Day 23 | Adventure Camp

Happy Winter Solstice!!
Today marks the beginning of the holiday season and with this busy time of year comes Snowboard Adventure Camp.  It's basically five day lessons where the kids get the same instructor for the entire week.  In the past we've run it every week but because most snowboarders only take about three lessons a week, we've cut the program back to run only on holiday weeks.  I'm a huge fan of having the same kids every day for a week so I always volunteer my services for AC.

My AC kids for this week are three boys who are all level threes.  They are working on their turns on steep green and easy blue runs.  It was a busy day with over thirty snowboarders signed up for lessons.  I also had two rookie instructors shadowing me.

Conditions were variable since it's snowed quite a bit over the past couple of days.  It sounds great but since the temps are hovering near freezing,  the snow is very heavy and wet.  It's also very busy visitor wise, so the lift lines and the runs were fairly crowded.  Tis the season I guess.

(The holiday season means early morning start times, which means it's still dark when I get to the village in the morning.  This pic was taken at 7:50am!) 

Day 60 - it's official: my goggle tan is here!

After yesterday, I wasn't looking forward to going to work today.... but my day turned pretty good, thanks to Morgan.  Because our Adventure Camp kids basically stayed at the same level all week, we team taught 5 level three kids.  The purpose of Adventure Camp is to have the kids keep the same instructor for the entire week, which is why Morgan and I had two small classes instead of just one of us taking all 5 kids.  Anyways!  Not important!

What is important is that my day went well.  Once again the sun was shining!  and my goggle tan has officially arrived in Whistler.  

Day 19 - I'm back!!

Let's look at what has changed in the ten days that I've been gone. When I left, I believe the snow base was 50cm. Today the snow base is 111cm!!! (woo hoo). When I left, there was a full mountain download. Today:  full mountain ski out!!! (woo hoo).

Since it's a busy holiday week, Snowboard School is running a 5 day Adventure Camp program.  I elected to work AC because you get the same kids for the entire week - and if you get a group of great kids who can shred the gnar like there's no tomorrow then it's really a lot of fun. Unfortunately, only 9 snowboarders signed up for Adventure Camp.  I was lucky enough to take the only Level 4 kid, who coincidently I had last year in AC.  Since I didn't have a full class (8 students) I had to stop by the CLC and pick up more Level 4's who were only taking a lesson for today.  Anyway, I ended up with three kids who could tear it up!

About 6inches of snow fell overnight and it puked all day.  (there was about 5inches of snow on my truck at the end of the day)  The conditions were amazing!! (it's about time!)  No more ice and lots of fluffy white fresh snow everywhere!  We spent the day looking for jumps and fresh powder.  You'd be amazed how much untouched snow you can find on crowded green runs just by riding the sides and through a few trees.  Believe it or not, the most amazing run was Olympic off to the left.  There had to be a over a foot of fresh pow sitting on the sides the entire way down the run.  I just surfed it .... it was amazing.  Finally!! 

Cute little puppy dog with little booties

Day 77 - run after run after run

No new snow overnight and the freezing temps made most of the snow we had turn to ice.  I took my one kid up top to find nice packed powder toward the Harmony side and crusty ice on the Creekside.  Weird.

Anyway, the sun was shining most of the day so it softened up most of the snow.  We did a few runs through Marmot trees, up Harmony, over to Creekside.  We went all over actually.  This was the first time in three days it was clear and I think my student was amazed at how big these mountains really are.

I was able to bail early from the Adventure Camp apres party as my nephew (the most handsome Si'Aire) was taking lessons in the teenagers section of town (Ride Tribe) and I wanted to be finished with work when he was finished.  We had planned to take an extra run at the end of the day together, but the kid was too tired and cancelled on me.

Day 70 - Surf's Up Day

Wednesdays are dress up/photo day for Adventure Camp. Every week is a different theme. Can you guess what today's theme was? Surf's up dudes.......

We added two more snowboarders to our Level two group and had a total of five. A few of them were turning by the end of the day and a couple of them still aren't "getting it". No worries.

Still no new snow and another day of warm temps. For our apres party this week, we fed the kids ice cream cups with an Oreo and then played a couple games of BINGO! Small kids are so much fun.

This is the Magic Carpet. So much smaller than the Super Carpet.