Day 117 | getting on and off the lift

I finally got my butt out of bed after much coaxing from Aimee.  The sun was shining, the temps were warm, and there were a few clouds in the sky.  We reached the top of Excalibur before noon and headed down Honeycomb.  The snow was soft, perfect spring conditions.

We didn't do much.  Mostly stuck to Easy Out and hit some side jumps and drops.  We practiced some surface 180s.  I think we sat on Solar Coaster for five or six runs then decided to head down for some homemade sushi.  It was good just to get out there.  A small park is in the process of being built so this weekend should be a bit more fun and exciting.

Day 116 | Blackcomb

With Whistler closed, we are now forced to ride Blackcomb if we want to do any riding.  Not a big deal I guess.  I like Blackcomb, I just don't know it very well.  I met up with Aimee and we hit Jersey Chair and Jersey Cream right out of the gate.  The weather was cloudy, sunny, dark clouds, no sun etc etc.  It was cool yet warm when you dressed correctly.  The snow was springy!

I wanted to give the terrain garden a whirl but Aimee informed me there weren't any features in there.  How disappointing ... and how stupid.  Spring is the best time to build up some confidence in the terrain park because the snow is soft.  As a result, we were forced to find side hits and amuse ourselves with those.  Quite easy to do on Blackcomb once you find them.  I'm a bit of a wussy though and I need to hit something about 50x before I get super comfortable on it.  I haven't quite reached that status on Blackcomb yet.

Aimee got her 360 down off a cat track.  It looks pretty sweet.  I wasn't feeling very balanced today and I definitely had no pop in my legs.  I basically just winged it and went along for the ride.  We rode for 3-4 hours and had a good time though.

Day 115 | ski buffer

Started my day with a beginner skier being out of control and rolling right over my snowboard while trying to stop.  Aimee, Jordan, and Pippen had already taken a few laps before I got up.  Took a warm up run through the park to check out the conditions.  It was cool and cloudy.  It wasn't icy but it wasn't soft either. After a couple runs through the small park, I decided to try another demo board.  This time I went with a full cambered Rossignol and hated it for turning but it was super soft over the jumps.  Next I tried an Endeavor reverse camber board and I really liked that.  I think I'll get one of those for next season with some super flexy Flux bindings.

The sun poked through the clouds a few times here and there and softened the snow up but the landings for the jumps were horrible as they were all chewed up.  Today was Whistler's last day to be open for the 09/10 season and I guess the Park Crew had better things to do than to maintain the jumps.  We were done by 1pm and decided to call it a day.  Guess we're heading to Blackcomb for the month of May and running the terrain garden.

Day 114 | demo

This is the last weekend for the Telus Fest and all the manufacturers are doing demos at the top of Whistler.  I'm looking to get a park board for next season so I decided to demo a couple boards.  First up was Prior.  I love my four year old Prior all mountain board but the poor girl has seen her days.  Since I went with Burton for my last freeride board, I thought I'd give Prior another try for next season.  I took out a 153 Brandywine with the new hybrid rocker.  Boy I am really glad I demo'd this board before I bought one because I hated it!  It was so stiff and non responsive.  I was so uncomfortable on it, I didn't trust myself riding switch with it.  Aimee demo'd the AMF and she didn't like that one either.

Next up was Ride Snowboards and something park specific.  I tried the Canvas and although it was superlight, I'm not sure it had the soft feel I'm looking for.  I went through the park a couple of times and didn't find the landings super comfy on the board, which is something I'm looking for.

We ran out of time to try anything else.  The weather was cold and windy.  7cm of snow fell overnight.  The park wasn't groomed very well and the groomers were just okay.  We decided to call it a day with hopes of making tomorrow a much better one.    

Day 113 | sm PARK med PARK large PARK

It seems Mother Nature is not in a hurry to bring spring to Whistler.  It was well below zero first thing this morning at the Roundhouse.  Luckily Aimee and I didn't get up there until about 11am after the temperatures and the runs had warmed up a bit.  We met up with Pip and Jordan and planned a day in the park complete with the Canon 40D.

After a quick warm up run down Whiskey Jack, it was time to get down to business.  We started in the small park where I worked on my jumps, Pip worked on her tweaks, Jordan worked on being a clown, and Aimee worked on her photography skills.  After four runs or so, Aimee and Jordan were anxious to hit the medium and large park.  This is where Pip and I worked on our photography skills.

Conditions in the park were amazing.  The groomers did a great job grooming the jumps and the snow was nice and soft.  The afternoon went by pretty quick and everyone was stoked at the fresh snow that started blizzarding down around 1:30pm.  Two to five centimeters are suppose to fall tonight with another five to ten falling tomorrow afternoon.  Crazy!

Anyhow, check out some of the best shots of the day!

Day 112 | fat lady sings

Last Day of Whistler Kids!  We had three snowboarders show up and they were all never-evers.  I was given the class and my Supervisor sent home three instructors.  We headed to the CLC and proceeded to learn how to snowboard.  By 10am, I clearly had one weak rider who wasn't quite grasping it, and two boys who were already turning on their own.  I had to call my Supervisor to call in another recruit.  Aimee showed back up to work at lunch to help me out.

The sun was shining and it was warm so it wasn't a bad day to spend on the Magic Carpet.  Aimee took the boys over to Olympic Chair and I tried to get the girl to learn her heel edge side slip.  Basically I sat in the sun on an upside down rainbow cushion while she snowboarded in the slush.  Within a half an hour, Aimee was back with the boys.  They were way too good for Olympic, so she took them up to the top.

2pm was ramp building time.  Built up quite a nice one.  Aimee and the boys joined us for 180 practice.  I worked on backside 180s and the boys worked on frontside 180s.  Before long the day was over and we headed to the gondola for our mandatory download.  It was nice to end the season on a warm sunny day vs. the crappy rainy day we had yesterday.  We only had 23 kids (riders and skiers) on our last day so it was pretty quiet during lunch.  It's kind of nice but kind of sad as well.  I like the craziness of Christmas holidays and spring breaks.  My riding season isn't over yet.  I still have a few weeks to rack up a few more days.  Since I've been getting more comfortable with my snowboard leaving the ground, I think spring park riding is in my future.  Of course, I have a great coach in Aimee who is building my confidence so that helps.

Day 111 | paper airplanes and rain

April showers bring May flowers..... It was forecasted to be sunny in the morning with clouds rolling in during the afternoon.  No chance.  It started lightly raining at the CLC during sign in and rained progressively heavier as the day went on.  The morning was good but cold up top with winds gusting fairly hard at the Roundhouse.  I had two level fives, including my bosses daughter.  We took a warm up run down Ego Bowl to check the conditions.  The snow was wet and sticky off the groomers but not bad if you stayed on the run.  We ventured over to Green Acres area and didn't find that any more suitable.  Took a lap through the park which was nice because the landings were soft.  One more run before lunch down Tokum.

During lunch, the rain started coming down hard.  Both my kids wanted to stay inside and I wasn't pushing them to go outside.  After about an hour and a half, we decided to take a round trip on the Peak to Peak Gondola (a great time waster) with Aimee's level three class.  Blackcomb was completely fogged in so even if we wanted to take a run down there, it was virtually impossible.  Once we got back over to the Whistler side, we tried to make it as fun as possible but practicing surface tricks:  360s, tail press, butters, grabbing our edges, 180s etc.  We even threw in a few dance moves and penguin slides.

We got back down to the CLC around 2:15 and hung around until it was time to go.  All the snowboarders were in there by that time, trying to stay dry.  The kids played tag and made paper airplanes.  The day went by pretty fast despite the horrible conditions and weather.

Day 110 | Spanky's

... and just like that, winter has ended and spring has arrived.  Temps have been warm as of late and freezing levels have been way above 2000 metres.  The awesome powder has turned to sticky glue.  Spring conditions are here!

I met Aimee around 10am and we headed up the village gondola.  I'm not sure exactly what we had planned for today but I brought the SLR since it was sunny and dry.  Aimee's friend Jordan popped out of the Roundhouse just as we were strapping in and we all headed down Whiskey Jack to see if Aimee's broken rib could handle a day on the slopes.

Needless to say, the pain killers were doing their job and by the time we reached green chair, Aimee felt ready to rock and roll.  So that's what we did.  We took a few runs through the Terrain Park.  First hitting the small side, then hitting the medium side, and finally, Aimee and Jordan hit the large side.  I took a few pics while Aimee launched off her first large jump and landed smooth and clean.

We jumped on the Peak 2 Peak and headed over to Glacier Chair.  We wanted to check out a couple of bowls up Spanky's Ladder.  I hadn't been to Spanky's for a few seasons and Jordan had never been.  We followed Aimee to Diamond Bowl, and although the snow was wet, it wasn't bad.  My only regret was that I didn't get in there on one of the many many powder days we had this season.  Too late now, but there is always next year.  I noticed a huge improvement on my riding skills since the last time I went down those chutes and instead of  being deathly afraid, I had no problems turning on the steep double blacks.  We hit the cat track back to Excelerator Chair, carefully avoiding avalanche debris in the middle of the road and headed to Rendevous for lunch.

After lunch I wanted to get back home, so Jordan took off and Aimee and I rode down Whistler for the final run of the day.

Day 109 | hip hip hooray

I wasn't expecting to have a very good day.  I took the level two class and in that class was a kid who has kind of been a problem since he's been in Snowboard School.  I was first introduced to him last week when I was signing in kids and he spent the entire morning crying.  I then heard bits and pieces about him going from level one to level two back down to level one again.  Monday he refused to go up the gondola and pleaded to go home.  (He finally got up the gondola).  Yesterday he was making progress when his instructor informed me she got him turning on the Super Carpet, only to have him punch a girl in the face 20 minutes later.  Yup.  I wasn't expecting a very good day.

There were two other kids in my class and we hit the Super Carpet first thing in the morning.  Two of the kids could turn and one girl was having a bit of a problem.  The team managed to get a few good runs in before Blackcomb Schools took over the entire area.  My next idea was to head to the valley.  The kids could sideslip well enough that getting to the village shouldn't have been a problem.  When I made the announcement of the valley run, the "problem child" jumped up and down and gave me a huge hug saying:  "you're the best teacher ever!".  Today was his seventh or eighth day in Whistler Kids, and he hasn't left the mid-station area at all.  What makes the story even better was that once he put his snowboard on, he turned almost the entire way!!!  He finally made it to level three ---

After lunch we did the same thing:  took a run to the village and then spent the rest of the day at the CLC basking in the sun and jumping over the ramp we built.  Problem child was an angel all day and he even gave me a few cheers for being the best teacher ever!

Here are some pics:

Day 108 | fly-by

We had 15 kids to teach in Snowboard School which turned into four classes. Aimee had three level six kids who are running through the medium terrain park. James had four level fours - and one of the kids he's had all week so James wanted to take that class. There were no never-evers, however there were four kids who were returning one stars. That meant spending most of the day on the carpet in the rain. No thanks! The last class was level two, and one kid in that class has been in Ski School all week and he was quite a handful. I had no patience for him so I didn't take that class. That meant I was the one who got to go home. My first and only time this season .... I volunteered to go home when we had too many instructors scheduled.

 Before I could leave, we needed to make sure all the sixes fit together and all the fours fit together. James lead all the kids to the valley with Aimee and I trailing. Lucky me... they all fit. Technically when you're sent home, you get paid for two hours so you're required to "hang around" until at least 10am. But by that time, you might as well stay another hour and eat the free CLC lunch. So when we all got to the valley, I went with Aimee's class and took a run with them since I was planning on having lunch at 11am.

Whistler Blackcomb received another 5cm of snow last night (OMG!) so we were hoping there would be some good powder on the Peak. When we exited the gondola station, we found everything completely socked in with a heavy heavy fog. The light board wasn't even visible from the Roundhouse. Aimee decided to not go up the Peak, and instead headed for some tree runs in hopes of finding powder. There was powder, but unfortunately, there was a hard crust underneath from the warm temperatures the day before. Some spots were good and some spots were crappy.

Aimee lead us to the tree rails in the woods. I took some video of her and one of her kids hitting the tree. From there Aimee attempted to jump over a huge tree - (see video). It was a huge attempt and the video is funny as hell. I didn't do a great job at filming it because I was more in shock watching her go flying over! Luckily she didn't get hurt.
 

After the "fly-by" I headed down to the CLC to grab lunch and then I rode down to the village around noon. It was nice to have the afternoon off. Cabo and I had a great nap when I finally got home.

Day 107 | instructor of the year!

I found out at morning meeting that I am the Whistler Kids Instructor of the Year 09/10, for the second year in a row.  I was totally shocked.  Not that I don't think I deserve it, (ha ha) - I just didn't think someone could get it two years in a row.  Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised and totally stoked.

My day today was better than yesterday.  I had one kid from Minnesota and he was pretty cool.  Yes he even talked!   He was a high level three / low level four and we rode everywhere.  It was a blue bird day with sunny skies and warm temps.  The snow was a bit wet from the warm weather but the groomers were pretty good.  We did a bunch of laps all around the Family Zone.  His favorite part was Marmot Trees and the terrain park.  Naturally showed I him how the mountains can be a natural terrain park if you know where to look.  The day went by pretty fast for a Monday and I got some good color on my face ..... Love goggle tan days!

Day 106 | ice lolli's are nice

We've gone from 75+ snowboarders to 12 snowboarders.  Yes, the crazy days are over and we can now coast right to the end of the Whistler Kids season.  The clouds have stopped puking snow and they have given way to full on sunshine. Spring has finally sprung.

I had four level fours, two sets of brothers from the UK.  They all seemed pretty quiet first thing in the morning, but I thought once we got riding, they would loosen up and talk a bit.  No such luck.  None of them said two words all morning.  They were fast riders and followed right behind me no matter where I went.  (Not one word.)  We hit Marmot Trees ... that usually brings the excitement out of kids.  Nothing!  At lunch, one kid complained to his father about something and then Dad signed him out citing a bad knee, but I think he wasn't haven't any fun.

We went to Blackcomb in the afternoon.  Still no words.  Rode through the terrain garden ... nothing.  They even sat in separate corners on the Peak to Peak gondola, and not one word was spoken.  I hate when kids don't talk, but more importantly, I hate when kids don't even get excited about riding.  It felt like I was riding by myself today, only worse:  I had to go slow and I couldn't go where I wanted because these three boys were following me around.  Bummer!

Day 105 | waffles and moguls

Last day of Adventure Camp for the 09/10 season.  I had a great group of kids, and despite having a huge split with level 3's, 4's, and 5's all in one class, we made it work.  Mostly because the faster kids were patient with the slower kids and were not constantly asking:  "can we go?  can we go?" before the last kid got to the group.

Cameron didn't show up for morning sign in and his dad told a fellow instructor he was going to snowboard with the family today.  That was kind of disappointing since we took the Peak 2 Peak over to Blackcomb, with the intent of going through the terrain garden, and I know Cameron hadn't had an opportunity to go on the P2P while he was here.  I wanted to do a warm up run on Ross's Gold but the run was closed for race practice.  Instead we took Cruzer down to Solar Coaster and found tons of soft fluffy powder down the entire run.  Not to mention, we were the only ones on the run.  It was so much fun, we decided to hit it again, this time sneaking over to Stryker where we all got fresh tracks.  Tom wanted to go down Honeycomb since it was the run of the day.  No worries, we headed to Honeycomb which lead us to Excelerator Chair but not until we hit every powdery drop and jump on our way.  It was fun.  The nice thing about these runs was that there weren't very many intersecting runs, so we were able to keep on going instead of stopping and waiting for everyone to catch up in order to give direction on where we were going next.  This time Natalie wanted to go over to Jersey Creme and take us through some easy trees with powder.  We all followed Nat as she took us through the gladed run and into some untouched snow.  We never did go through the terrain garden but none of the kids cared because the stuff we did go down was more fun than the park.

It was finally time for lunch so we loaded back onto the Peak 2 Peak and headed down to the CLC.  We were greeted by none other than Cameron.  His parents were waiting for us and said he was too fast to keep up with so he wanted to join the class for the afternoon.  Unfortunately, he missed most of the day but we made the most of the last run and he still had fun.  For last run, I wanted to hit the Marmot Trees but Jeff wanted to go to the Tree Fort so we headed for the Tree Fort.  Unfortunately it was closed, so we kept on the green runs down to Crab Apple and then made our way to the village.  All the kids said they had a great week and learned a lot.  I enjoyed having all of them in class this week and a couple of them say they will be returning next season.  

Day 104 | 47 feet of snow!

Another 20cm of snow fell last night making our total snowfall for the year:  47 feet!!!  Second snowiest winter on record.  Holy cow!

One of my AC'ers has "dropped out" to ride with her family so today we only had five.  The winds were gusting up to 50kph in the morning so the gondola was running slow and constantly stopping.  We took a run down to the village to avoid the gondola first thing in the morning.  We finally ended up in the Alpine around 11am.  I took the kids through Whiskey Jack trees down to Franz's Run and through lots of powder.  The weakest kid in the group got stuck in some deep powder and, after waiting for him for quite some time, the rest of my team decided to run a rescue mission.  They all unstrapped and hiked back up to where he was.  They helped him take off his board and they walked him to where he could restrap into his bindings and continue through the snow.  It was the cutest thing I ever saw.  It was really sweet ......  

From there we hit Jimmy's Joker and to my surprise, every kid made at least one toe side turn down the black diamond.  It had huge moguls on it but they were soft so it was fun just to zig zag.  We ran Expressway to Crab Apple and down to the village.  We then headed in for lunch where we had a piece of chocolate cake to celebrate one guy's birthday.

The team is getting quite fast so after lunch we hit more powder and another black diamond on Red Chair.  We rode Red Chair back to the top and then took Ego Bowl to Enchanted Forest to Olympic back to mid-station where we were required to download.  Tomorrow I'm hoping to get the team through the terrain garden on Blackcomb.  It should be a fun final day of Adventure Camp for the 09/10 season.

Day 103 | a one hour afternoon

WTF is with all this April snow?  We now have a snowbase of over 370 cm ( 12 feet) ..... Last year, the snowbase never reached 300 cm all season!  It's crazy.  I don't mind the snow in the Alpine.  It's amazing actually.  Soft packed snow on the groomers and powder off piste.  It's the rain in the valley that is getting a little annoying.

With that being said, we are expecting another 6 inches of snow overnight tonight!  The snow in your face wasn't a big factor with conditions today, it was more the wind ..... with gusts up to 80kph.  And it was cold.  I feel like my class and I didn't do much riding today.  We were sorted out before 10am.  We took a run from the CLC down to the valley.  Came back up for fun photo day.  Went inside for fruit and hot chocolate since our lunch wasn't until 12:45pm.  Back out and loaded the gondola, which was going half speed because of the wind.  Took the powder mogul run off Whiskey Jack that drops down to Red Chair side of Whistler and headed to Tokum.  By the time we reached the CLC again, two kids had to pee.  We were a half hour early for lunch so we took a run to the valley.  Finally we ate lunch.  After lunch, the kids had a 15-20 minute snowball fight with themselves.  Back to the Roundhouse for last run where we once again, dropped into the powder run.  Down Ego Bowl hitting a few side jumps.  Whooops, time to call patrol since one kid fell and started screaming bloody murder.  20 minute wait for patrol's arrival and assessment.  Finally, time to download from the CLC and finish the day.  Looking forward to a full day of powder riding tomorrow!

Day 102 | no thumbs in the gloves

More snow fell overnight bringing the snow base to over 12.5 feet!  When I arrived in Whistler first thing in the morning, it was snowing in the village.  Yesterday was the busiest day in Whistler Kids this season.  We had over 1200 kids between Blackcomb and Whistler.  Amazing!!  We sorted out a new way to keep the 75+ snowboarders in organized and into their correct levels quickly.  Before 10am, my AC class (and one Destination kid) and I were ready to head up the gondola.... that's record time!

I'm starting to get a larger split between the kids now.  I have one or two who are very slow and two or three who are pretty quick.  It's still manageable but I'm not sure for how much longer.  I decided to get the kids into the powder today and headed for the drop off Whiskey into Ego.  They all loved it.  We practiced on green groomers for the rest of the morning hitting that drop a few times.

After lunch I ventured over to Jolly Green Giant to see how the kids would do turning on a blue run.  As I expected, half turned with no problem and half couldn't turn at all.  Back to the powder and the green groomers for us.  We headed down to the CLC early and I made a nice jump for the kids to practice on.  Before we knew it, it was time to download the gondola and call it another day.

It takes a lot of food to feed over 600 kids!

Day 101 | Adventure Camp (Part III)

Last week of the craziness and once again we had over 600 kids in Whistler Kids.  More importantly, we had about 75 kids in snowboarding lessons!  sweet!  Thirty eight of them were signed up for Adventure Camp. I picked myself up a level three class with five AC'ers and added two Destination kids.

It snowed for most of the day and the freezing level was below mid-station, which means it snowed at the CLC for most of the day.  Weird considering it's usually sunny spring conditions by now.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, ... depending on how you want to look at it ... there is a lot more snow in the forecast.  We currently have a 12 foot base of snow right now with more on it's way.  Anyway, all this snow makes for great soft packed conditions on the groomed runs.  Perfect for teaching level threes how to improve their S-turns.  And that is pretty much what we did all day.  S-turns on green runs in the Family Zone.  Nothing exciting.  I might shake things up a bit as the week goes on ..... : )

Day 100 | exploring

This is the earliest I've completed the 100 day goal.  I still have another two weeks of work so this year I might have the most days in one season also.  I should have used my only day off from work to let my body get some rest, however, mother nature had other plans.  When Ullr  dumps almost 4 feet of snow (120cm) in the last seven days ... and when those days are at the end of March/beginning of April .... you don't rest.... you ride!!

My new BFF, Aimee, requested the day off but she had to report to duty with hopes of getting sent home after classes filled in.  I told her to text me if she didn't get a class and I would ride with her.  I was up early and waited around for the call.  Around 10am she was given the okay to go home so I jumped in the truck and headed to Whistler.

We knew the lift lines were going to be insane.  With the combination of it being Holy Week + it's a Saturday + 26cm overnight + all the snow earlier in the week, I'm sure the visitor count reached over 20,000.  Every lift had at least a 15 minute wait.  In fact, it took us about an hour just to reach the top of Jersey Cream.  By the time we got up there, 7th Heaven was open so we headed to the cat track and then ducked through some awesome trees before finally making it to the chair.  Once we reached the top of 7th, we headed for the back of the "pond" and found so much deep powder, fresh tracks, and awesome tree runs.

Aimee wanted to do some exploring so that's what we did.  Instead of getting back in the 7th Heaven lift line, we decided to explore the cat track out of there and ended up just below the terrain garden easy out track.  We dropped down into a black gladed run named Pruned Paradise just to get off the long cat track!  We then explored some trees in between Lower Gear Jammer and Upper Main Line.  It was here that we did most of our "exploring" since we had no idea where we were going and we had to keep traversing in order to stay out of the creek that ran through the middle of the tree line.

We ended up coming out at the top of the Tube Park.  We then hit Wizard Chair and bee-lined it to Crystal Chair.  I wanted to check out Fraggle Rock.  I had been there once before during my first season and I remembered having a tough time getting through that terrain.  Fraggle Rock is not located on the trail map but all the locals know where it is.  It's varied rocky terrain that is much like a natural terrain park.  Today it had plenty of powder in it.  During our exploring, we jetted off the tracked run into some fresh powder and we both launched ourselves off a pretty big drop that we didn't know was there.  Aimee found herself wrapped around a tree!!

We somehow managed to get back to civilization and we were ready for some food.  Unfortunately, it was already 3:30pm and the restaurants were closed.  We headed down from Glacier back to the village and called it a day.  I was exhausted.  The snow was amazing!  The lift lines were crazy.  We both could have used the day off from riding.  Aimee might have cracked a few ribs on that tree.  I'm going to be tired at work tomorrow.  But hell yea .. it was worth it.  And it was the best 100th day I've ever had!!

This drop .... (above)

... leads to Aimee wrapped up in a tree!

 

Day 99 | fukitzpuken

I had a great week of teaching.  The kids in my class were super cool and awesome snowboarders.  It's been fun and I hate to see the week come to an end.  But, alas, everything has its finish and today marks the end of a second exceptional week of Adventure Camp.

We only had three in our group and it was an easy day.  We hit the Marmot Trees three times before lunch and the best part was that we went three different ways each time and found so much snow.  My kids were so good at going through powder and going through the trees.  One kid wanted to practice going down black diamonds so after lunch we went up Garbo and headed for Raven.

The forecast called for 10-20cm to fall during the day.  I think 5cm fell just during lunch alone.  By the time we hit Raven at 1pm, there was so much powder!  We got fresh tracks down much of the run and then scooted into Side Order trees and found way more powder!  It was so sweet that we headed for the Garbanzo Chair to do the same run again.  For last run we went up the gondola, only to be met by 80-100+kph winds at the Roundhouse!  We hurried up and strapped in and then headed for the Marmot area of trees again.  Took another different run through the trees and finally finished at 3pm sharp to sign everyone out!  Collected a bit of tip money and headed home for a day of rest tomorrow (or not!).  But tons more pow in the forecast so Sunday should be a fun day at Club!!!  Can't wait.  The snow is so good right now (light and fluffy).  Hard to believe it's April!

Day 98 | April fools

For April Fools Day, someone turned the "Peak 2 Peak" into the "Eat 2 Eat", complete with dining tables and chairs.  No idea what the story is behind it (yet) but check out the picture.  Everyone who noticed it found it quite entertaining.

My day started with six level four kids.  By the time we got ourselves situated, it was almost 10:15am.  It's super busy in ski school  (pic) and when there are 50-60 snowboarders to set up into different classes, it takes a lot of time.  My kids were the same kids I've had all week with the exception of one girl who showed up for the first time today.  She was a really good rider and had no problem keeping up with the class.  In fact, I would she was probably the best one in my class.

Skier visits for today much have been close to 15,000 because the runs were super busy and the lift lines were long.  There was even a 10 minute wait in the ski school line!  It snowed most of the morning and into the late afternoon.  We spent almost two hours at the CLC during lunch and when we got back to the Alpine, we were able to find fresh tracks heading towards Jolly Green Giant.

Two of my kids were signed out at lunch in order to spend the afternoon with their families.  My AC kid wasn't feel well again so he also went home at lunch.  I finished my day with three kids.  We didn't get much accomplished as far as a lesson plan was concerned.  The runs were too crowded to work on the sponsor turns I wanted to work on,  but the snow was awesome and the kids had fun just the same.

Luciano from Miami Beach.