Day 7 | 31cm overnight

I was originally scheduled to have the day off today.  I was excited as the forecast called for lots of snow to fall during the night.  Around 8pm last night, I got the call and was asked if I wanted to work Adult Groups.  I hesitated knowing how good the riding would be today but reluctantly agreed to work.  Needless to say my decision was even more upsetting when I woke in the morning to find a foot of fresh new snow with snow continuing to fall all day.

Anyhow, I sucked it up, or should I say: I dried my tears and then got my butt to work.  I was handed a level one group with only three people.  A WB employee and a married couple from Australia on their honeymoon.  We spent the day on the Super Carpet.  Working in Adults is very much different than working with kids.  It has it's pluses and minuses.  The biggest minus being that I had to buy my own lunch.  Lunch is provided with Whistler Kids.

I'm scheduled for Adults again tomorrow.  There haven't been too many kids signed up for lessons this week.  Not sure why.  I'm guaranteed to work tomorrow since my honeymoon couple is returning.  Too bad it wasn't a Private lesson with request.  That's how you make the big bucks!


** 137cm | 4.5ft base **

Day 6 | Kramey Jamer

We had plenty of staff lined up for the 23 snowboarders booked in for lessons.  It has snowed over 24cm (9 inches) again last night .... for the second night in a row.  I was stoked to find out I'd be teaching the level three class because that meant I could finally enjoy some fresh powder.

Jamey Kramer was teaching one level four girl so we decided to make it a day together since I only had two kids in the lower level.  We headed to the gondola and got to the Roundhouse by 10am.  I let Jamey lead the way with the kids while I enjoyed some free riding behind them.  I hit as much powder on the sides of the runs as I could.  It was awesome.  Everything was tracked out after a couple runs but the soft packed conditions were super fun to play on.

The weather was a mixed bag of everything.  Sneak peaks of the sun in the morning.  Then a few low clouds came in fogging things up for a couple of runs.  After lunch the sun was shining like crazy.  Since it's that time of year when it gets dark super early, the sun hides behind the Peak around 1:30 making Whistler super cold from being in the shade.  But Blackcomb is still sunny for most of the day.  We chased the sun by taking the Peak to Peak over to Blackcomb and finished up our day on that side.  The kids were exhausted by 2:30pm.  Job well done!

 

Day 5 | nightmare in a box

Another busy day at Whistler Kids with 25 snowboarders.  I shared a class of nine level two's with Pip Bennett.  She normally works Schools but is filling in at the Village until the School Program opens.  Over a foot of snow fell overnight making conditions at the Magic Carpet very soft but fun to learn on.  We spent the morning teaching the kids how to S-turn.

After lunch we headed to the Olympic Chair where we had the longest chair ride of our lives!  For some reason the lifties had the chair running at 1mph.  I swear I could have walked up the bunny hill faster.  One of the kids was afraid of heights and when he got off the chair he said the experience was a "nightmare in a box" .... He was terrified.  LOL  I have a feeling he was embellishing a bit.  : )

It turns out not everyone was 100% on their zig zags and some of them were a little wild/out of control.  Pip walked the length of the run helping the stragglers to get up to snuff.  Needless to say the kids had a blast.  We only had time for one run on Olympic Chair so we headed back to the CLC for hot chocolate and then we had free ride time on the Magic Carpet for the rest of the afternoon.

Day 4 | lil rippers

Whistler Kids is starting a new snowboard program this year called: Lil Rippers.  Normally you have to be at least 7 years old to take a snowboard lesson.  Now, with the new program, 4-6 year olds can take a lesson.  It's not an easy to program to start because it's difficult to teach kids at this age.  First, they don't have the attention span to concentrate on the lesson you're teaching.  Second, some say they don't have the muscle development needed at that age for snowboarding.

Today was the first day of work and we had 18 snowboarders taking lessons.  Three of those 18 were in the Lil Rippers program and I was the golden instructor given the class.  Well, I wasn't really given the class, I was the one who stepped up to babysit when no one else wanted to.  And that's exactly what it was:  babysitting.  Well, not really, but kind of.

My class consisted of a really cool six year old girl, a very independent four year old boy, and a very whiny, cranky, crying, four year old girl (who was still in diapers by the way!).  The boy was awesome!  He had been snowboarding since last Christmas and could rip down the hill no problem.  The six year old girl was pretty good too with great balance on the snow.  But the other girl wanted nothing to do with snowboarding and basically stood around crying until I kidnapped a Mini's ski instructor to help me.  Luckily she took the girl for the whole day.  Once I didn't have her to worry about, it was pretty fun hanging around with the other two.  Most of the riders signed up for today were level ones so it really wasn't any different than teaching a level one class.  The perk is that the smaller kids need more breaks!  And we get to play on the new jungle gym!!  No too shabby!

Day 3 | day before work

I met up with Izayah around 10:30am.  I hoped to spend the afternoon with him since the temperatures were suppose to warm up.  We strapped on at the Roundhouse and although the thermostat still read "COLD", after yesterday, it felt like a heatwave.

We took about four laps down Ego Bowl.  Doesn't sound like much but when you're only ten years old and learning how to turn, it was pretty exhausting.  We stopped for lunch halfway through the afternoon.  Izayah was able to conquer the ever difficult S-turn by setting a new personal record of 18 turns in a row with his best run being run #3.  He successfully worked his way up to Level 3.  We finished riding about 2:30pm.

The weather was cold but the sun was shining for most of the day with low level clouds.  The runs are starting to get a bit crowded so I'm assuming we should be pretty busy tomorrow (Thanksgiving).  Izayah asked his uncle if he could come to Ski School tomorrow so I should be seeing him first thing in the morning.

Day 2 | Deep Freeze

The weather took a turn for the worse over the weekend.  The average temps in the Alpine have been around -20°C (single digits in Fahrenheit) and colder than that with the 50kph wind chills.  Needless to say, I haven't been up since Friday.  That's too damn cold for me!!

My little friend from Hawaii is here for the week and I offered to take him up the mountain since no one in his family skis or rides.  The winds have died down today and the sun was shining, so even though the temperatures were still very frigid, it was bearable if you dressed correctly.

Izayah and I hit the village gondola around noon.  We strapped on our boards and headed down Ego Bowl.  Izayah is a great and speedy zig zagger who is working on his S-turns.  I got him doing a couple turns in a row on the flat parts but it was too cold to really work at them.  We managed to get in two runs before I called hot chocolate time and called it a day.

I've had Izayah in my class since he was 7 years old and he had never been on a snowboard before.  He comes back year and year for Thanksgiving, usually bearing great Hawaiian gifts for me like chocolate covered macadamia nuts.  Now he's ten years old and growing like a weed.  Here he is over the last couple of years!

Day 1 | Opening Day 10/11

My alarm went off at 6am and, for the first time, I actually got out of bed and stood in line hoping to get one or two fresh tracks before the rest of the town.  Creekside Gondola was running and the queue wasn't yet out the gates when I arrived at 7:15am.  Actually my friend Ari was standing in line since 6:45am so I made my way to where he was standing.  ; )

The hour wait couldn't come quickly enough as the cold temps had started taking their toll on my feet and hands.  We reached the gondola well before 8:30am and we made our way up to the top of Red Chair.  The powder looked pretty nice down the west side of the mountain so we took our first run under Red Chair and found lots of powder and made fresh lines to the bottom of Franz.  It's early season so you had to be careful of stumps and rocks but for the most part, it was just snow all the way.  The rest of the cat track back to Red Chair was hard packed and easily manageable.  

Second run we decided to head toward Rat Fink.  Lots of snow through those trees.  Decided to head into Marmot, only to find no one had tracked through there yet.  Because it was so flat, we had to make way by foot to the Peak to Peak tower where we could finally strap back in and head out towards Green Acres.   I was no longer freezing ... after the trudge through knee deep fresh snow, I was sweating.   Lots of tree tops sticking out in the Green Acres area.  And of course, once we got back to Emerald Chair, the queue for that was out of the gates.  Welcome to opening day!

Once we got to the top of Emerald Chair, Ari suggested we hike the "Harmony Gold Rush".  Since Harmony chair was not running, many people hike up Pika's Traverse to hit the "white gold" in Harmony.  The hike wasn't that bad but it did tire me out, and quickly.  We dropped about a half km up the traverse.  Not quite as high as many others were hiking but high enough to get some good powder turns in.  

The queue at Emerald Chair moved fairly quickly for the amount of people standing there.  By the fourth run, we were getting pretty tired and hungry so we stayed on a groomer and hit some jibs.  Ego Bowl to Enchanted Forest.  Again, lots of powder but still had the occasional rock/tree that you had to look out for.  Once we got back to the chair, Ari suggested we head down to mid-station and take the gondi back up.  Sounded like a good idea but once we got into it, we realized we should have stayed up higher.  All the snowguns were blowing and the coverage wasn't that deep.  Not to mention it was pretty icy.  Once we hit the flat part around Olympic Chair, we started running out of snow.  I could see full patches of grass on some of the run.  But that wasn't as bad as the logs you had to cross that covered up the many creeks and streams that run down and across Whistler Mountain.  There was definitely way more snow last year!

Time for lunch and I was pretty cold and tired.  After a long break I thought I had a few more runs in me but after jumping into Ego Bowl, I realized my legs were toast.  We finally made our way back to Creekside where I was back in my truck by 2pm.  There you have it.  Opening Day 2010/2011.  We need more snow but damn! .....  it was awesome just the same.  

** 94cm/37in snowbase **

 

Early Opening Announced 2010/2011

Whistler Blackcomb has announced another early opening - Friday November 19.  Originally scheduled for Thursday, November 25th, the six day early opening is sure to get skiers and riders excited.  Now only one question remains:  what time do I start standing in the massive queue???