Day 10 | iLike Sunny Days

Mondays and Tuesdays are my days off from work and this week I took them off from riding as well.  I was suppose to work today but because we only had one snowboarder signed up for lessons, I was told to stay home.

About 17cm of fresh snow fell overnight and the sun had decided to pay us a visit.  It was a beautiful blue bird day with a bit of an inversion ... meaning suitable temperatures up top.  I met up with Pippa and Nathan at the light board around 11am.  The snow was decent, packed powder, on the groomers.  With the recent warm temps in the Alpine, there was some crust underneath some fresh snow here and there but nothing too bad.  Pippa wasn't feeling too well so she bailed after two runs.  Nate and I rode til about 1pm then decided to call it a day in order to walk the dogs.

More sun scheduled for the next five days.  Also there are no kids booked in Snowboard School so I have another day off tomorrow.  Peak Chair opens Friday and Harmony Chair opens Saturday.  I'm hoping to be able to get Friday off as well and get in line for fresh tracks off the Peak.  Fingers crossed.

Day 9 | horrible

As you can see from the picture, today wasn't exactly an amazing snow day.  The forecast said 70-90cm of snow was expected to fall last night, but freezing temps were hovering around the RoundHouse so instead of snow, it was mostly rain.  And boy did it rain.

Who the heck wants to teach in the rain?  It's way worse than negative temperatures (freezing cold).  I wasn't too keen on getting wet so my fingers were crossed I would get to go home.  We had 5 Lil Rippers and another 8 Riders.  I was assigned level 3's.  We also had five Instructors.  After sorting the classes and figuring who was in what in class, it miraculously turned out that I could go home, if I so chose ... which I did.  I decided to ride from mid-station to the village.  That was horrible!  The freezing level is lowering so hopefully it will dry out some of that wet snow up top.

Day 8 | ratio of 5:1

About 30 kids in Snowboard School including five Lil Rippers.  Gillian and I volunteered to take the little ones.  No biggie as the freezing level was past the Roundhouse and it's suppose to "snow" up to 90cm in a 24 hour period.   

Everyone was sorted with classes by 9:30am and about an hour later, Gunner informed me that the new ratio of Lil Rippers to Instructor is now five to one.  Meaning, one Instructor has to take five Lil Rippers!  and since we had five kids, one of us had to go home.  I volunteered since Irish was riding and I was toying with taking a run with him.  I was told I could leave around noon (or after lunch).  

Of course, the notion of having five Lil Rippers to one Instructor is just ludicrous, especially when the ratio of regular age kids to Instructor is only six to one.  I could spend several paragraphs telling you why it's not possible for one Instructor to take on five 4-6 year olds but I won't bore you with the details.  

Anyway, I spent the morning with the kids and Gillian.  We came in for a break around 11am and stayed inside until a bit after noon.  I couldn't let Gillian take the kids on her own so I decided to stay and help her for most of the afternoon (unpaid) -- I finally left around 2pm.  By this time it was pouring rain at the CLC and I downloaded in the gondola and met up with Shrek and Irish for a nice coffee at The Lift.  Tomorrow I am definitely not taking a Lil Rippers class!   

Day 7 | smells like fish

Sun was shining today!!  I'm not going to mention the amazing powder we saw people cutting on Tokum first thing in the morning.  I also won't mention the knee deep powder found around Crystal Chair (it opened today).  Instead I will talk about the 12 kids signed up for Lil Rippers who were joined by another 19 other snowboarders.  Yup, it's a holiday weekend!

I was assigned Lil Rippers again with Morgan and Gillian.  The day went by amazingly fast and it seemed to be much easier than yesterday.  Maybe because we had three instructors.  Most the kids picked up the edging and balance including a 4 year old who could straight line.  He was really cute.

After our afternoon break, we built a jump for the little guys/girls.  They were so surprised and so happy.  It was cute.  Some of the parents took pics and video from the fence line.  They made such a big deal of the fact that the kids were going over a six inch high jump.  LOL - No matter what happens during the day, all kids go home super stoked after the instructors build them a jump.  That seems to be the only thing they talk about when mom and dad pick them up.

Day 6 | Welcome back Whistler Kids

It's American Thanksgiving and that means it's the first day of work and another new season at Whistler Kids.  Morning meeting started at 8am and it was great to see old friends and lots of smiling faces.  As far as the weather is concerned, it puked all day!  But high winds up top.

We had about 20 kids in snowboard lessons with 8 of them being Lil Rippers.  That program has really taken off!  Morgan, Kat and I volunteered to do Lil Rippers.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love team teaching with Morgan.  He is so great with the kids and the little girls just love him to death.  Kat took one boy who was a solid level 3 and Morgan and I teamed up for the remaining seven.

The day went by relatively fast.  Two of the Lil Rippers were side slipping on their own by the afternoon.  I believe they are both returning tomorrow.  It was a great first day and it feels good to be back teaching.

Day 5 | fifty two inches in seven days

Monday night it snowed 24 inches overnight.  Everyone was stoked to ski or board on Tuesday.  Unfortunately, such high snowfall calls for heavy (and time consuming) avalanche control.  I was meeting  Chris and Izayah in the village at 10am and my plan was to sneak in a couple of powder runs beforehand.  Unfortunately, uploading didn't start until 9:40am and by that time, the line for the village gondola went down past the Crystal Lodge!!!

After waiting around for a couple of hours, the guys and I decided to ride today instead of yesterday.  And today was sweet!  Another 8 inches fell overnight and the snow was light and fluffy.  We spent the day on the greens, with Izayah getting good enough to start hitting side hits and trying to jump.  Chris picked up his turning and was able to ride the chair (he's terrified of heights).

There was a ton of snow out there, especially for the groomers.  We did three good runs down Ego Bowl before we headed in for a water break.  Chris was getting tired fast.  We took another couple of runs after a half hour break and then it was time for lunch.  After lunch, Chris made the right decision to call it a day and download while Izayah and I snowboarded down to mid-station and downloaded from there.

Even though we stayed on Ego Bowl most of the day, I had such a fun time.  I was super excited that Chris was able to pick it up enough so he could take Izayah on his own now.  The snow was amazing and there was so much of it.  I'm glad we took yesterday off and went today instead.  It was a good time.

Day 4 | Hangin' with Hawaii'ans

My friends from Hawaii are in town for their annual time share in Whistler and it was a great day to get out and snowboard with the whole family.  It snowed 7 inches last night and although I heard the runs were epic first thing in the morning, I loved teaching my friends how to snowboard at the Super Carpet.

Izayah and Dad were on top of their game and were able to turn down the beginner area with ease.  Mom and Raicey spent their time zig zagging and getting use to the slippery snow underneath the board.  Everyone did amazing.  We spent about two hours on the carpet then headed up to the Roundhouse for lunch.

After we ate, Izayah and I strapped on our boards and headed down Ego Bowl while the rest of the family downloaded in the gondola.  You might recall Izayah is the boy I've taught every year at this time for the last three years.  He's moved to Washington a few months ago so he's hoping to snowboard a lot more often now.  We ran down Ego Bowl past the Emerald Chair and continued into the Olympic Chair area where there was a ton of fresh deep snow.  We called it a day ourselves once we hit the Super Carpet again.

Forecast is calling for 45-60cm of powder overnight!!  It's been puking all afternoon as well.  I'm planning on getting first chair at Creekside tomorrow before meeting up with Izayah and his dad at 10am.

Day 3 | Hiked Harmony

Day three on the mountain and we haven't had any fresh snow since before opening day.  Nevertheless, I still have to get my legs in shape so I met with KCooper at Creekside around 10am and we headed up to shred.  We ran into Pip and Jordan at Red Chair just as we were strapping in.  Perfect timing.

The lift up Red Chair was a bit chilly as temps were around 12°-15°F but with no wind, it didn't feel that cold.  Nothing was groomed except for the cat track that winds through the park and down to Emerald.  We all ran that pretty fast which was actually fun.  After a second run in the same area, KCooper asked me if I wanted to hike Harmony.

"What the hell", I said.  It was better than riding crowded ground up groomers all day.  So we exited Green Chair and started hiking up Pika's Traverse.  It took me about 45minutes to reach Harmony Ridge and I was sweaty and tired by the time I made it.  I was crossing my fingers the ride down was going to be worth the hike up.

After taking a few photos (and a breather) atop Harmony Ridge we strapped on and headed down to Krummholz.  The snow in this area was virtually untouched and it was close to knee deep.  The run from the ridge to Krummholz was amazing!  We landed on the top of Gun Barrels and they looked good so we took some freshies through the trees.  Oh my god it was just amazing!  Definitely worth the hike.  We finished up with another short fresh pow run to the cat track and made it to Harmony Chair without unstrapping.  WOW!  It was pretty cool.  Definitely worth it.  Made me wish we had time in the day to do it again.

After the hike, we grabbed some lunch then headed to the Creekside Gondola to download and call it a day.  What a great day!  Way better than hitting crowded groomers for hours.  Lots and lots of snow is in the forecast so fingers crossed for some better riding mid week.

Day 2 | JMan

The sun was shining and the skies were blue today.  The temps had dropped a bit, which is normal when there is no cloud cover.  I spent the day with my Club Kid, Jaden.  He's almost 9 years old and he rides with me on Saturdays starting in January.  His parents and I have become friends and I offered to take him up since they weren't going to be on the hill for another couple of weeks because of injuries.

We made it to the Roundhouse at exactly 10am.  Jaden isn't exactly the fastest snowboarder on the planet, not to mention he had a new longer board.  He was a little nervous on the first run, though he did great, but he was slow.  I feel I work my muscles a lot more when I'm forced to go slower than the speed I would normally ride at.  After two runs, I was ready for a rest and a drink.

We rode another two or three laps and then headed into the Roundhouse for lunch.  Afterwards we downloaded to the village where Jaden's mom picked him up.  It was nice quiet day with amazing views. Another step closer to getting my legs back in shape for the rest of the long season.

Day 1 | Commencing the 11/12 season!

Another season is starting here at Whistler Blackcomb.  My how time flies.  I met up with Pippa in the Village around 9:30am.  Neither one of us were interested in getting up early and standing in line.  It has snowed 11inches (29cm) in the last 48 hours.  The base is 27 inches (70cm).  It still has a long way to go but it had enough coverage to open Whistler 6 days early.

Our first run was in the area that is normally part of the park.  We didn't get any freshies but there was plenty of snow to get stuck in.   We stayed in this area for a couple of runs and then tried a run down to Red Chair.  A lot of the runs were roped off and since we are both employees, we couldn't duck ropes as that is a big no-no as a WB employee.  The lift lines weren't as busy as we imagined they would be.  The runs didn't feel overcrowded either.  We took a half hour break then ran another three to four runs before calling it a day and riding to mid-station for a download.