Day 112 - The Unit

Ahhhh … Friday!  Last day of Adventure Camp and possibly last day of work.  That would mean it may possibly be my last "ride" of the season, however I am scheduled to work on Monday.
The morning started out with clouds and wind.  It was cold on the Super Carpet, where we spent close to an hour before the kids got tired.  Our plan was to take all three of them to the Village in the afternoon but I realized that the weakest one wasn't going to make it all that way so I knew I would be staying back on the Magic Carpet with him.

The snow in the morning was hard packed and we were interested to see how the boys would do in those conditions.  They did about the same as in the slush.  In the afternoon, the sun came out for most of the time and the snow softened up to it's usual slushy-ness.  Bel took Hamish and Lucas to the Village where they started turning a bit better.  I stayed behind with Noah, who really had no interest in snowboarding all week.  But he was happy to be in Snow School and hanging around with us.  Darren had his level threes jumping a gap and over kids.  Quite amusing.  We painted the boys faces again to kill some time in the late afternoon.  At the end of the day, the parents thanked us for a great week and showed their appreciation by tipping nicely.  It was a decent last week to the end of the season.

Day 111 - Peak 2 Peak Adventure

As I figured, the boys were exhausted today after spending a couple hours at Bounce last night.  Once again, we started the morning on the Super Carpet trying to get them turning.  They can definitely "do it sometimes".  But fatigue was definitely playing a role in their riding today.  Bel and I decided to take them on an "adventure"…  so after lunch we took the Village Gondola to the Roundhouse then loaded on the Peak 2 Peak gondola.  Once over at Blackcomb, they spent about a half hour playing Nintendo Wii at Rendezvous.  We then rode the Peak to Peak back over to Whistler and downloaded back to the CLC.  We didn't do much riding today so we are thinking tomorrow we might venture and take them to the Village!!  

Day 110 - snow sausage

Half way through the week of Adventure Camp and our Lil Rippers are getting tired.  The snow at mid-station is granular slush and it's difficult to walk through, let alone try and snowboard over.  We started the day on the Super Carpet and the boys lasted about an hour.  After lunch, they last another hour.  The rest of the day was spent playing games and colouring.  In the evening, Bel took Hamish and Luke to Bounce!  I'm sure the boys will be exhausted tomorrow.

The weather for the last week of work has been crappy!  Rainy, foggy, windy and cold!  We are all hoping the sun comes out eventually so we can end our work season with a warm Spring day.

Day 109 - lots of mums and dads

Another successful day with Lil Rippers in Adventure Camp.  One was signed out at lunch because he was feeling a bit tired.  It was a typical day with practice on the Magic Carpet, coloring, and flying paper airplanes.  After lunch, Bel and I decided to take the three to the Super Carpet and they all did great over there.  We are hoping to get them all turning by the end of the week!

Weather today was crap!  Cloudy, windy, and cold - even at mid-station.  It snowed for a bit around noon.  After that, the sun came out for a brief moment and then it felt warm.  But most of the day was in clouds, and we all froze because we dressed like we should have dressed yesterday when it was sunny and hot.

Day 108 - why does this keep happening to me????

Whistler Kids is running snowboard Adventure Camp this week and I got a class!  yay!  It's a Lil Ripper class, but it's a class (guaranteed work all week) so I'm not complaining.  Bel and I are splitting three AC'ers and one Destination.

Weather today was amazing!  Sunny and warm.  Perfect day for hanging on the Magic Carpet.  All the munchkins were decent and able to side slip on their heel edge by the end of the day.  No muppets so that is good.  They are all pretty chilled out so it's going to be a relaxing week.

Day 107 - never reached 300cm base

After three days off, I returned to Snow School with hopes of getting a class.  It's the final week of the Whistler Kids 13/14 season and it's kind of busy but not crazy busy.  About 30 kids were signed into snowboarding and half of them showed up after 9am.  I snagged a level two class with only two kids while Dan Beaver took another level two class with five kids.

I spent the morning on the Magic Carpet getting my two boys reacquainted with snowboarding.  They needed a couple laps on heels then toes.  They were kind of turning so I knew I wasn't going to spend the entire day at the CLC but I was waiting for the snow to soften up before moving away from the bunny slope.  Around 11am, one boy fell and possibly broke his wrist.  He left with Patrol and that left me with one kid right before lunch.

I decided to see if my one leftover kid would fit with Dan Beaver's level two class after lunch.  We all headed over to the Olympic Chair and after two laps, my kid easily fit in with Dan's class ... so I left around 1pm.  I quickly changed and ran home to ride my bike.  : )

Day 106 - telephone game

I had five level ones today.   None of them had ever snowboarded before but they all knew how to ski. We had a sunny start to the day but the conditions were hard packed.  By the time we got up the busy gondola, dealt with a sudden bloody nose, had our photo taken, and learned how to skate … the icy carpet area had started to warm up.

All of my kids were pretty good.  They didn't need much help on the toe edge and did even better when they turned around and worked on their heel edge.  To work on "falling leaf", I set up cones all over and played "minecraft" on snowboards.  Towards the end of the day we made a jump but the kids preferred the Minecraft game.  Go figure.

Day 105 - guess the weather

Another day assigned to Ride Tribe and I knew I would get a class as most of the kids from yesterday were returning today.  I was given level fours and I knew the four kids from Monday.  It was Blackcomb day and the strangest thing about today was the weather.  In a two hour time spread, we ran into dense fog, wind, sun, ice, hail, light fog, blizzard, and a rainbow!

My knowledge of the terrain on Blackcomb isn't all that great so after lunch I had no idea where we should go aside from lapping the Terrain Garden.  Luckily, Jordan followed us out of Rendezvous with his level threes and I decided to "hang" with him for the afternoon.  His plan was to head to 7th Heaven and that was the best plan of the day …. mostly because it was sunny out there and it felt like a Spring day!  We did about three laps before getting bored, so we dropped over the glacier side and headed out to the Crystal Zone where the weather was completely different … it was hailing.  Weird.  Anyway, we did a couple laps through Crystal before our time was up and we headed down to the Village where the sun was shining.  Nice!

Day 104 - snow or cement??

It was a Ride Tribe day and I was assigned level threes.  It is quite busy with kids' lessons this week.  I don't know why it's so busy. Destination is running an Adventure Camp and they only do that when it's busy.

I signed in 7 level threes while Emma signed in 3 level fours.  We headed up together (with Jordan) to try and sort the ten kids into two different groups.  Miraculously the split worked out perfectly with both of us taking five kids.  My five were the slower group and they needed some work on turning.  We spent most of the morning doing exercises that would help with their body position on the board.

After lunch, we did a few more fun things:  black diamond runs, trees, terrain park, natural hits and drops.  My group was fun and engaging.  I enjoyed my day with them.
Conditions were horrible.  Freezing level was well over 2200 and the snow was heavy, wet and very very sticky.  It felt like cement and slowed your board almost to a stop.  We made the most of it I guess.

Day 103 - what's up with the banana??

Sunday has been my favorite day since January.  I ride with Oak & Amalia, the coolest couple of kids who can really shred the pow.  It's an easy day, since I only have two kids, and the two of them are best friends … so there were times they didn't even know I was around because they were totally consumed in each other.  Today was my last Sunday with these two cool cats.  It was happy yet sad at the same time.  Happy to see how far their riding progressed throughout the season (especially Oak) and sad, well, sad because I will miss their cute smiling faces.

It was cloudy in Village when we started our day yet surprisingly sunny up top.  It had snowed 4cm and conditioned were soft packed and a bit powdery first thing in the morning.  We ran down the gondola line, into Enchanted Forest and through the School Yard.  We headed to Marmot trees before temps warmed up and ruined the snow.  We also took a lap through the Park.  By the time we finished all that, it was time for lunch.

After lunch, Amalia's dad wanted to ride with us so we followed him and Jonnie's team for a couple of laps through the Park.  My two kids got tired of them quickly and asked if we could ride alone.  I said sure and we hit the Park again.  Amalia crashed hard on a jump and was pretty shook up.  She rallied on and continued riding but I could see she was getting tired quickly.  I bought them a belgian waffle and we took a small break.  The day ended at Showcase Snowboards with stickers and saying our goodbyes.  Time flies and another season of Club has officially ended.  It was another great four months with lots of kids, lots of good riding, and lots of smiles.

Day 102 - WKids Snowboard Club


I've been out of town for four days so I have no idea what the weather has been or what the snow conditions have been.  It's the last weekend for Club.  My how time flies.  It feels like just yesterday, Billy, Jon, and I were trying to figure out how to teach 15 Lil Rippers!

We didn't do much snowboarding today.  We got our photos taken professionally by Coast Mountain Photo.  We took a lap to the Village.  After lunch, Gunner arranged for all the kids in Snowboard Club to do a lap down Ego Bowl so we participated in that.  I think we had over 50 kids in their purple jerseys take over the run!  It was awesome.  We had ice cream and then handed out certificates and stickers at Showcase Snowboards at the end of the day.