Day 95 | Is Blackcomb in USA?

It was an easy day to work as only Mia and Ava showed up for Club.  We took a couple runs in the AM before lunch.  Six centimeters fell overnight and the snow is still super soft packed.  We weren't allowed to run the trees so we had to stick to groomers.

After lunch all the Club classes met up with Gunner for an evaluation of levels for next season.  We rode down Orange Peel to Tokum.  Gunner gave us a lot of great feedback on the kids' riding.  It was time for some hot chocolate after the "test" so we all met up at the CLC where we hung out until it was time to ride to the Village for sign outs.  Like I said, easy day to work.

Day 94 | fresh tracks

Irish and I finally got out of bed early enough and made it to Fresh Tracks.   It snowed six inches overnight but the Alpine never opened yesterday so anything we hit today was going to be amazing .... and it was!

Once the bell rang, we hit Mom and Pop trees twice then ran down to Red Chair via the trees off Whiskey Jack.  We then headed to Harmony and waited in line for about a half hour before the chair opened.  The sun came out during that half hour but it was cloudy for most of the day.  Fresh lines down the side of Sun Bowl awaited for us as we headed into Symphony dropping off the cat track into the trees.    We managed to squeeze in about four or five runs in Symphony before Irish headed off to work.

I ran into the kids (Libby, Sean, & Jordan) at the top of Symphony Chair just as Irish was about to leave.  They were riding down the face under the chair dropping the rock and the cornice.  I somehow managed to get up enough guts to drop the cornice myself.  Bel, from Snowboard School saw us under the chair so I beckoned for her to come on down and drop it with me.  She did!  We ended up having a group of about ten people dropping the cornice about three different times.  It was fun.

By 2pm I was exhausted so I ended to the never-ending cat track and made my way down to the Village. Back to work tomorrow and I'm sure there will plenty of nice, soft snow to be shredded tomorrow with my Saturday Club kids.

Jordan dropping Symphony Rock

Day 93 | too many kids in a gondola

Thirty inches of snow has fallen in the last 48 hours here at Whistler Blackcomb.  I haven't been able to enjoy much of it until today.  I was assigned level fours and took five kids up the gondola.  They all insisted their s-turns were strong.  I realized once we hit Whiskey Jack that I had mostly level threes and a level two.  I made the mistake of jumping off the groomer into the powder at the SLOW sign.  It didn't take too long before four kids were so stuck, in the almost waist deep snow, that they ended up taking off their snowboards and walking down to Ego Bowl.  (tee hee)  That's the first time that's ever happened!!!  They were all huffing and puffing and cursing the sight of powder.  : )

We slowly made our way down to the CLC where we took a much needed rest (long lunch) and tried to figure out how to shake up the mix.  The level 5 Instructor ended up taking the one level 4 and I team taught nine level threes with Bel.

We spent the afternoon riding green groomers.  The snow was super soft packed and most of the fresh powder was tracked out.  We weren't allowed to go through trees.  The winds were gusting up to 100kph so the Alpine never opened.  The day went by pretty fast and I think we did a good job at getting the kids to like the idea of powder.    

Day 92 | untitled

Called in sick yesterday but was back to work today.  I was able to take my AC kid named Oscar who was still only a level one.  I added three other Destination kids to the class, one had never snowboarded before.

15cm of snow fell overnight.  Temps were mild which left a heavy/wet fresh pack of snow on the Magic Carpet which was impossible for the kids to learn how to sideslip on.  For the first couple hours, they did nothing but straight line.  I was able to put an edging lesson together once we got the carpet area side-slipped enough.  After lunch we went over to the Super Carpet.  By the end of the day, two girls were turning, my AC kid was kind of turning, and the rest were just getting down however they could.  


Day 91 | Monday blues

The sun and the warmth has disappeared, gearing us up for the winter storm heading our way at the end of the week.  I was assigned level ones for Adventure Camp and ended up with four Destination Kids and two AC'ers.  Not very busy in Snowboard School today with only 20 kids total.

I spent most of the day on the Magic Carpet.  The three older girls were great on their edges and progressed quickly.  The three younger kids weren't quite getting it.  By 1pm I was bored with the CLC area and decided to try the Super Carpet area.  It was a great time waster as the time flew by quickly once we got over there.  My two seven year olds weren't quite grasping the side slipping concept but they weren't too bad.  They could control themselves enough to not run into any adults on the carpet.

The morning started off sunny but as the day went on, the clouds rolled in.  In fact, it was sprinkling a bit when it was time to leave.

Day 90 | photo shoot mixup

Juliette and Ella were asked to participate in a Whistler Blackcomb photo shoot in which the photos are to be used in new marketing product for WB.  Lauren's two girls were also asked to participate.  All the kids were keen to do it and since they only needed one Instructor for the shoot, Lauren took the two classes.  I was given the choice of having the day off or to cover Jonnie's class of two lower level kids.  I chose to work and cover Jonnie's class.

Laura and Cameron showed up on time and we spent the day with Morgan and his Lil Ripper Club kid.  We spent the day on blues and greens around Emerald Chair trying to get the kids to understand the technicality of "counter-rotation".  Once again the sun was shining and the temps were warm.  Another Spring like day, warmer than yesterday with even Spring conditions on the snow.  I spent the day working on 180's off drops.  Finally got it down too.

Another ice cream apres at the CLC.  We also built a ramp for my new Chuckbuddy.  The day went by fast.  I was able to see Juliette and Ella during lunch and at the end of the day.  This job isn't a bad gig, especially when the sun is shining and you spend the day team teaching and working on your own riding.

Day 89 | Handmade near Canada in the USA

Saturday Club is easy these days when only three kids show up every week.  This week it was Jaden, Max, and Ava.  I rode the kids pretty hard.  The sun was shining and the temps were warm.  We did a little bit of everything:  black runs, switch riding, Marmot trees, terrain park.  It was also Beach Party Weekend theme which meant we had ice cream at the CLC around 2pm.  All the teams were out, soaking up the sun, eating ice cream.  The day was amazing.  Definitely gave us all Spring fever!

Day 88 | chicken on a snowboard

I reported back to work late but healthy.  All five AC kids showed up on time and we were at the Roundhouse by 9am.  With only 3cm of new snow overnight, it meant we were allowed to go through trees.  We took a warm up run down Whiskey Jack, stopped to get our group photo taken and then headed to Marmot Trees.  The snow through the trees was nice and soft.  The kids had a bit of a hard time but they all loved it.  Next we took a run through Enchanted Forest then headed to the CLC for some hot chocolate since we were pretty cold.

After a quick break, we squeezed in a run to the village before lunch.  We did a lot of snowboarding today.  The conditions on the groomers were nice.... super soft packed.  The sun was shining in the afternoon.  (the goggle tan is coming along quite nicely)   It felt like a busy day and it went by fast.  In fact, we never made it to the CLC for ice cream apres.  No one seemed too concerned as they were having fun on their snowboards.  That's all you can ask for.

Day 87 | Spring not sprung

Today is the first day of Spring, but not in Whistler.  With another 12cm of snow overnight and another 15cm forecasted throughout the day, Spring is not coming quickly in these parts.  Winds were gusting up to 100kph at ridge top so the Village gondi was running slow.  All my AC kids showed up on time and we needed to "test out" a new kid from level two so the first run we did was from mid-station to the Village.  Lots of nice fresh tracks found on the run down.  The kid fit in perfectly so we rocked to the Roundhouse after a short hot chocolate and fruit break.

I wasn't feeling very well so I made a call to my Supervisor while on the gondola in order to get another Instructor to cover my class.  By the time the kids and I hit as much powder as we could off Ego Bowl, we met up with Breon at the CLC.  He took over the class while I rode down to the village to go home.

Day 86 | another week of AC

A Lil Ripper that I had in lessons last season has requested me to be his Adventure Camp coach this week.  He's a level three, thus I've been assigned to his level.  I started with a full class of six but by mid-afternoon I needed to put one back down to level two.  I knew in the morning he was actually a level two but I thought I could work with him.  His turning was great, he just got too tired and wasn't able to keep up with the kids who had a bit more speed on the easy green runs.

Everyone's stance and balance needed much tweaking but by the end of the day, the team looked much better.  We spent most of the day up top on the soft packed powder conditions riding Ego Bowl and Whiskey Jack.  It was super crowded after lunch, especially in the Family Zone.

I'm hoping we are able to ride through trees tomorrow as a couple of the kids need to learn how to bend their knees.  A few laps through Marmot trees should help take care of that problem.  Unfortunately, another 10cm of snow is forecasted to fall tonight so trees are probably not going to be an option for the rest of the week.

Day 85 | mushy monsters

Ella was a no-show once again this week so it was just me and Juliette and Caleb.  We spent the morning on Whistler riding blacks.  Jimmy's Joker, Dave Murray, and Bear Paw to be exact.  Jimmy's was mogulled out but the kids did pretty good getting down.  When we hit Dave Murray, we practiced our switch riding (both kids did amazing!) and Bear Paw should have been the run of the day as the grooming was exceptional and the run was amazing ...  though Caleb said it was too easy.

After lunch we tagged with Lauren and Morgan and took a lap through the Terrain Garden on Blackcomb.  When we were on Solar Coaster, we saw that Caleb's brother Jaden was about to run his border-cross race so we stopped and watched him race.  We also ran into Caleb's dad watching the race.  Afterwards we had time to run down to the village from Blackcomb then head up the village gondola for one last rip down from mid-station.

Once the kids were checked out, I met up with Irish at the Roundhouse where we hit the trees through the terrain park.  By this time, there was a lot of fresh snow from the snowfall that had started around noon.  I'm hoping for decent conditions tomorrow.  We finished the day by running through the trees on the way down to Creekside.

Day 84 | Kiss Me I'm with Irish

We are down to the last four weekends of Club.  Everyone showed up this week except for Mia.  Ava's parents took the liberty of "dressing the Instructor" -- Yes, I rode around dressed like that all day.  We weren't allowed to go through trees so there was no fresh powder to be found.  The snow on the groomers was nice, very soft packed.  We spent the day on Whistler mostly in the Green Acres area.  At one point we took a lap with the level five and level three class.  I think there was a group of 14 kids riding with 3 Instructors.  It was during that lap that D.T. fell and hurt his neck thus resulting in yet another call to Patrol.  He was cleared but we ended up sticking to green runs for the last two laps of the day.

Day 83 | Privates Request

Sixty five inches of snow in the last seven days! and still counting ......
One of my Adventure Camp girls booked me as a requested private for a half day.  As much as I was excited (especially for my pay rate), I was a little disappointed as today was set to be an epic pow day.  With all the snow we've received lately, combined with the Alpine not opening yesterday, I knew today was going to be amazing up there.  Unfortunately, my kid was a low level two so there was no early morning powder riding with Irish or with anyone else for that matter.

I met with Savannah at 8:45am and we were atop the gondola before 9:30am.  The snow soft and I figured it would be easier for her to practice her turns up there rather than at the boring Olympic Chair.  We took two runs down Ego Bowl before heading in for a hot chocolate.  After our break, Savannah wanted to go to the Olympic Chair so we downloaded to mid-station and managed to squeeze one run in before needing to download for noon to end the lesson.

Afterwards, I headed back up to the Alpine where the lift lines for Peak Chair and Harmony were over 15 minutes long.  I got in the singles line at Peak with intentions of going to Symphony to find Libby and Sean.  But the longer I stood in line staring at the Peak, the more I wanted to stay right where I was.  When I got off the chair, I found myself heading to Christmas Trees.  The snow was pretty chopped up on the way, but there were nice lines to be found in the trees.  Unfortunately, the run was too short and before I knew it, I was on Highway 86 heading to Red Chair.

I rode towards Harmony traversing right through Ratfink.  When I popped out of the trees and looked at the Harmony lift line, I decided to head back to Emerald Chair as I didn't feel like standing in the queue.  My last run was through Enchanted Forest and back to the village.

Day 82 | your momma so skinny that ....

Last day of Adventure Camp and although no one made it past level two, all the kids improved quite a bit.  I'm surprised considering I didn't think any of them would ever get off the Magic Carpet when they first showed up on Monday.

We hit the Super Carpet first thing in the morning.  The conditions were groomed but super soft so it was a bit easier for them to progress.  After lunch I took five of them to the Olympic Chair and left one girl behind on the Magic Carpet (she wasn't quite ready for the chair).  We managed to squeeze in two runs on the chair before needing to get back to the CLC for Adventure Camp ice cream and cookies.  The day went by super fast.  I was tipped well and I managed to some how secured a requested Private lesson with one of the girls for Friday.  SA-WEET!!!

Day 81 | who can't use a little hot chocolate in their life?

Day two of Adventure Camp and I picked up two girls who were with Bel yesterday so I now have a full class of six (five girls and one boy).  Another 20cm of snow fell overnight so the Magic Carpet area was pretty powdery.  The kids spent the morning working on edging and some started learning how to turn.  I took them over to the Super Carpet for half the morning and the entire afternoon.  Everyone is improving but not as quickly as kids usually do.  I don't mind as the kids are all really nice and the day goes by fast.

More epic snow up top --- super light and super deep.

Day 80 | freshies on Magic Carpet

Back to crazy busy at Whistler Kids .... over 500 kids this week including over 60 in Snowboard School. We received 29inches (74cm) of the most amazingly light snow in the last 72 hours!  The winds were gusting up to 100kph resulting in the closure of top half of the Village gondola all day and Red & Green chairs never opened until close to noon.

My fingers were crossed that I would get a high level class but I was assigned level two Adventure Campers.  Once everything was sorted out, I ended up with level ones.  Darren and I split eight kids.  A couple of them are "muppets" and won't get past the Magic Carpet this week but all the kids are super nice.

There was a ton of fresh powder at the CLC area.  We didn't even teach the kids to sideslip in the morning because there was too much snow.  They all strapped on their boards and just straight lined.  It snowed like crazy all day.  Surprisingly the time went by pretty fast.  We managed to get a few kids side slipping in the afternoon and of course, we built a huge jump.  Darren and I split up the kids by age for the next couple of days.  I'm hoping to get my kids turning by the end of tomorrow.  But with more snow in the forecast, that might be a tough task.  

Day 79 | It's a powder world!

Our snow base has finally reached the 300cm level!!!  About 100cm is forecasted to fall between Friday and Wednesday night (have I mentioned that already?).  Today was the third amazing powder day in a row!

Even though I only had my level three kids today, we managed to find a ton of fresh, deep powder on green and blue runs.  Ella was a no-show leaving me with just Caleb and Juliette.  They both did amazing in the powder.  Which was pretty surprising given that at some points, Caleb was going through snow that was almost up to his waist!!

We ran pretty hard in the morning without taking a break until it was lunchtime.  By 11am, Juliette was exhausted.  She had fallen quite a few times but for someone who is only about 4 feet tall, she did amazing well through the deep powder.  After lunch, most of the good stuff was tracked out.  We still managed to find a couple of good stashes ----

Once the kids were signed out, I headed up Blackcomb to meet up with Irish.  We took a couple laps through In the Spirit.  A great gladed run that nobody seems to go through.  It was also puking like crazy when we left around 4pm.  Hopefully tomorrow will be another amazing day.  Better yet, I hope I get a class that can turn so we can find the pow!!

Day 78 | buttery

For some reason, only two of my five Saturday Club kids showed up this week.  Fine by me as it was a powder day and the less kids you have trying to crawl out of powder, the more turns you get.  : )
Max and Mia were excited when we hit Green Acres and they saw how much powder was up there.  We weren't allowed to go through trees but there was plenty of fresh snow to find in the morning that we didn't need trees.

After lunch I decided to venture up to Peak Chair with them.  We rode down Whistler Bowl and out to Doom and Gloom where we met up with Devon's level five class.  I was amazed how well Max and Mia did in the powder and on the steep runs off Peak.  But of course, by the time we got out of all that powder and ran back to the CLC, the kids were pretty much toast.  We practiced some 180s off the CLC jump and then called it a day with the kids.

I met up with Irish at the Roundhouse once I finished work.  We managed to squeeze in a few tree runs before the chairs closed at 4pm.  

Day 77 | wedgies

Slow day at Whistler Kids Snowboard School today.  We had one level 4, one Lil Ripper, and 6 never-evers.  I wanted the work so I took the Lil Ripper.  It was another easy and chilled day on the Magic Carpet hanging with Devo and the never-evers.  After lunch, Devon took his class to the Super Carpet so I followed with the Ripper and my hula hoop.  She actually did much better on the longer run than she did on the short run at the CLC.  I will have to take the smaller kids over there more often.

The sun came out in the afternoon and the temps were close to 50°F!  It was nice to enjoy some warm weather.  The snow is coming though.  A couple feet is forecasted to fall between Thursday night and Tuesday afternoon.  

Day 76 | Jomi, Jomo, Yoshi, Pedro

Another working day and I was assigned the level fives but one Instructor called out sick, leaving us short one, so I ended up splitting the three Lil Rippers with Jomi.  I wasn't too upset about it since the Rippers were pretty easy and the day went by fast.

In the morning we made a full "boarder-cross" track off the Magic Carpet, complete with something to ollie, boards to slide, and a hula hoop to scoot through.  Jomi took the one girl who was turning after lunch and ran up the mountain.  I stayed behind with the two who weren't too interested in riding.

Nothing too interesting happened.  There was a high cloud cover all day and it was pretty chilly.  We haven't had any new snow since Monday.  The snow base is now at 272cm.

Day 75 | Handle Like Eggs

Back to work after an awesome day of shredding yesterday.  It was a beautiful blue bird day but it was cold in the morning.  Single digits in the Alpine.  I was told I'd be taking the level 5 Adventure Camp kid who moved up from level 4 with Bel.  Although I was tired and sore from yesterday, I was keen to take a high level and enjoy the sun and pow.

By 9:10am, my kid had yet to show up.  I headed up to the CLC for a cup of mocha and waited a bit longer.  I contemplated what I would do if I got the day off.  Pippa did Bordercross training and I knew Sean and Libby would be riding.  But I was so sore from tumbling down Ptarmigan yesterday and the only thing I wanted to do was go home.  So that's what I did after ripping down to the Village from the CLC on perfect corduroy.  Hopefully tomorrow my kid will show up.

Day 74 | Shredding Symphony

The forecast had been calling for lots of snow for today, so on Saturday I switched my Thursday off to take today off.  Irish and I planned on doing Fresh Tracks and we were hoping the snow would be nice so we could spend the day together.  Well, we never made it to Fresh Tracks but we did make it to Creekside  Gondi for 8:30am.

It was snowing all the way down to the Village and the snow report said there was 15cm of fresh snow in the last 12hrs.  When we reached Red Chair, we decided to take Expressway down to Garbanzo.  We hit about 6 inches of fresh all the way down.  The first lap we did was under the Garbanzo Chair.  Although there was a ton of nice powder under there, it was quite a difficult run to do right out of the box.  I was tired and I kept falling A LOT!  I was nervous I wasn't going to be able to last the day.  Second run we hit the Dave Murray to Tokem and then into In Deep.  That was nice.  Another lap from Garbo and we ran down the nicely groomed Ptarmigan.  Finally it looked like Harmony was open so we headed that way.

Symphony was also open so we dropped to the left of Sun Bowl and that was amazing.  Untouched and pretty deep all the way into Symphony.  We then dropped into the trees off the cat track and found no one in line at the chair.  Up we went.  I think we reached the top of the Symphony chair before 11am and we headed towards the Glissando and Staccato Glades.  To make a long story short, we ended up shredding those glades until close to 2pm.  The snow through there was amazing.  Light, deep, and mostly untouched the entire day.  Not to mention it snowed most of the time we were out so tracks kept filling in.  We finally had to force ourselves to leave because we knew we were too tired to continue.

We made our way to the Roundhouse where we took a much needed food break.  The top of Emerald Chair was sopped in with a snow cloud and it was snowing like crazy.  We headed back outside around 3:15 and took a couple runs through the Mom and Pop trees (which we awesome) and finally made our way back down to Creekside.

The snow was amazing and we had a great day.  It was so much fun.  Back to work tomorrow and hopefully the snow continues through the night and I get a high level class.  : )

Day 73 | parents vs. kids race

It was Race Weekend for Club where parents raced against the kids at the GMC Race Center on Blackcomb.  Our race time was 10:42am which meant I had to spend the morning on Blackcomb instead of Whistler.  It was raining in the village and super windy so I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of having to take chairlifts all AM.

Luckily for me, by the time we reached the top of Jersey Creme, Juliette had to use the restroom.  So into Rendezvous we went, which meant the kids got distracted by the Nintendo Wii games.  We spent an hour inside nice and toasty.  It was snowing like crazy outside and the winds were gusting.  No one really wanted to spend too much time outside.

Around 10:30am we made our way to the race course.  The only parents to show were Juliette's.  Her mom couldn't race as she has a hurt knee but her dad not only raced against Juliette, he then hiked back up the course and raced against Caleb (so awesome).  I raced against Ella.  The race was bit of a time waster as the parents were about 15 minutes late for our start time and it took JF a bit of time to hike back up for his second race.  By the time we finished we had to race back to the CLC for lunch where we ended up being at least a half hour late for.  But it was no big deal.

After lunch the kids spent some time on the Lil Rippers SBX then we took one last run from top to bottom.  The day went by pretty fast.  I was too wet and tired to take an extra lap with Irish so we ended going home early and calling it a day.

Day 72 | Happy Birthday Max

Only three out of my five Saturday Club kids showed up today:  Jaden, Max, and Ava.  I'm determined to get the kids to as close to level five as I can so each week I pick out new skills in level four and we work on those.  Since there was no powder this week, we worked on ollies, switch, and carving.

Our morning routine was the usual:  one run from Roundhouse down to CLC for hot chocolate and fruit.  It was super windy at the top of the mountain (gusting up to 80k in the Alpine) so the Village Gondi was running super slow.  It took us close to 45 minutes to reach the Roundhouse.

After our break we spent the next hour riding switch on the Magic Carpet.  The boys picked it up quite quickly while Ava was afraid to let go of my hands and try it on her own.  We also practiced some ollies in this area as well.

It's Parent/Child Race weekend so our race time was scheduled for 1:42pm at the GMC Race Center on Blackcomb.  The Peak 2 Peak wasn't running today due to the high winds so after lunch we ran to the Village then uploaded on the Blackcomb side.  We made it just in time for our race and met up with all the parents at the course.  Max came down with a sudden nose bleed as soon as we crossed into the race area.  Luckily Dad was there to help take care of that.  After the race, Ava and Max were signed out which left me with Jaden.  His dad and sister were skiing together so we took a couple of runs with them before heading back down to the village for sign outs.

Since the lifts are open until 4pm now, I ran back up Blackcomb to meet up with Irish and a couple of his buddies from Ireland.  Well, one is from Deep Cove and the other is here on business from Ireland.  We took a run through the small park and one last lap down from Rendezvous before calling it a day.

Freezing levels were high.  It was warm up top leaving the snow to feel soft like Spring.

Day 71 | Blackcomb Powdercats

My neighborhood friends, Libby & Sean invited me to go cat-boarding with them today.  They booked us with Blackcomb Powdercats which operates out of the Callahan Valley.  I have already been heli-boarding so I was curious how the cat would measure up to the helicopter, especially for half the price!!

We started our day around 6:30am with a quick breakfast at Moguls.  Powdercats met us at the Hilton lobby promptly at 8am and shuttled us to their base about 15min south of Whistler.  We geared up with avalanche receivers, loaded our snow equipment onto the cat, and headed up to the terrain.  The cat held 14 people.  There were 12 in our group and two guides.  We took our first "warm-up" run around 10am where they measured the snow at 50cm / 20inches.

The snow was deep and soft and the terrain varied from open bowls to old growth tree runs.  Turn after turn after turn the light, blower pow was flowing around our bodies. Every run seemed to get better each time we got out of the cat and started skiing.  We managed to squeeze in 7 runs before the day was done.  Unfortunately, there was a slight mechanical problem with the cat during the afternoon, otherwise, we could have easily taken 8 runs.  Our guides, Christian and Vic were great.  It was an expensive afternoon, but I felt it was a great value for the money. No lift lines, private runs, and deep powder.  If you're ever looking for a fun and different way to enjoy the snow, Blackcomb Powdercats is highly recommended.

If you're curious as to how amazing the day was, check out the video.