Day 43 | lower gondola only

A bearing blew in the gear box at G4- basically leaving the upper line of the gondola useless for at least a week.  This happened yesterday morning.  Luckily they were able to run the lower line, still allowing access to the Olympic area and most importantly, the Children's Learning Center.

We only had about 18 snowboarders today and I was assigned the level four class.  I was only expecting to have one or two kids in my class but when I was given my class card, I had seven!  The temperatures were still bitterly cold so we only got in two runs in the morning before having to warm up our feet and hands and faces at the CLC.  The timing on that made for an extra long lunch but I wasn't complaining.

With the gondola being down, we had to upload via the Garbanzo Chair.  I never realized how much bonding you do with your kids when you're riding the gondola.  When you ride the chairs, you don't really get a chance to talk to them much.  My class was really well behaved and only had to be told once to come into the group in a straight line and not across the hill.  I can't say that any one kid was overly obnoxiously or talkative.  In fact they were all quite quiet and I had a hard time knowing if they had fun today.  They didn't say much and didn't act excited.  We managed to get in all kinds of terrain:  blues, trees, Freight Train, blacks, powder, blacks with moguls, etc. etc.  These kids were pretty fast and even though there were a lot of them, they were all the same speed.  It was nice to not have a split in the class.

Today was my seventh day working in a row and I was scheduled to work tomorrow.  Since I woke up feeling a bit under the weather, I asked if I could have tomorrow off and by the end of the day, my scheduler had managed to work something out ending my week as of today.  So even though it's only Tuesday, it's actually my Friday.  yippee!!!  And we have lots of snow coming in the forecast so I'm looking forward to three days of rest and freeriding!