Day 30 - over thirty thousand peeps!!

What do you get when you add 43cm of snow yesterday, a holiday week, and blue bird conditions today?  You get over 30,000 skiers and riders visiting Whistler Blackcomb.  A record setting day.  The lift lines were packed!!!

It was the last day for Adventure Camp and I was determined to head up to Harmony today.  We took a couple laps in the Family Zone to start the day, had our morning break, then headed for Harmony.  As you can see from the top photo, everyone else had the same idea. ~(the bottom photo is 7th Heaven Chair)~  The great thing about working on such busy days is that Whistler Kids has it's own lift line.  And while most of the Adults and Private guys had a queue in their line, we had no queue in our line.  When we got to Harmony, we got right on the chair.  It was awesome. 

We were running close to lunchtime so I figured the quickest way out would be to traverse over towards the Tbars and drop down towards Peak Chair.  Plenty of fresh lines were still to be had there.  The snow was a bit hard from being wind blown but just a little bit.  Two out of the five boys made it out without getting stuck, one kid cried cause he was stuck, and two kids had a couple of bails with some tears.  All in all they all made it out and loved it in the end. 

Day 29 - one of the best days of work ever!

13cm of new snow fell overnight -- but then another 43cm of new snow fell through out the day!!!  Our snow base is now 220cm.  The snow that fell was light and fluffy all the way to the Village.  We had yet to have some "wet/heavy" snow this season.

My Adventure Camp are ripping up the powder and it's been so fun shredding with them.  We loaded the gondola quite early this morning and spent most of the day lapping the terrain park on Whistler.  I promised them yesterday we would ride it today and since most people don't go in the park on a powder day, there was plenty of fresh to be found all day long.  It was awesome and it was deep.  We also found amazing powder in the Olympic Chair area.  The kids were loving it and so was I!!  Today was one of the best days in a very very long time.  And I was lucky enough to have kids who could snowboard well and got paid to shred the gnar the entire day.  : )

Day 28 - It's Salomon not Salmon

There's a break in the storms today and there was only 4cm of snow overnight.  One of the kids showed up late this morning so we ended up waiting in the gondola line for an extra half hour.  We did a couple laps on Whistler, a lap on Blackcomb,  a few more on Whistler and that was the day in snowboard lessons.

On a different note, it's BUSY!!!!  We had 920 kids in WKids including Ride Tribe and that was just in the Village.  Whistler anticipated about 27,000 visitors today and it seemed like all of them showed up today.  Tomorrow should be just as busy because not only is it a holiday week, but 20 inches of snow is forecasted for the next 24hrs. 

Day 27 - 20cm overnight and morning session

We had about eight inches of snow overnight and Kevin wanted to get to Base II early so I decided to sign up for morning session.  After waiting for the Fresh Tracks crowd to upload, about 50 Instructors loaded onto the gondola.  I only had time for one run and it was the fastest run I've ever had in my life (Whiskey Jack, Dave Murray, Bear Paw, Crabapple) -- I chased ten twenty something year old boys from top to bottom.  Ugh.  I didn't even have time to enjoy the fresh tracks I was making.

Once I got my Adventure Camp team together, I was able to enjoy a much slower paced day.  We had an amazing day hitting all my "hidden" blue zones where powder could be found.  The boys loved all the snow and we spent the day looking for side hits.  In the afternoon we went over to Blackcomb because the Village gondola didn't seem to be running after lunch.  It was a really awesome day especially considering I got paid to have fun on the snow and hang out with some cool kids.

snow base 188cm

Day 26 - The Destroyers

Another week of Adventure Camp and I have five boys who are all in level four.  They've already named themselves "The Destroyers" so that gives you some kind of idea of what my week will be like.  They're all quite fast, messy riders with stance, but definitely fast.  They're also highly energetic boys all between the ages of 8 and 11.

Not much snow overnight but lots of snow fell most of the day and will hopefully fall all through the night.  After lunch, the soft groomers were full of nice powder.  We even took a lap through Marmot Trees, my first time this season.  At 3pm it was puking in the Village and snowed all the way to Squamish.  I'm really looking forward to tomorrow.

Day 25 - (interesting) Merry Christmas

Our Christmas tradition is Fresh Tracks breakfast on top of Whistler Mountain on Christmas morning.  No new snow overnight and we didn't think that many people would be interested in Fresh Tracks so we showed up to the Village around 6:50am only to find about 200 other people had the same idea as we did.  By that time, the queue had gone past the Salomon store and because they only allow about 100 people up for breakfast, we knew we weren't going to make it into that 100.  Instead we got back into the car and parked at Creekside where we enjoyed a semi-okay brekky at Dusty's Backside.

It was sunny and cold today.  We loaded into the Creekside gondi around 9:15am and got stuck about a third of the way up Red Chair for at least 20 minutes.  When the chair doesn't move for that long, you know there's a serious problem.  Sure enough, once we reached the top, we were greeted with a $10 WB voucher and informed that all the power on Whistler had gone out.  All the chairs were running on auxiliary power.  Because it was so cold, we immediately went into the Roundhouse to warm up.  Power, obviously, was out in there too.

We decided to take a run down to Emerald Chair.  Surprisingly, at this time the lift lines weren't crowded but the chair did keep stopping so we decided to just head home and open Christmas gifts.  It wasn't much more of a groomer day anyhow.  Although, full Peak to Creek was the Run of the Day and we were hoping to do that, however I don't think they got the Peak Chair running for the remainder of the day.

Day 24 - last day for Team Hyper

I think I just worked six days in a row.  UGH!  Final day for my Adventure Camp boys and one was picked up at noon so that made for a chill afternoon.  Olympic Chair area is still soft packed but getting a bit harder.  Whiskey Jack was nicely groomed and soft packed.  Blackcomb from Excaliber and Wizard Chair down was mostly soft with random icy spots.  Irish said 7th Heaven was nice but not any fresh snow obviously laying around.  Crowds were low today but traffic was crazy on the highway.  No new snow overnight with sunny cold conditions coming into the weekend. 

Day 23 - Stay BadAss

No new snow overnight but it snowed quite heavily throughout the morning.  The two boys in my AC class are starting to have a significant split between them.  One has moved up to level four and one is still a timid level three.  We spent the morning on Whistler where the snow was soft packed on the groomers.  Because it's been so windy, you could find good stashes of wind blown snow on the sides of the runs.  In the afternoon, one of them wanted to go to Blackcomb, where the snow below the restaurant level was super soft packed and fun to play around in.  It was very windy at the the top of Jersey Cream chair so all the snow off the top of the mountain had blown somewhere else.  Also, surprisingly, there were no lift lines on Blackcomb.

Day 22 - Hot dogs in a bowl

No new snow overnight.  It's Winter Soltice: the first day of Winter.  The morning weather was nice, cloudy with a few sunny breaks.  We started the day off with a warm up run off of Garbanzo Chair.  In the afternoon we took a couple of laps down Ego Bowl.  Finished the day with ice cream Apres.
Snow is still soft packed but runs are very crowded with the holiday traffic.  

Day 21 - high winds shut gondola

When I checked the Ops phone line this morning, it warned of high winds gusting over 100kph and they needed to cancel Fresh Tracks.  Patrol took a while to clear the Ego Bowl area, making it safe from avalanches.  The top half of the Village gondola was closed all day.

Once my two AC kids arrived, we headed up the gondola and took a lap down Olympic Chair.  Conditions were soft packed and I found some nice powder on the sides of the run.  We spent the morning on the lower part of the mountain.  After lunch we ventured up Garbanzo Chair.  The winds had died down and the chair ride was more pleasant than I had anticipated.  Ran down Lower Whiskey Jack and took another lap on Olympic Chair before going off the CLC jump/box and then calling it a day.

Day 20 - Adventure Camp xmas holidays

28cm of amazing snow fell overnight bringing the snow base to 180cm!!  Along with the snow came all the tourists here for the holidays.  We are running Adventure Camp with snowboard lessons and I was assigned to level threes.  It's the perfect level as I only have two kids.

Once we finally got things sorted in the morning, we rocked over to the Olympic Chair for our first run.  There was a fresh line of snow down the right side that lasted for about 15 turns.  Yay for me!  After lunch we took the season's first run down to the Village.  Uploaded all the way to the Roundhouse where we found soft packed conditions but very windy.... gusting up to 80kph.  Once we reached the CLC, the kids were completely exhausted and we were out of time for the day.

Day 19 - inside of a vertebrae

The Artic freeze is coming to an end and we are starting to get some snow.  There was 1cm of new snow overnight and it snowed all day (lightly).  10 inches is forecasted to fall tonight so tomorrow should have some amazing conditions.

Holiday crowds are starting to show up.  We had close to 50 snowboarders in lessons including Lil Rippers.  I was assigned to level fours, had two of them, and spent the morning team teaching with the level five coach and his three kids.  Blue and black runs were soft packed and quite fun to slide around on.  We had a good group of kids who were keen to learn.

After lunch, we realized the five kids could all go together with one Instructor so I gave them to the level five guy and I took two brothers who were in level one and already turning their first day on a board.  We went over to Olympic Chair/Snowboard Carpet area where they practiced turning and finished their day as level threes.

Day 18 - Victoria Secret

No new snow.  Still blue skies ... still cold as FCK!!  (excuse my language but damn!)  Assigned to level one's today and I had a Shadow.  We had five boys in our class, a mixture of never-evers and a couple who had been in lessons yesterday.  It was a good group as they all had some mad skills and made it to level two by the afternoon.  We were teaching them how to do J-turns after lunch.  It was a fun day at work despite the freezing temperatures.

Day 17 - Finally made it to Blackcomb

Another cold one:  -14°C in the Village first thing in the morning.  No new snow overnight and awesome sun all day.  A bit of an inversion as it was slightly warmer at higher elevations than it was in the Village.  I was assigned to Level 4's and only had two boys.  We managed to get in a couple of runs before lunch.  Most of the groomer runs on Whistler were still soft packed.  After lunch we ran with Bea and the Level 5's over on Blackcomb.  Super soft snow on Cruzer but Wishbone was pretty icy.  So was Zig Zag and the run just above Solar Coaster.  Typical Blackcomb hard packed conditions on popular runs.  I hear there is still a lot of nice soft fresh snow to be found in the Alpine if you know where to look. 

Day 16 - Ride Tribe

I hadn't checked my schedule properly so when my name wasn't called for a class with Whistler Kids, I started to panic.  I quickly realized I was scheduled for Ride Tribe (teenagers) and my good mood was suddenly killed.  I am not a big fan of teaching Ride Tribe.  There are a few reasons why and I won't bore you with the details.  Most importantly, Ride Tribe starts a half hour later that WKids and had I properly checked my schedule, I could have enjoyed an extra half hour in a warm snuggley bed.

I was assigned to level twos and I had three boys, two from Australia and one from Singapore.  All of them were never-evers yesterday.  It was -12°C at 9am this morning and I did everything in my power to stay warm today including hand warmers, feet warmers, extra layers, and sneaking indoors to warm up whenever possible.  We spent the day on the Super Carpet where I was able to teach them and walk up and down the carpet for the day.  This also helped keep me warm.  The day went by pretty fast and all the boys improved.  Plus the lunch at the Roundhouse was quite tasty!!

Day 15 - Dance Party!

Back to work after five days off.    Tourists are starting to trickle in for the holidays.  We had 16 big kids and 6 little kids today.  I was assigned Lil Rippers and I also had a "shadow" (Instructor in training).  It was a cold one today ... about 10 degrees Fahrenheit.  You walk around a lot with Lil Rippers and take a lot of breaks so the temps didn't bother me too much today.

10cm of fresh snow overnight.  Blue bird skies.  Saw some pictures of amazing fresh tracks from today.  The snow is nice and light with these Artic temps that have been around for over a week.  Snow base is back up to 176cm. 

Day 14 - Squarehouse, Roundhouse whatever

9cm of fresh snow fell overnight on Whistler Blackcomb.  We talked about heading to Mt. Baker as they are getting hammered with snow during this storm as well, but I didn't want to risk taking my little sports car in the weather.  So we wandered up to Whistler around 9am.

Squamish also received about 9cm of snow overnight, so the Sea to Sky was quite snowy for the drive up.  Once we hit the canyon, the snow turned to ice and we witnessed a two car accident just south of Brandywine Falls.  We spent over an hour tending to a male driver who flipped his vehicle across the highway while we waited for the EMERGENCY services to arrive.  I think we got to the Village around 11am.

We met up with Kevin's friend, Deklan from Vancouver and lapped the Garbanzo Chair via Ptarmigan.  The run was officially closed but there at least a foot of nice snow on the trail.  In the end we managed to squeeze in about four or five runs before calling it.  It was nice just to get out before the Christmas crowd shows up next week.

Day 13 - Not really a day

Cold temperatures are continuing and I can't handle it.  With only six kids in lessons, I pulled my "seniority card" and offered to go home.  Spent my mandatory two hours at the CLC making sure there wasn't a split and took a lap down the Covered Carpet.  I would have ridden out but the ride-out is still closed even though they've been blowing snow for a couple of days.  No new snow overnight.

Day 12 - Powder to the Skiers

Temperatures today:  -17°C (1°F) at Roundhouse
-8°C (18°F) at Village
Cold temps to continue through Friday.  No new snow overnight.

We had seven riders in lessons with four Rippers and three big kids.  I grabbed the first kid who came into the corral, a level two.  I didn't want to deal with Rippers again and I definitely didn't want to take the level four that is here all week.  Needless to say it was a long cold day.  Can't wait for another one tomorrow.  

Day 11 - Lil Rippers and a shadow

I bundled up today as temps are still falling but we haven't reached the super cold point yet.  I have no problem taking low levels when there isn't any new snow and when it's really cold outside.  I was assigned to Lil Rippers but also given a shadow.  A shadow is a first year Instructor who has to learn the ropes while hanging out with an old Instructor like myself.  It didn't sound like it was going to be a very difficult day giving we only had four Rippers signed in on reservations, but once we got them to the CLC and started teaching them about their bindings, I got the phone call that three more had just signed up and they were on their way up.

Most of the kids were keen to snowboard and most of them could do their own bindings up and stand up on their own.  But we did have a few who needed constant hands on attention.  They're the ones who exhaust you by the end of the day. 

No new snow fell overnight but Snow-Forecast is calling for 20inches Thursday night and Friday is my day off!

Day 10 - sunny and getting cold

Temperatures are starting to hit arctic cold starting today and continuing through Wednesday.  The nice thing about the cold is that it usually brings the sun and it was sunny today.  Twenty five kids in snowboard lessons and I was assigned level threes.  I only had two and both of them were in lessons yesterday so there was no need to "test" them before heading to the top of the mountain. 

Our first run was quite cold.  We ran from top to midstation and my feet were freezing by the time we got to the CLC.  It didn't take too long for the sun to warm things up a bit.  It was a day of ambling green runs, getting mileage for the kids as they built their confidence and balance up on the boards.

Snow base is 162cm with 2cm overnight.  Conditions are still soft packed but busier runs will be getting hard packed soon if we don't get some snow.

Day 9 - one lap with Kalin

We decided last night that we would ride today and meet up with Kalin.  We forgot to check the weather conditions when we woke up.  We headed up early in order to finish early.  The plan was to ride on Blackcomb and once we hit traffic before Creekside, we thought we would park at Creekside and take the Peak 2 Peak over and meet Kalin.

When we loaded on Red Chair we quickly realized the winds were gusting today (50-90kph) and Peak 2 Peak was on standby with no Alpine lifts open either.  We took a couple laps down the gondola line and headed in for coffee.  Met Kalin in the Roundhouse and chit chatted for a couple hours as the wind howled outside.  Quick lap back to Red Chair so we could download the Creekside Gondola.

Day 8 - a few laps with Bel

With lessons being so slow in Snowboard School, I requested today off so I could shred some laps with Bel.  We started off on Peak Chair but headed towards Harmony as the drop into West Bowl seemed quite brutal and the runs off the backside of Peak were closed.  Dropped down towards Symphony and found some nice snow at the bottom of Sun Bowl.  Back up Harmony and we dropped into Sun Bowl.  The snow was kind of chunky.  Nothing horrible but nothing epic.  Finally one last run off the TBars down to Red Chair and then we headed in for coffee and chit chat.  It was good to get out and not have to lap green runs for a change.