Day 96 | March Adventure Camp

Busy times at Whistler here on out until the end of the season.  This week starts off with Canada spring breaks.  Since it's busy, Snowboard Adventure Camp is back in action and I have level threes!  We had over 50 riders in lessons today and numbers look to be the same for the week.  I have three kids in Camp but should probably have a full class every day for the week.  Today I had a total of seven, well .... six and a half.  I took a Lil Ripper who can turn all the way to the village but since he's so small, he gets super tired and needs much longer breaks between runs.  So he ran with me and the big kids every other run.

In a perfect world, my level threes would have enjoyed a day of riding green runs in the Family Zone on top of the mountain.  But in busy world, my level threes were really all high level twos.  We spent most of the morning working on our turns on the Super Carpet.  Fortunately, all the kids were turning after this session.  Their turns weren't very pretty but at least they were turning.

We then spent the remainder of the day running down to the village.  Snow was slushy and it was raining by late afternoon.  Throw in some jumps at the CLC and a final run to the village and we can call it a day.  Oh and I don't want to forget to mention how one of my kids let her snowboard run down Lower Olympic and into the woods.  Luckily one of the boys was all too happy to hike down and get it for her.  He was our hero! and proud that his mountain climbing lessons finally came in handy.

Day 95 | batteries in my butt

We're starting to wind down the weekly Club program.  Only three weeks left.  For the second week in a row I only had two kids.  There wasn't much snow reported overnight but I had a hard time believing that report once we got up top.  There was a ton of fresh snow everywhere and it snowed most of the day.

We managed to squeeze in three runs before lunch, which is good for us considering I have a girl who does nothing but whine and complain the entire day.  She hasn't missed a week whining and it annoys the crap out of me.  I try my best to ignore it.  I've talked to Mom about it but Mom just catered to the whining instead of nipping it in the bud.  It turns out she also has a brother in Club and his Instructor told me he is also a constant whiner.

After lunch we hung out with Betty and her three boys.   They started the season as level ones but are now clearly better than my kids.  We took the P2P over to Blackcomb and Betty took us through some tree runs by the terrain garden that I never knew existed.  The snow was amazing.  It was tracked out but it was still soft and nice.  On our last run, we followed Betty through Honeycomb trees and those were amazing as well.  I was super stoked because I just learned of three new tree runs that I can take my kids down on Blackcomb and they are off the beaten path so they hardly get tracked out.  

  

Day 94 | ketchup cake

The back of our ketchup labels at the CLC have an advertisement for ketchup cake.  If you want to try it, click here!  Not sure why you would want to though.
Another non-snow day but that doesn't matter because the groomers are amazing.  Soft packed conditions.  The popular, easy tree runs are getting a bit chunky and there isn't any powder to be found.  I would imagine the snow at the very top is still very good.

I had an easy day as I was assigned my returning level fours.  This time I only had two of them.  We started the morning riding down Green Acres and popping in and out of Marmot Trees.  11am lunch means we usually only have time for two runs in the morning so our second run was down Ego Bowl and through Enchanted Forest.

Yesterday I was super tired and I have to admit, I didn't do much teaching with the kids.  Today I was more on my toes and spent more time going over some lessons listed on the report cards.  After lunch instead of going over to Blackcomb and being tempted to run through the Terrain Garden again, I decided to stay on Whistler and hit up Marmot Trees.  The boys loved that run, especially the trees down the gondola line.  We also took a couple of laps through the Terrain Park.  The Park was nicely groomed and I wish I could have gotten some huge air myself instead of spotting the landings but I guess that's part of being an Instructor.  The day went by pretty fast and both kids were a lot more engaging today versus yesterday.  To top it off, one Dad gave me a $20 tip!  

Day 93 | Irish eyes

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!
Both mountains were pretty quiet today.  Hardly any lift lines.  Not that I cared since I was working and could cut the lines anyway.  No new snow overnight and the sun was finally shining.  It was a gorgeous day.  Perfect temps and perfect snow.

I started the morning with five level fours but got rid of two of them during lunch.  In the afternoon, we headed over to Blackcomb to take a few laps in the terrain garden.  We ended up spending the rest of the day in the TG since there was no one using it.  On our last lap I decided to head through some trees and the boys instantly got excited.  They hadn't shown any emotion all day!  They all said they wanted to ride the park but then said going through the trees was their favorite part of the lesson.  Oh well.  A couple of them are returning tomorrow so hopefully I can snag that class again and take them through the trees.

Day 92 | teenage boys

I was asked to work Ride Tribe today (13-18 years old).  As long as I get work, I really don't care where I work.   I knew I'd end up with a low level class just because I'm low man on the totem pole in that department.  No biggee as it's at the point in the season where I'm there for work and not worried too much about the snowboarding aspect of it.

Another foot of snow fell overnight, bringing our snowbase up to almost 400cm.  We've had over 6 feet of snow in the past seven or eight days.  I can't say I've enjoyed much of that as most of the classes I have taught lately have been low levels.  

Anyway, today I had four boys from USA.  Brothers from Memphis, a kid from Connecticut, and a kid from Houston, Texas.  All very nice kids and because three were from the south,  I heard a lot of "yes ma'ame"- very polite kids.

Naturally we spent our entire day at the Olympic area.  Spent most of the day on the Super Carpet and took one run up the Olympic Chair.  Three out of the four of them were turning by the afternoon.  The funny thing about teenage boys is that they learn by "discovery".  There's no holding their hands and helping them down the bunny hill as they try their edges for the first time.  They just stand up and go for it.  Quite different from the seven year olds who hang onto you for dear life!

Day 91 | 6am to 9:45am

Because of mega-snow and high winds, the Alpine hasn't been open in three days.  I was hoping it would open today (on my day off) so Pip and Jordan and I decided to do Fresh Tracks.  Unfortunately, lots of other people had the same idea and by the time we reached the Village at 7am, the queue was back to the ticket kiosk.  The 650 people cut off is right around that area.  Rather than stand in line and chance not getting up, we decided to eat breakfast at the Wizard Grill and upload at regular time.

When we reached the top of Wizard Chair, Solar Coaster was on stand-by so we rocked back down to Wizard making fresh lines virtually the whole way down.  The first third of the run was amazing!!    But the snow quickly got wet and sticky.  We were back in line at Solar Coaster at 9am and we were hoping it would open soon.  When a Patrol friend skied by, he suggested heading down to Excaliber Chair citing Solar wasn't going to open for awhile.  So we rocked down to Excaliber only to find another 20 minute queue (Excaliber has been running at 50% speed as it's running on it's auxiliary diesel engine, has been for almost a week).  By the time we got to some good snow, it was close to 10am.

Needless to say, I wasn't too thrilled to wake up at 6am just to stand in a line for virtually three hours.  But once we got to the snow, OH MY GOD it was amazing!  Pip works on Blackcomb so she's good at knowing tree runs and off piste runs with plenty of powder.  And there was plenty of powder!!  Especially through the trees.  It was easily up to our knees and very soft and fluffy.  Patrol did a great job at getting Crystal Chair open fairly early.  We hit up Outer Limits, a double black tree run.  From there we had to cat track back to Excelerator and the long lift line.  Pip was cold and hungry and wanted to take a break.  Jordan ran down to the Village while Pip and I downloaded.  The plan was to head up Whistler, thinking the lift lines were faster.  We were pretty tired of standing in line.  But by the time we reached the Village, Pip and I had decided to call it a day.  Getting up at 6am takes it toll.  LOL

I have tomorrow off and again I'm crossing my fingers the Alpine opens and we can shred the Peak all afternoon.  In the meantime, I'm heading to the dog park with Cabo!

Day 90 | extra sour

41 inches of snow in the past seven days!!!
I had a chance to play in the snow again today and the snow these days ... IS AMAZING!!!  I was handed two level fives and they were the nicest engaging kids.  It was nice to end my work week on a nice note.

We started the day with a run down greens to Emerald Chair.  The winds were whipping today like crazy.  The Alpine hasn't opened for the second day in a row.  None of us were interested in sitting on the chair again so we lapped the Village Gondola for most of the day.  We took a lap through the terrain park but that was virtually useless for jumps.  Kids never understand why you say "no park on a powder day" until you take them through it and then they realize why.  After lunch we ran from the Roundhouse down to Creekside.  That's always a time burner.  Before you know it, the afternoon was over.  I was wet and I was tired.

My kid brought some Warheads (extreme sour hard candy) and took a video of my reaction eating it.  It's pretty humorous ... and here it is:

Day 89 | dress your Instructor day

Nine inches of snow fell overnight and I finally got to get up into the Alpine and enjoy some powder.  I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I hate my 2010 Burton Feelgood in powder.  I think it's too stiff.  I can't lean back and control where I'm going on the thing.  Luckily I only have to use it at work and I'm usually restricted to powdered green runs on work days.  I can deal with it on those types of runs but it isn't too fun.

Anyway, my Club kids and I hit Tokum (the run of the day) before 10am and found some fresh lines and deep powder.  The Alpine never opened today so all the runs were tracked out pretty quickly, not to mention the lift lines were pretty long.  We didn't do as many runs as I would have liked today.  I'm not sure why.  My kids wanted to spend most of the afternoon at the CLC going over the jump.  I probably should have made them ride more but it was snowing pretty heavy and I was pretty wet so I didn't argue much.

Ava's parents did a good job of dressing me up today.  I felt kind of silly snowboarding with a hot dog purse but I got to keep the boxers so it was worth it.   : )

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
snowbase - 358cm

Day 88 | sour puss

My happy kid from yesterday returned today which meant I had level twos.  He was joined by two other girls, one from Panama and one from Texas.  The plan for today was to work on S turns.  That's what level two's do, they work on their turns.  We spent a little bit of time on the Magic Carpet and then moved over to the Super Carpet.  We lasted there until lunch.

My boy could easily turn all the way down the Super Carpet while the girls weren't really turning at all.  After lunch I decided to take them down to the Village.  That took over an hour.  My girl from Texas was really good at zig zagging.  I was told she goes down blue runs but the only thing she does is zig zag.  She didn't seem too thrilled with practicing turning all day, especially since she really couldn't do it.  She was quiet and wasn't excited about anything we did.  She walked around all day with a puss on her face.  I tried not to let it bring me down.  The other two kids were super cool and having a good time.  I spoke to her mom at the end of the day and her mother didn't seem to be surprised.  Oh well.  Like I said, I tried not to let her ruin the good time I was having with the other two kids.

Day 87 | Born in the USA

I was really dreading going to work this morning.  I contemplated going home if we were overstaffed but I really need the ca$h (who doesn't!).  I was assigned level twos but I opted for level ones as I didn't want to deal with a class of five kids from Panama.  Instead I got two very nice kids, one from Seattle and one from Florida.

Another 7 inches of fresh snow fell overnight and the Magic Carpet had some tough sticky powdery conditions first thing in the morning.  I started the kids on their toes then progressed to their heels and zig zags - all before lunch!  By the afternoon, the snow had packed down giving the kids an easy practice run so I got them to start learning their S turns.  By the end of the day, one was going off of jumps and both were connecting turns down the Magic Carpet.  They both said they had a fun day and were overwhelmed with how much they were able to learn in six hours.  The boy from Seattle expressed his joy so much to Mom that she booked him in lessons again for tomorrow and sent WB Snow School a very glowing email about me.  I found out that today is International Awesome Day ... and ironically, I had a great day even though I was expecting the worse.

Day 86 | echo!

Woke up in a snow globe this morning.  Whistler Blackcomb reported 2cm overnight but there was at least 8 inches at the CLC by 9am.  It was a blizzard for most of the morning and the snow was fluffy and light.  There weren't many kids in snowboard lessons and most of them were already "taken" by other Instructors.    The only kids left to take were a level one and a Lil Ripper.  I opted for the Lil Ripper, which turned out to be a good choice since the Level one was a miracle kid and ended up in the Level two class by lunch.  Needless to say my day was long and boring consisting of walking up and down the Magic Carpet.

Day 85 | Pip & Jordan

Still no new snow to report.  A front is forecasted to bring about 30cm by tomorrow afternoon.  I met up with Pip and Jordan around 11am on Whistler.  We lapped the Whistler Terrain Park for about two hours.  The Parks crew have been doing an outstanding job on the Parks this season.  They've added some nice S/M jumps under the lift line.  Not too big but big enough to practice getting lots of air and pop on, especially if you're starting to find the small jumps a bit too small.  They're labeled as Medium but they're not as big as most medium features.  They are sort of in between small and medium.  The park has also been extended down to the Emerald Chair.  Pip and I followed Jordan through the blue park for a few laps.    Then we switched back to the green park.  Conditions were really nice.  Soft packed powder and the transitions were nicely groomed, not rutted out.  It started getting crowded after 1pm so we called it a day around 1:30pm.

Day 84 | session

Ever since I passed my Level 2 certification, every year I start the season saying I'm going to train hard for Level 3 and once the season gets going I can't be bothered.  Today I took the full day Level 3 session.  It's only the second 3 Prep I've taken.  One of the top Instructors on Whistler Blackcomb is this guy named Jose and I wanted to train with him.

I was crazy tired in the morning and the last thing I wanted to do was ride.  I forced myself out of bed knowing that if I didn't ride, I would regret it by noon.  The sun was shining and even though we haven't had any new snow in a few days, the snow in the higher elevations is still pretty nice.

There is a Level 3 Course starting tomorrow and there are about eight WB Instructors signed up to the take the course.  Most of them were in the session today, trying to brush up on their skills before the exam.  We met up on Blackcomb and ran the GMC race course about three times.  Then we did some work on moguls before heading in for lunch.  Most of the afternoon session consisted of a lot of talking on what is expected on course.  I was super super tired and not feeling myself so I bailed around 1:30 and was back at home by 2pm to take Cabo to the dog park.  I was glad I got up and did some riding but I really wasn't into it.

Day 83 | Panama Invasion

It was a very stressful day at Whistler Kids.  There seems to be an influx of Spanish speaking people from Panama in town and they must be financially well off because their kids are rude as hell.  They claim to speak English but I had a hard believing they understood anything I said.  They also have no manners:  no please, no thank you ... and they bark orders at you like you're their servant.

There were about 20 kids in snowboard lessons, almost all of them Spanish, and most of them all know each other.  I was given level threes and I had three of them.  A couple whacky things happened today.  The first happened right out of the gate when Betty and I decided to take a run down to the village to sort out the level threes and level fours.  We checked all the kids on the Magic Carpet to make sure they could turn.  Then about 100 yards down Olympic run, one kid immediately fell hard trying to S turn.  When I checked on him, he was a level two!  He had an Instructor's name on his bib as well!  For some reason he just decided to follow us.  So I had to walk him back up the hill and put him back into his proper class.

The rest of the morning was pretty easy as we had early lunch and by the time we split the classes and had some photos taken, there was only time for one run down to the village.  The afternoon was a bit different. I quickly learned I had one kid who could speak very good English and two kids who didn't understand what I was saying.  I had the other kid translate to the other kids.  My first rule was to come into the group safely.  In other words, when I'm stopped on the run, don't come to me riding a million miles an hour and run me over because you have no control when you try to stop.  So what happened?  Three times the same kid bashed his snowboard into me because he was out of control.  The last time he did it, I actually pushed him off of me!  He looked at me surprised but he didn't do it again.

I also had a jumbo kid.  He lasted one run from the Roundhouse back to the CLC where I had to drop him off to take a break.  That left me with two strong kids so I decided to take them through the trees and then down Jimmy's Joker.  At the bottom of Jimmy's Joker, the oldest kid ended up getting stuck in the powder and he couldn't get out.  He cried out for me to help him and I told him he needed to take off his board.  After struggling, whining, and crying for five minutes, he finally took off his board, he walked back to the run and then he threw his board back into the powder and sat on the ground pouting!!  Luckily his board landed in powder and didn't take off dangerously down the mountain.  I sat there stumped for a moment, letting the kid cool down.  I started taking my camera out of my pocket to take a photo of him and when he saw me doing that, he decided to get his board back.  LOL!   He got his board, walked down the run to where I was sitting and then threw his board again and then threw his goggles.  Another Instructor stopped and asked if I needed any help.  I said I didn't know because I have never had a kid throw their snowboard before.  I gave him five minutes to cool down and then told him if he didn't put his board back on, I was going to leave him there and he would be spending the night in the snow.  Of course, he put his board on and we headed back to the CLC.

I had a Spanish speaking Instructor explain the dangers of his behavior and I let his father know of his actions when he was checked out.  The boys spent the rest of the afternoon on a jump at the CLC.  I couldn't wait for the day to be over and if it wasn't for the amazing snow conditions and sun, the day would have totally sucked.  Instead it was just a very long and frustrating day.  I am so glad I have the next two days off!

Day 82 | she said yes!

I don't know if she said yes.  Hell, I have no idea who Sarah is.  Thought it was an interesting proposal.
We had 7 inches of fresh powder overnight and after taking a couple of days off to mend a strep throat, I was ready to shred with my Club class.

I only had two kids in the morning and we were on the gondola by 9am heading up to the Roundhouse.  We strapped on our boards and headed down Whiskey Jack.  The snow was amazing!!!  Powder everywhere, the groomers still had nice corduroy and the snow was sooooo soft.  It was fun.  We weren't allowed to go through any trees so I did my best to find fresh tracks on the runs we were allowed on.  We managed to squeeze in a couple of runs before lunch and we were able to enjoy the fresh snow before it was completely chopped up.  We even took a quick lap through the terrain park.

During lunch, Ava was signed out leaving me with only Jaden once again.  After lunch, he and I went from the Roundhouse down to Creekside Gondola,  then took Expressway to the village and then back up to the Roundhouse for one last run back down to the village.  The great thing about Jaden is that he can go from top to bottom without stopping or taking a break.  My legs were burning halfway down but he was leading and he kept on riding.  If it wasn't for a heavy low level cloud, I would have called today perfect.

Day 81 | high winds close Whistler

More snow fell overnight and more snow fell during the day.  I was told I'd be teaching my return level threes.  I knew the forecast called for high gusting winds in the Alpine so I opted to give up the threes for a Lil Ripper, thus keeping me close to home (the CLC) and out of the crappy weather.   There were three Lil Rippers and Morgan took the other two.

The winds were suppose to reach 100kph by late morning and by 11am, Operations had closed the Emerald Chair and Red Chair leaving only the Village Gondola open.  But by noon, they had closed the upper line of that too.

We took the Rippers over to the Super Carpet in the morning.  There was so much powder that the only thing they could do was straight line down the run.  Morgan and I chased after them, picked them up when they fell, and put them back on the carpet to do it again and again.  The afternoon was a bit more laid back with lots of coloring after lunch.

Some people, including some Minis,  got stranded at the top of the mountain and had to be brought down in Cats.  Two Cats dropped off a full cab at mid-station.  I don't know the complete story there.  Assuming the winds were so blinding that people didn't feel comfortable skiing down.

Day 80 | be jealous 'cause I rip

There were 18 riders in lessons.  The week after Presidents Week is usually pretty slow so it's nice that we have some kids taking lessons.  I feel like I haven't been to work in awhile and I guess I haven't.  I took a lot of time off last week to hang with Si'Aire.  Now I'm looking to work as much as I can since there is only two months of work left.  My how time flies.

February went out with a ton of snow and March is coming in with snow.  Forecast calls for snow all week.  Conditions today were amazing.  Super soft packed with powder to be found here and there.  I had low level three's so there wasn't much gnarly shredding going on.  We spent the morning lapping the village run.  After lunch we went up top and rode Whiskey Jack and Ego Bowl.  I wanted to go to Marmot Trees but I didn't feel my kids had the ability to get back to Emerald Chair on the cat track.  These kids just needed to turn as much as they could down green runs.  So that's what we did.  The day went by pretty fast.    

Day 79 | hit it Chicago

The snow has made it's way back to town, just in time to send Si'Aire out of town.  Today was his last day to shred and the snow conditions were pretty good.  I wanted to get some video of him in the park so we took about five park laps as soon as we got up.  The ride up the chairlift was freezing with moderate winds and blowing snow.  After a run to mid-station, we took a quick break at the Roundhouse.

Si'Aire only had a couple more runs in him after that.  My treeline off of Whiskey Jack was sweet as well as Jimmy's Joker.  The wind was blowing a whiteout in our face on our last run down to Creekside.  Si'Aire took the easy groomer down while I played in the powder on the side.  At least I can say that my strength has returned.  I think I'm finally getting over my cold.  Just in time for the snow that is forecasted all week!!

Day 78 | just me and J-man

The last two days have been bitterly cold in Whistler (-25 C, -6 F).  It was way too cold for me and the boy to ride.  But it was back to work today with Club and I couldn't have asked for an easier day.  Jaden was the only one to show up and he seemed pretty tired so we did easy groomers all day.  The temps weren't too bad, certainly not as cold as it has been, and the snow was nice.  All the powder is gone and it's pretty chunky off the groomers.  The conditions are machine groomed, maybe medium packed.  Certainly not icy.  The sun shined in the morning but by the afternoon the clouds and fog had rolled in.  We're expecting a few cm's overnight.  The boy took his last Ride Tribe lesson of his life.  He said he had a good day in the Park with Poncho.

Day 77 | arctic air

The arctic temps are back and are forecasted to stay until Sunday.  Man it was cold today.  When it's this cold, I want no part of snowboarding.  The Magic Carpet is my friend when the temps are single digits.  I was assigned level threes but quickly traded them for level ones, which then turned into having one Lil Ripper.  SWEET!  easy, easy day.  Not to mention I am still pretty sick so chilling with a Ripper on the Carpet was just what I needed (again).

By the time we got all 40 snowboarders signed in and loaded up to the CLC, it was close to 9:30am.  The morning went by fast as my guy was pretty keen to ride.  He could side slip on his heels and his toes.  We hung with the other two Rippers during lunch and spent some time coloring.

In the afternoon, we practiced turning until Jack fell on his leg and then started fake limping.  I believed he hurt his leg a bit but the exaggerated limp was kind of funny.  We went inside to take a break and ended up coloring most of the afternoon.  He was able to take one last run side slipping on his heels before time was up for the day.  It was a nice, uneventful day.  It was partly sunny, mostly cloudy and very very cold.  We need more snow!!  

Day 76 | heels over head

The boy and I slept in a bit in the morning.  I am still sick as a dog.... well sick enough to complain but not sick enough to stay in bed all day.  : D
It was a perfect blue bird day so I grabbed my Canon and we headed up Whistler to meet up with Pip and Jordan around 10:30am.  I recently met a fellow photography enthusiast named Kyle, who also tagged along with us.

Jordan has been eyeing a rock with a jib up landing into powder out in Harmony so we headed for that.  There were five of us riding with three different digital SLR's.  Each of us hit the rock between three and four times, hiking back up to hit it again (I only hit it once since I'm weak from the flu).  Then at the same time, click-click-click-click-click came the sounds from the cameras.  We spent about an hour and a half shooting at the rock.  We all got some awesome pictures as well, with Si'Aire being the main focus in two of the "shots of the day".

Pippa had to run to work and Jordan decided to stay back at the rock and work on the take off.   Si'Aire, Kyle, and I traversed our way out of there and made our way to the Roundhouse as I was in desperate need of some water.  By now the clouds had rolled in ruining any more chances of getting blue bird pics so we decided to call it a day and headed back down to Creekside to get home.        

Day 75 | Presidential Week

Presidents Week has started and we had over 40 kids signed up for snowboard lessons.  I volunteered to take one Lil Ripper and it ended up being the best day.  He was one of the Supervisor's kids, six years old, and really chill.  Not to mention the sweetest boy and very polite.  He didn't talk much but he loved being on the snow.  He was also a level five skier which meant he had great balance on the snow.  I got him turning down the Magic Carpet by the end of the day.  It was the perfect day for me considering I'm still recovering from the stupid sore throat/cold.

Day 74 | the boy is back in town

Guess who showed up just in time for Presidents' Week?  Siaire is here for the next 9 days and we plan on riding almost all of those days.  Since today was his first day back on the board in a year, we decided to take it easy.

Weather wise, the day was beautiful.  The sun was shining without a cloud in the sky.  No winds and perfect temperatures up top.  The snow was nice too.  It has been a couple days since we had the massive dump so it was more of a groomer day but the groomers were perfect.  Unfortunately, the Presidents' Week lift lines were not so perfect!

We didn't do much.  The boy is a bit out of shape.  He needs the "less video games, more going outside" lecture.   Rode down Creekside then down Expressway to the gondola.  We stayed on the greens and did a couple runs top to bottom.  We even took a lap through the park.  We finished up around 4pm with our last run down Creekside to get home.

Day 73 | muppets

Muppet is the polite term we use to describe children taking a lesson who will just never get it.  They have no coordination, no skills, they can barely put their bindings on, they can't stand up on their own, they don't understand what you are telling them to do.  Basically, they're a muppet!!

With the exception of one girl, I had a class of level one muppets today.  Four of them!  We spent the day on the Magic Carpet hanging with Lauren who had three Lil Rippers.  It was a beautiful day.  The sun was shining and we received another 20cm overnight.  I was cool with not having a class who could shred because I wasn't feeling very well.  Plus I was very tired from the insanity the day before!  In fact, I ended up having to leave around 2:15 as I was so sick I couldn't finish off the day.

Day 72 | holy $#*!

Signed up for Steeps, Trees, and Drops session hoping to learn more spots off Peak Chair and Harmony where I can take my higher level kids when the snow is good.  Instead I ended up spending most of my day out of bounds and having the thrill of my life!

I met up with the session to find about six guys fixing to get up Peak Chair.  The Instructor had his camera pack with him and the guys wanted to hit a 30-50 foot cliff drop.  I was all for witnessing that!  Unfortunately, we were told the chair wasn't going to open for another hour so instead of waiting around we headed down to the Big Red Express via Frog Hollow and rode toward Harmony.  Once we got to the Harmony Chair, we found the queue to be insane so someone came up with the bright idea to do Singing Pass.

Now not everybody just nonchalantly rides Singing Pass.  Singing Pass is out of bounds.  Singing Pass is a virtual straight down the tree line under the Peak 2 Peak gondola.  Singing Pass is dangerous, steep, and shouldn't be ventured alone!  Singing Pass is also about a 4km skate back out to the village.

Don't get me wrong, there was a fairly easy gully that I was able to snowboard through where I found a section of fresh snow that was literally waist high.  The boys that I was with were more hard core.  They were dropping cliffs and pillows.  It was one of those things where you watch videos of people doing these amazing feats on their snowboard, and even though you know you can't do it, you'd still like to be there to see it live.  That was my day.

The snow down the Pass was amazing.  Of course, not many people venture in there so there was plenty of fresh .... and it was deep!!!   But the traverse out of Singing Pass back to the village was HELL for me.  I was slow and skating on my board for about 4 km really took it out of me.  I refueled at ECBC with a chicken breast panini and somehow the guys managed to talk me into a nice powder run from the Peak to the Creek with very little hiking.  I heard the word Khyber thrown around and since I've been wanting to ride Khyber trees for years now, I didn't want to miss this opportunity especially after all the snow we've just had.

Up Peak Chair we went!  Again, Khyber trees are out of bounds.  I wasn't nervous at all as I've been told they aren't too difficult, you just need to be with people and watch out for tree wells.  Also you need to know where you are going!  I followed Quentin down the mellow lines while most of the guys dropped some cliffs in this section called Flat Cliffs.  I had a harder time than I normally would have as my legs were spent from the previous insane run!

Once out of Khyber we met back up at Creekside where I took one more ride up the gondola and then called it a day.  I managed to make my way down Dave Murray downhill without losing my legs (or any limbs).  It was an insane, epic day where my boundaries were pushed to the limits and I hit some turns in waist deep powder.  Days like today are why I choose to live my life in Whistler and I never regret a moment of it.

Here's a video of the guys.  I wish I could have zoomed in more.

 

Day 71 | Powder Outage

Powder Outage!  Another foot of champagne powder fell overnight and snow conditions right now are EPIC! AWESOME! AMAZING! MIND-BLOWING! JAW-DROPPING!  and those words don't even come close to describing how much fun it is!!

I hate to say there is too much snow because that would never be the case, but if you don't enjoy powder, these days are not your friend.  All green runs were groomed but the groomers left plenty of powder on the sides and the powder was deep!  Thigh high easily and higher in some spots.  It was impossible to not get stuck if you strayed too far from the groomer.  I got up a lot of speed and surfed into the powder and surfed back out.  There was plenty of fresh tracks to be found.  We found freshies on Tokum after 2pm!

I had my two level fours again and we spent most of our day on the blacks on Whistler.  At one point we ran all the way down to Creekside.  The snow is soft packed almost the entire length back to the valley.  Once again we weren't allowed to do trees but there was plenty of snow around blues and greens so we weren't missing out on anything.

We've received 71 inches of fresh snow in 7 days!  In January we only received 77 inches for the entire month!  February is shaping up to be the best month of the season ---  

Day 70 | POW! right in the kisser

Another epic riding day in Whistler!  20 cm fell overnight once again, leaving us a snowbase of over 300 cm (117 inches) - total snowfall in the last 48 hours is 52 cm or 21 inches!!!  February has been awesome so far!

I was given the choice of level ones, level twos or level fours.  Which one do you think I chose?  That's right, level four!  I wanted so much to get up into the Alpine especially since the sun was shining first thing in the morning.  I was hoping the fours were super strong as I really wanted to get up Peak Chair when it finally opened in the afternoon but that was wishful thinking.  I'm not complaining though as we rocked through enough powder on green and blue runs that going up Peak wasn't even necessary.

We spent the morning on Whistler.  We weren't allowed to do any trees due to tree well dangers but we didn't have a problem finding any fresh deep snow.  In fact, we found fresh tracks on Ego Bowl late in the AM!  I had two boys and they were pretty quiet in the morning.  They didn't seem stoked to be riding in the awesome conditions.  Early on they said they wanted to do the terrain garden so I told them we would take a ride through after lunch.  

During the break I was given another kid from the level five class.  This kid was pretty silly and quite a talker so he livened up the class a bit.  After lunch we took the gondola to Peak 2 Peak and headed straight to the TG.  Of course, nothing in there was groomed and the boys didn't really do the jumps so I decided one run through there was enough.  After that we headed to Rosses Gold for powder turns and ended up finding a ton of fresh powder down that run and over onto Cruizer.  The boys loved that run and asked to do it again!  Now they were getting into the powder ... shouting and yelling every time we found some good stuff.  We did a lot of drops and hits on the sides of the runs.  It was a really fun afternoon.

The snow keeps falling as another few inches has already fallen in the last couple of hours.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow and crossing my fingers I get another class that can shred the gnar.  My boys from today are returning so maybe I can persuade my Supervisor into letting me take them again.    

   

Day 69 | epic last day

Happy Valentine's Day!  Thank you Mother Nature for the snow!  Another 10cm fell overnight and another 20cm was suppose to fall during the day.

This was the last week of WESP.  We couldn't have ended today on a better note.  Not only was the powder epic, but our seven year old was checked out at noon, leaving three hours with kids who could shred the gnar like there was no tomorrow.

It was super windy today and once again, no lifts opened in the Alpine. (oh I wish I had tomorrow off!).  I wasn't going to sit on a chair in the wind so my plan was to lap the gondola all day.  The first run we hit was Expressway and I virtually took a six inch fresh line all the way to Crabapple.  We then got tons of knee deep fresh lines on Crabapple, ended up in the village and loaded the gondola for another lap.

Lunch was early, 11am, so we only had time for one run from the Roundhouse back to Creekside.  We hit the powder just under RH in the open area between the trees.  From there we rocked over to Jimmy's Joker.  That run was insanely fun.

In the afternoon, we got some side hits off Ptarmigan then up again and rode Tokum.  By then we needed a water break and chilled out for 15 minutes at the CLC.  Our last run was from the Roundhouse, down through the open trees, across Bear Cub, Goat's Gully to Kadenwood.  We cut across Kadenwood to Dave Murray downhill (a nice little full on powder stretch that I never noticed before) and we finally made it to Creekside for check out.  It was a full day, a fun day, and their last day.  But not mine.  Fingers crossed for a high level class tomorrow.

Day 68 | five zippers

Another foot of snow fell overnight and I was curious what level class I was going to receive.  On the one hand, I wanted to shred the gnar again but on the other hand, I was kind of tired.  I left my fate in my Supervisor's hand and he handed me a Lil Ripper.  That meant my day consisted of lots of breaks, lots of walking up the Magic Carpet, and coloring.

My kid was six years old and had been snowboarding before.  He was actually pretty good and could turn if I held his hand.  We even took the SkiDoo Train over to the Super Carpet and I think he did two turns on his own on that terrain.

Today's Highlights:  the Magic Carpet lifty had a snow skate with him so I rocked down the bunny hill a couple times on that thing.  I had never tried one before.  Not my cup of tea but it really helps with your balance once you get back on your snowboard.

Lifts close at 3:30pm now, which means, if your kids get signed out early enough, you can rock one last run after work.  Since I spent my day at the CLC, I decided to see how the conditions were up top.  Every groomer was tracked out!  The snow was chunkier today than yesterday but still nice.  I rocked down the trees off Whiskey Jack and then down to Tokem.  It was a quick run and the slopes were deserted at this time.  More snow is forecasted for tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to shredding one last week with my WESP kids.  

Day 67 | iLuv .... my job!!

Mother Nature has blessed us with the heavenly white stuff once again!  Today was, by far, the best day at work this season!  We received a foot of new snow overnight and then another foot fell during the day!

Winds were gusting in the Alpine and no chairs opened up top, not even Peak 2 Peak.  That left 20,000+ visitors standing in queue either at Emerald Chair, Garbanzo, or the Village Gondola.  The lift lines were a gong show!  Luckily for me, I had a class and we cut the queue.  Sometimes that's the best part of working.

Saturday is the day I have my Club kids and we were on the gondola before 9am in search of powder!  We didn't have to look very far as there was so much snow that no runs seemed like they were groomed.  There was just fresh light powder everywhere.  Our first run we dropped off into Ego Bowl and the snow was up to my knees in a couple of spots.  The next run we dropped off Whiskey Jack and found even more powder.  It's funny how quickly you forget about the dry January we had when you need a snorkel to get through some of the runs.

We had a hot chocolate break at the CLC around 10:30am and found most of the other levels were taking a break as well.  We joined forces with Betty's class - she had two boys who started out as level ones, and with Lauren's class - she had one girl who started out as a level two.  The great thing about powder days is that everyone is the same level on a powder day, so all three classes rode together for the rest of the afternoon.  We couldn't do trees because of all the new snow so we stayed on green runs but there was plenty of snow to be found so no one was complaining.  It was an awesome day!  Did I mention it was my best day of work this season?

Dance Party in the Gondola!  Betty's kid had his iPod with him and we were playing music and dancing in the gondola on the way up.  (see video below).  Too funny!

Garbanzo Lift Line

Day 66 | what is this white stuff?

It started snowing around 8am and we're expecting 20cm of the white stuff to fall before this evening.  A front has finally moved through and the forecast calls for snow for the next three to five days.  Yippee! ... finally.

I headed down Creekside around noon and the snow was already amazing.  Unfortunately, the visibility was horrible.  I didn't find (nor did I look too hard) for anyone to ride with so I wasn't planning on staying out too long, especially if I couldn't see.  Once I reached the top of the gondola, I headed down Express Way to mid-station.  The snow was slow, not heavy but my board moved slowly.

Once I reached the Roundhouse, I decided to drop down under Franz and headed to Frog Hollow.  It's one of those runs that only locals tend to ski and it's usually a good place to find powder when everything else is tracked out.  The light was so flat, I had a hard time seeing the snow.  Frog Hollow was okay but it needs more snow to cover up the icy spots on some of the moguls.  Once I dropped back onto Franz's Run from Highway 86, I managed to ride down the left side in soft packed snow.  It was nice but I was tired and wobbly on some turns that I normally wouldn't be wobbly on.  Since I was alone, I thought I'd head back home and get some rest before I start my work week.  Hopefully it will be a fun week since the snow has come back to town.

Day 65 | Welcome to the Blackcomb Glacier

It was another sunny day in Whistler!  I think this season is going to set a record for sunny days.  I had the day off and enjoyed sleeping in and lounging in my bed until mid-morning.  Pippa's sister is visiting from New Zealand so I met up with them around 11:30am on Blackcomb.  We enjoyed a few runs on the groomers before meeting up with a few other people that Pip knows.

The trails were in pretty good shape considering we haven't received much snow in the last month or so.  Of course there were icy spots but most of the runs were covered with soft snow.  As always, you couldn't beat the views when the sky is blue and the sun is shining!

We had a pack of five and headed up Glacier Chair to see what the glacier had to offer for us.  I had never been up to the glacier before!  I was excited but wished it was a perfect powder day as the run down was nice but would have been awesome if I was making fresh tracks.  I will have to venture up there when the conditions are powdery!

After a brief break for lunch, we took a runt through the Terrain Garden.  It was a bit crowded but the jumps were groomed nicely.  After that, I headed back over to Whistler and ran down to Creekside to finish up my day.

Day 64 | cactus juice

As I've mentioned before, lessons are slow these days.  We had four Instructors scheduled and miraculously we had four classes (nine kids).  I started with four level twos but I quickly gave one away.   He ended up being a high level three once he got the stance and balance correct on his S turns with me.   Ironic because he didn't even want to take a lesson.... his mom and dad forced him.  I think he ended up having a good day and he definitely improved his riding.

The sun was shining all day and the temps were hovering around the freezing level at all points on the mountain.  My group started on the Magic Carpet but we quickly moved over to Olympic Chair territory and worked in that area and on the Super Carpet until lunch.

After lunch I made the mistake of taking them to the top.  Well, it was a mistake to take my eight year old up there as he wasn't ready and was really really tired by the time we reached the bottom of the Emerald Chair.  But it was perfect for my oldest girl, who finally mastered her turns and advanced to level three after riding the steeper terrain.

We only took one run down Ego Bowl.  I think that took nearly an hour.  We then downloaded back to the CLC where we built a jump and finished the day on the Magic Carpet getting huge air!!  

Day 63 | WESP is finally fun

We had more snow overnight, not too much but enough to make the conditions fun, fun, fun!  And the sun was shining so that was a bonus!  In the morning, the level four class and I switched a couple of kids around.  I gave them one and they gave me one.  It changed the whole dynamic of my group, for the better.

I thought I'd change it up a bit for the kids so we took the Peak 2 Peak over to Blackcomb for the morning. We found so much nice powder on the blues off of Solar Coaster.  I think we managed to squeeze in three powder runs and then a run through the Terrain Garden before lunch.

After lunch, the sun was shining and the snow was amazing.  Peak to Creek was the run of the day and I asked my Supervisor if it was okay to take my kids up Peak Chair.  She gave me the green light and off we went.  The snow up there was great.  A few spots with crust underneath and a few spots with ice but for the most part, the run was awesome.  The kids had such a good time.  It was nice to finally get some emotion out of them.  They rocked the Peak to Creek in under 45 minutes so that left us having to take one more run before we finished the day.  We went through the trees off Whiskey Jack and the kids really loved that run also.  One kid is already asking if we can repeat today next week!  We rode over 17 miles.  That's definitely a WESP daily record this season.

Day 62 | finally back to fun

5 Instructors, 4 Riders, 3 Classes -
I try very hard not to go home after I've already arrived at work.  To me, it's pointless to go home after two hours.  If I have to roll out of bed, get dressed and drag myself to the village ... then I might as well work.

A couple centimeters of snow fell overnight.  It wasn't anything spectacular but every little bit helps.  It also snowed all day (crossing my fingers it snows all night).  I had one level five girl, who usually shows up every weekend as she lives in Squamish.

We did a lot of riding today.  In fact, I haven't logged into Flaik.com since last year but felt compelled to see how much we rode:  21 miles (34km).  I would say that is above average for a daily lessons, depending on what level you have of course.  Flaik has also updated it's website to tell you exactly what runs you were on and how long you were on them.  I think I need to start logging into Flaik more often.

The snow conditions were surprisingly fun!!  There wasn't a ton of fresh snow but there was enough to cover up the crappy ice.  Bear Paw was icy but there was enough snow pushed around that you didn't have to turn on the ice.  We ran through the trees off Whiskey Jack about three times and even ventured up Peak Chair.

The visibility off Peak Chair was next to nothing.  I was wondering why there weren't very many people on Peak.  Even without perfect visibility,  I figured we could amble our way down Peak to Creek.  Once we got over the backside, I decided to follow a MAP ski group to West Bowl.  I have to admit I was a bit nervous when the only thing I saw were CLIFF signs everywhere.  Luckily that Instructor knew where he was going and knew where to traverse into the bowl.  We followed his class and then enjoyed some pretty decent snow.

By 2:15pm, we were both wiped out and tired.  We spent the rest of the afternoon at the CLC then took our last run down to the village.  Finally some fun snow conditions to teach in!  I guess all my whining from yesterday paid off.  : )

Day 61 | boredom

Two out of three Clubs kids came to ride today.  We haven't received any snow in over a week.  The last fun day I remember riding was last Saturday with Jaden when we did Peak to Creek.  Needless to say, today was nothing like last Saturday.  Today was boring.  Conditions were:  Stick to Groomers!  Even at that, the groomed runs were kind of icy and nothing exciting.  We tried to mix it up by going through Marmot trees but even that was a bit icy.  3pm check out time couldn't come fast enough.  We did get a lot of riding done since there was nothing else to do.  And I don't mean to sound spoiled, but groomers are so boring to me ..... Yea, I guess I am pretty spoiled.  But what do you expect?  : )

Day 60 | hanging with Morgan

Last February, the buzz of the Olympics was in the air.  I miss that buzz!  Today we had 27 snowboarders.  A far cry from the numbers we had last year at this time.  But still not enough to give all Instructors who were scheduled a class.  Once the kids were all accounted for, there were two Instructors that needed to go home.  I wanted to work since I took most of last week off and I need to catch up on the cash flow.  Morgan and Lauren volunteered to leave.

I was given a class of seven level threes.  Just before we made our way to the gondola, my Supervisor called saying the level four Instructor needed to split the threes and fours.  He had already taken a run and needed to move two kids down a level.  This meant Morgan wasn't going home because that would have left me with nine kids.

So Alex and I took a run to the village, figured out the split and I met up with Morgan to give him his class.  By the time we sorted all this out, it was close to lunchtime so Morgan and I took nine kids down to the village again before it was time to eat.  

After lunch I sent one kid down to level two and gave Morgan the five stronger kids.  I took the three weaker/slower kids and headed up to the Roundhouse.  The snow conditions weren't too bad.  There was an inversion today so it was warm up top and cold down below.  The snow was soft packed and not too icy until you hit those runs that are always icy on days it doesn't snow (Upper Olympic).

We managed to fit in a couple of runs, including a lap through Marmot trees before we met back up with Morgan's class at the CLC to work on jumps.  Before we knew it, it was time to go home.  Wednesdays seem to be my best day of the week.  I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that Wednesday is my Friday or if it's because the snowboard team usually scheduled on Wednesdays are so great to work with...... I definitely had a great time with Morgan today.

Day 59 | crap-uary

Of the 25 riding days posted in January, only about seven were epic or amazing snow conditions.  What's up with that January?  December got us all stoked for the season with 12 feet of snow for the month.  The stats for January snowfall aren't posted yet, but I have to imagine it's nothing worth bragging about.

It was another boring Monday with WESP.  And it was freezing!  The snow was icy but powder could be found if you knew where to look.  My class isn't very emotional or excitable when it comes to snowboarding.  The most vocal kid in the class is the seven year old.  She's always in a good mood and always excited to ride.  Plus she is a Lil Ripper in the terrain park.  She makes me nervous but rides over everything.

We had the late lunch so it made the afternoon go by fast.  In the morning we rode a couple of blue runs and took a couple of laps through the park.  The boys wanted to go over the rails and boxes at the CLC so we killed some time doing that as well.



 

Day 58 | the kid responsible

The kid responsible for showing all us Instructors the Baby Monkey video on YouTube was in my class today.  I was assigned levels 5/6 but traded with James for seven kids in level 3.  The temps were frigid today and I know the conditions were hard packed and I didn't want to deal with having to find terrain in the Alpine.  I was chill with teaching level 3 and staying at mid-station where it was a lot warmer and in the sun.

It took most of the morning to get my class straightened out and sorted.  We took a run down to the village and had our pictures taken before lunch.  After lunch we did about three laps on the Olympic Chair.  I had a big split in the class with two level fours and the rest level threes.  Most of the threes had horrible form so I spent the time off Olympic to try and help those kids out.  That run is so boring though that after three laps, I couldn't take it anymore and we continued down to the village.  From there we went straight to the top where we managed to squeeze in a run back to the CLC.  The kids spent the rest of the afternoon on the boxes set up in our kids terrain garden.  It was cold and the day was long but before I knew it, it was time to go home.