs. My Khyber board was ripping it up and I got my confidence back pretty quickly. Whew! It helped that the cat-tracks were packed powder/fresh powder and not the usual icey conditions.

Kevin found his legs overnight but they were still like noodles so he wanted to stick to green lines. No problem...... that is until I made him follow me down Bear Paw. A super mogul black diamond. After he made it down, he asked if there were any cliffs I could have taken him down since he was trying to take it easy today. tee hee. whoops! Sorry about that.

Day 23 - omg... THIS is why we live here!

Yes. Those are my knees covered in snow. Yes. That was on a run. Yes. This place is awesome!

Kevin and I got a late start up the snowy roads this AM. Parked at Creekside and rode down to Garbonzo. Conditions were fresh packed powder and plenty of untouched powder to be found. Got in about 4-5 runs before Kevin's legs fell off. Had some apres at Dusty's then headed home to rest up for the same thing tomorrow.

Kevin is in there somewhere!

Day 22 - kind of a weird one

No new snow overnight so I didn't mind getting a level one class. Didn't do much, spent the entire day on the Magic Carpet with way too many kids who liked to point their board down the hill, go really fast, then flop on their face right before they ran into a tree. Hey whatever floats the boats!

Day 21 - not annoyingly crowded

Busy day in ski/snowboard school today. The little skiers were lined up down the Village and there were 4 or 5 different snowboard classes. I had another shadow today and we had a group of four level 3 kids.

The conditions were awesome: packed powder. For the past 3-4 days, we've been receiving 20cm of fresh snow a day. The winds had died down a bit so that was also nice. I was able to find a few patches of powder here and there. We were told not to go through any trees as the stability of the treewells were dangerous. Too bad.

Day 20 - flip flop

Nothing special today. Started my morning with another shadow in training. We had 7 kids in Adventure Camp who never snowboarded in their young lives. At lunch, we "traded" our group of AC kids for kids who were only taking a lesson for one day. (Part of Adventure Camp is having the same instructor for three days and I was off the next day). It was kind of weird to start teaching completely new kids in the middle of the day but it worked out.

Day 19 - Pain Full

I bought a new powder board (Prior Khyber) this season and couldn't wait to try it out, especially with all the new snow we've been getting over the past few days. I got to Creekside and headed straight up. Once there, I realized I forgot my goggles and it was snowing pretty good. I ran down to the gondola (trying to block the snow from piercing my eyeballs) .... went to the village and grabbed an extra pair out of my locker. Then I had to wait in line about 15min at the Blackcomb gondola, another 15min in line at Excelerator. Rode down to Crystal Chair, another 15min in line. Great pow on Arthur's glades. Back to Excelerator - another 15min in line.

I was hoping to get into 7th Heaven since yesterday was the first day of the season that area opened up. But the winds were around 100Kph and everything in the alpine (on both Whistler and Blackcomb) was closed. So I found some good snow under the liftline. About halfway, a woman almost collided into me. She apologized and said " I have a hard time not running into people" - No worries. I continued down and three minutes later, this woman plowed into me from behind! Thank god I was wearing my helmet. I shook it off, told her to head to an easier run (as politely as I could) and went back to the Excelerator Chair. By the time I got back to the 15min wait at the lift, I decided to call it a day.

I parked at Creekside which meant I had a ways to go to get to my car. I downloaded the Blackcomb Gondola, stood in line at the Whistler gondola and headed up in order to come back down at the Creek. Because it was so windy, the Village Gondola was running at 3kph (vs. its normal 5kph). The difference in speed is a difference of an extra 15 minutes to the top and when you are packed into those gondolas like sardines, 15 more minutes feels like forever!! I couldn't take it anymore so I got out at midstation and walked to the Garbonzo Chair.

On top Garbonzo was like a blizzard! The wind was whipping snow everywhere. I headed for Creekside by way of Franz. All of a sudden: WHAM! from behind..... AGAIN! .... some kid plows into me and sends me flying on my head. I couldn't believe it. I literally wanted to cry.

I don't know how I did it, but I finally made it safely back to my car. I probably should have just stayed in bed today. I'm sure my neck is going to be super sore tomorrow. And there are a couple good chunks taken out of my new board. So much for keeping it looking nice.

Tis the season for lift lines. No thank you!

Day 18 - 1st Patrol Call

Had a group of girls from Singapore who have been in lessons all week. They preferred to stay on the Olympic chair and seemed to be more interested in socializing than they were about snowboarding. About half way down the first run, the youngest girl fell back and slammed her head to the ground. I walked her to the CLC where a ski patrol was helping someone else. She ended up going to the clinic. We finished our day taking a run from the Roundhouse.

Day 17 - keep the snow coming

The snow fell lightly all day and helped keep the powdery conditions .... covering up the ice we've had since the beginning of the week. More snow is forecasted for the next 4-5 days. Anyway, nothing exciting as far as kids are concerned. Had two, went up top, rode the Emerald chair greens, their parents picked them up.

** FYI: Something I find interesting. Apparently, Europe doesn't have single-dial combination locks (pictured below). People from Europe have no idea how to work them and couldn't open one if their life depended on it. I can't tell you how many times I've been in the locker room (yea, we lock our lockers with single-dial combination locks) and I've had someone ask me: how the HELL DO YOU OPEN THESE LOCKS!!!!

Day 16 - Learning something new

What a great day! 5 inches of the fresh stuff overnight made for an awesome day of riding. Took my class to the Olympic Chair to enjoy some fresh tracks. After lunch, headed to the Marmot Trees and other great powdery runs around Green Acres. By 3pm the kids were exhausted. But not tired enough where they couldn't take a few turns at jumping the small jump we made outside the CLC. Pictured is Darrell about to land a 180!

What did we learn today? Linton is a 9 year Korean boy from Vancouver. At lunch, Linton was explaining to us that in Canada, he is 9 years old but in Korea he is 11 years old. We all thought he was crazy!!!! ..... until we ran into his parents and asked for the explanation that little Linton could not provide. To quote from Wikipedia: Several East Asian cultures, such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, share a traditional way of counting a person's age. Newborns start at one year old, and each passing of a New Year, rather than the birthday, adds one year to the person's age; this results in people being between 1–2 years older in Asian reckoning than in the Western version. Linton was born in December so when he "popped out", he was considered to be 1 year old. Then in January (the new year) he was considered to be 2 years old even though he was only one month old.

Day 15 - Tara

Second day of Adventure Camp and I had a shadow with me: Joshy. He's new this season ergo he followed me around for the day so I could show him how we do things. Joshy is from the UK and in the summer he teaches wakeboarding. Needless to say, he and I got along very well.

Our three kids practiced lots of turning today up and down Emerald Chair area. Conditions were the same as yesterday: icey in too many spots, cold, and windy up top. Joshy carries a snowboarding action figure named Tara to help him teach. The kids loved her. Of course, Joshy played it up saying she was his girlfriend.

Here is Tara checking out the conditions at the Roundhouse.

Day 14 - Adventure Camp

Adventure Camp is a three day program where the student is in the same group and has the same instructor for three days (Monday - Wednesday). I enjoy teaching Adventure Camp as you build a repore with the kids over the three day period. And, if you start with kids who have never snowboarded, by the end of the three days .... they are usually at a level two or higher.

I started my day with three Level 2's. By the time lunch rolled around, they were making easy turns on the Supercarpet so I took them up the gondola. Conditions were not great, mostly ice, but not completely horrible. The day went by fast and it was a lot of fun to get some real riding in.

The temps have been pretty cold for the past couple of days. Toe warmers and hand warmers have been my best friends. Also, one of my students bought me a hot cocoa at the end of the day. It was sweet!

Day 13 - workin' a Sunday

I picked up an extra shift and worked on my day off (Sunday). I wasn't thrilled with the class I ended up with. It was 4 kids: none of them talked ..... no one was engaging .... no one appeared like they wanted to snowboard .... and three of them couldn't strap their bindings together. It was looking like a long day of hell. Thankfully, during lunch, the kids started talking (to me and each other) and seemed to have felt more comfortable. They started getting their balance on their snowboards and seemed to be having more fun. It ended up being a really good/fun day.

Day 12 - more training

Safety and Park training was on the agenda for today. Weather was super cold but sunny with blue skies and great views. Conditions were crap: ice all over Blackcomb. 6 hours on riding, listening, riding. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday. And lucky for me, we stuck to some easy blue runs for the entire day!

Day 11 - Don't Cry

My "team" from the previous day returned on Thursday ready and roaring to go. Even little Anna, who was afraid of the Olympic Chair yesterday, braved up and took a run off the chair. After lunch, my co-worker Tyler (who had one student) asked if we wanted to join him for a run from the Roundhouse. The conditions at midstation were very icey and the conditions from the Roundhouse down to Emerald were snowy. I felt confident my kids could take a run on Emerald without any problem. Anna was even keen on it so up we went!

Once everyone strapped up and started down the hill, Anna decided she wasn't too thrilled with this idea and started crying. Mean grinchy that I am, I forced her to go down saying snowboarding down was the only way to go. She zigzagged her way a bit, cried a bit, zigzagged, cried, zigzagged, cried...... you get the point. Well we all finally made it down to Emerald Chair, headed back up and download back to the CLC where we ended our day.

Day 10 - wedNesDAY

All five students from yesterday were back today plus one other kid from Australia. The Australian kid never-ever snowboarded but he was a wakeboarder (score!) so he picked up snowboarding super fast. I shared this class of 6 with my co-instructor Niclas (from Germany). After lunch, we felt all the kids were ready to hit the big slopes at the Olympic Chair. Everything went fine for the first 10 minutes, then suddenly the youngest of the bunch: Anna, started crying and saying she couldn't do it (even though she was doing it). So I ended up taking Anna back to the Magic Carpet while Niclas kept the rest of the team on the slopes. Bummer for me. But tomorrow is guaranteed to be a better day (sun is scheduled to shine!).

Day 9 - rain, rain go away!

It's been raining like cats and dogs since Monday. All the great snow we got on Sunday no longer exists. 5 snowboarders showed up in the rain and lucky for me, they were all the same level (never snowboarded before). Since these kids only made one class, I got the work while my three co-workers went back to bed. Luckily our uniforms are made of Gore-tex. Gore-tex good! Gore-tex dry!

The picture is what the snow conditions looked like at midstation today. In case you were wondering, water and snowboarding DO NOT MIX .......

Day 8 - Snow Snow Snow Sunday

About 15cm (9inches) overnight. It was still snowing when we got to the alpine. Spent three hours hitting tree lines and finding snow up to our knees! It was so much fun and it got Kevin excited for the season. Decided to head out early as the weather conditions make the ride home take twice as long as normal.

Long ride home.

Cabo even had some fun snow time.

Day 7 - Global warming my butt!!!

Took our time getting up to Whistler on Saturday, and for good reason: temps in the single digits!! It was about noon by the time we got to the Roundhouse and it was about 1pm by the time we got back to our room at the Westin!!!! We took two quick runs and decided it was too damn cold.

Here I am enjoying a tasty hot beverage by the fire.