Day 59 - just riding switch

It's been exactly one week since I've been on my board.  The doctor said no physical activity for seven days.  I'm itching to get back to work tomorrow so I needed to make sure I could actually ride.  We haven't had any snow for a while so Irish and I weren't in any rush to get up to the snow.  As a result, I think we got to the Roundhouse around 2pm.

Conditions were partly sunny, temps just above freezing, no new snow and hard packed.  I wasn't going to do anything crazy anyhow so we stuck to the groomers for about four or five laps.  Irish rode switch (to practice) the entire time while I just took it easy.  It was nice just to get outside and enjoy some fresh air.  It wasn't too crowded which was nice.  It will be good to get back to work tomorrow, unfortunately there is no snow coming until Monday or Tuesday.

Day 58 - double snowboarding

After resting for the past three days, I decided I should give work a try.  I figured I could teach level ones since there is usually no snowboarding (for me) involved when teaching kids who have never ridden before.

Things have slowed down significantly since MLK weekend.  We only had 13 snowboarders including four Lil Rippers.  Luckily for me, four kids rocked up who never snowboarded before so I was able to teach a class.  The day felt like forever since I was pretty sore even though I was only walking up and down the Magic Carpet.  I also a lost a kid to patrol shortly after lunch as he caught an edge and banged his head pretty bad.  His description was "ringing in the ear and vision a bit foggy but otherwise I'm fine" -- Definitely thought those comments needed an assessment from Ski Patrol.

Funny Lil Ripper quote of the day:

Me - "Do you know when your birthday is?"
4 yr old - "August"
Me - "August what?  Do you know the day?"
4 yr old - "yea, July 1st!"

Day 57 - CRASH!! off the peak

The day started off perfect:  a bit of a lie in first thing in the morning, breakfast at Wildwood, sunny sky, a bit of fresh snow, no wind, and moderate temps.  By 11:30am we were heading up Symphony Chair for another run through the trees.  Spent most of the afternoon out there, dropping the cornice and finding good snow through the trees and on the creek bed.

We headed to Harmony once Symphony closed and dropped down towards Peak Chair.  We were on our way to Christmas Trees when our snowboarding came to a grinding halt.  As I was slowly traversing on my toe edge under one of the rocks to get to the entrance, there was a sudden void on the track and I fell straight down about a foot which knocked me backwards and down the steep Peak face.  I tumbled back doing a couple of backflips, hit three rocks on the way down and somehow managed to stop with my feet facing down about 25 feet later.

A few weeks ago, a guy was killed falling off a cliff not far from where we were.  There weren't many details given about his death but we know where he fell from.  As I was tumbling like a rag doll, the only thing that went through my mind was "this is how people die out here" --
I was also praying that there weren't any more rocks to roll over as I had no idea what was beneath me when I fell.

As I came to a stop, I was hyperventilating and my entire lower back was in pain.  Irish rushed down to make sure I was okay and to keep me from moving, at least until I got my breathing under control.  I laid there for a good five minutes or so.  Finally I tried moving my toes and arms and luckily everything felt fine.  The only thing that hurt was my lower back or tailbone area.  I stood up and I felt I could snowboard out so we made our way down.

We were in Frog Hollow at this point.  Luckily the snow was soft with no moguls.  It was when I went over some bumps that the pain was the worst, putting pressure on my legs individually instead of equal pressure on both.  At one point the trail flattened out and I had to walk about 20 feet.  That was the worst.  We made it back to the bottom of Red Chair and downloaded in the gondola.  Irish took me to the clinic where we spent the next four hours.  Luckily nothing is broken, just a severely bruised lower back and sacrum.  I was told no physical activity for 7 days but I'm hoping to get back to work by Monday or Tuesday.  Even if that means teaching a Level one class.

Day 56 - snowing in Whistler

YAY!  It snowed overnight and it snowed most of the day.  Soft packed conditions return to Whistler.  Our snow base is 185cm.  I was scheduled for Ride Tribe and had another level three class with three kids.  One guy returned from yesterday and he was a high three, though he needed to slow down and get more control on his board.  The other two girls just started turning so they were pretty slow on the green runs.  There was a bit of a split between the kids but it was a workable split.

Like I said, it snowed most of the day and the conditions were soft packed.  We spent the day on Whistler around the Family Zone.  The girls practiced their turns while me and the guy tried jumping some side hits.  By 2pm everyone was exhausted so I took them to the CLC for a rest and some hot cocoa.  We ended up chilling there for the rest of the afternoon until it was time to go home.



 

Day 55 - Ozzies

After a long day with Lil Rippers yesterday, I was pleased when I got the call to report to Ride Tribe today.  I was expecting level ones but was assigned level threes.  Six of them rocked up by 9am and we were at the top of Excelerator Chair before 9:30am.

We spent the morning on Easy Out working on turning.  Just before lunch, one boy went down with a possible broken forearm.  That left me with five kids and after lunch we headed over to Whistler as there is better novice terrain over there.

It was cloudy, no new snow, and the sun shined a bit here and there.  Conditions are now hard packed. We stayed on Whiskey Jack, Ego Bowl, and Jolly Green Giant.  Our final run was back to the Village via Orange Peel to Tokum.  All the kids were engaging and three of them really wanted to learn all they could.  I enjoyed the teaching experience today as they were a sponge soaking up how to ride better and get better positioning on their board.  By 3pm they were all exhausted.  They signed themselves out and I was told to report back to Tribe tomorrow.

Day 54 - holy fish

Amalia was sick yesterday so I didn't have to report to work.  After a long day of bike riding,  I was half relieved to be assigned Lil Rippers today.  Five showed up and luckily I had Darren to help me as I quickly noticed I had little to no patience to deal with the little ones.

It was (once again) another sunny inversioned day with no new snow.  Of course, I spent the day at the CLC.  I managed to get two of the three four year olds to be able to put on and take off their bindings on their own.  One was even side slipping on her heels by the end of the day.  Because they were small, we were able to spend about 45 minutes in the CLC after lunch coloring and throwing paper airplanes.  That helped pass the long afternoon.  

Day 53 - Dumb Ways to Ski

Still going strong with sun and warm temperatures.  At least the snow is nice, well, the groomers are nice.  It hard to keep kids motivated when you're only riding groomers all day.  I was excited to learn that most of the girls in my Saturday Club class were interested in freeriding and getting in the park.  That set the theme for the day.

We started off by practicing some ollies at the CLC and then on green runs.  They also followed me off different "hits" on the sides of the runs.  We took a lap through the Terrain Park and hit the Enchanted Forest twice.  We topped it off with a couple of runs down some moguls.  I was amazed I was able to keep the day interesting.

Day 52 - rainbows

I apologize my writings are a bit boring as of late.  Things have been the same day after day:  sun, warm temps up top, freezing down below, no new snow, same kids etc.  At least today is my "Friday". I had the same three Level Four kids as I had yesterday.  We spent the morning on Whistler jibbing off the sides of the runs.  When lunch is at 11:00am, there isn't much time for riding before it's time to eat.

In the afternoon, we took the Peak 2 Peak over to Blackcomb with Scotty's Level Five class and we headed straight to the Terrain Garden.  It was a zoo in there!  We managed to get one run in with all seven kids and split back up afterwards as it was just too crazy.  My boys wanted to build a jump at the CLC instead of going through the park again.  After a quick run through the GMC race course, we headed back to Whistler where we finished the day at the CLC.

Because the temps in the Village have been so cold, Whistler has been blowing snow on the lower runs and tiny crystals of snow have been hovering around the CLC.  When looking into the sun, the crystals have been creating the most amazing rainbows.  We were all outside taking pics.

Day 51 - Perisher

Most of the level three's from yesterday returned today so Morgan and I split seven into two classes:  high and low.  He ended up with the low guys and I ended up with the high guys who were more like level fours.

Another huge inversion temperature wise with warm temps up top and freezing temps down below.  We spent the morning working on our turns because although the boys I had were quick, their form on a snowboard was atrocious.  In the afternoon, I teamed up with Scotty, who was the level five Instructor and we spent the afternoon going through the Terrain Park.

It was quite a fun day jumping through the park and jibbing the side hits down to Emerald Chair.  We spent the last hour of the day at the CLC where we built a smaller jump.  The level five kids were working on 360's while my kids were working on 180's.  All of them landed at least one of their tricks.  We rode out as a team of seven to end the day.

Day 50 - fart bombs

Sunny today with a weird inversion:  super cold in the Village (-10°C) and super warm in the Alpine (+2°C).  We had 32 Riders signed up for lessons, one kid more than the 31 Skiers signed up for lessons.  I was assigned Level two's and ended up with four of them.  We spent the morning on the Magic Carpet and the Super Carpet learning on to turn.  By the time lunch rolled around, all three of them were ready to hit the top of the mountain and shred!

Boy it was warm up top.  The sun felt so good.  It wasn't very crowded.  Conditions were medium packed groomers.  Our first run was down Whiskey Jack.  The kids were pretty slow but they did a great job.  We headed up for a second run down Ego Bowl.  By the time we reached Emerald Chair on this run, we needed to keep going down to the CLC as it was getting late.  Took a bit of a break, wrote out report cards, and then rode down to the Village.  That was a bit more hectic as it was very crowded being the end of the day.  The kids all made it down and will be returning tomorrow as Level three's.

Day 49 - one big jump for a little little girl

Sunday!  My favorite day of the week.  It was still sunny and cold with no new snow.  Amalia and I rocked up to the Roundhouse first thing in the morning and did a couple of Ego Bowl to Enchanted Forest runs before heading to the CLC to warm up our toes.

It was a typical Sunday.  Scattered runs here and there with the smallest and best Lil Ripper on Whistler.  Today we worked on turning with our knees (on steeper runs) and riding switch.  Cripes, the girl rode down Magic Carpet switch better than most kids do regular.  I took her to the Tree Fort as she said she had never been there.  She liked the slides (who doesn't?).  She hit the jump at the top of Tokum, landed it and then said to me: "That was a big jump for a little, little girl!"
She was right, it was a big jump.  We ended the day hanging out with her little buddy Oak and going over the jump that Morgan made at the CLC.  I'm already looking forward to next Sunday.

Day 48 - sunny and freezing!

The sun has come to visit Whistler, bringing bright blue skies and cold cold temperatures.  I wasn't planning on doing too much riding today considering it was -11°C (12°F) at the Roundhouse.  All of my Club kids showed up and by the time we got through the queue to get up the gondola, we needed to go inside the CLC to warm up before we could snowboard.

We reached the top of the mountain around 10:30am and it was surprisingly "warm" in the sun.  The trails were soft packed and groomed.  A binding on one of the kid's boards was broken and we noticed it as soon as we exited the Roundhouse.  Luckily I have a student doing a mentor program working with me, so he took the girl back down the gondi and to the CLC to get it fixed.  The other kids and I hit the slopes.  Unfortunately, one girl fell and hurt her wrist at the bottom of the Olympic Chair run.  Patrol needed to be called and that took some time, only leaving us with a quick run to the Village before it was time for lunch.

After lunch we managed to squeeze in about 3-4 runs in the Emerald Zone, working on S-turns on green and blue runs.  It got a bit chilly once the sun went below the mountain and everything was in the shade but it wasn't too painful.  Of course I had hand warmers and toe warmers helping me keep warm all day.

Day 47 - 51cm in 24hrs

Yesterday it snowed ... and snowed .... and snowed!  When it was all said and done, 51cm fell in 24 hours.  My fingers were crossed with hopes of getting a level three class or higher.  The snow was so light and fluffy in my driveway that I couldn't wait to hit the slopes!

My prayers were answered when Gunner gave me level threes and I knew all of the kids who would be in the class so we headed up to the Roundhouse first thing in the AM.  Once again I made the mistake of dropping into the POW after the Slow sign on Whiskey Jack.  I say, "once again" because I've made this mistake quite a few times with quite a few classes.  All my kids got completely stuck in the POW and after getting snow in their goggles, down their backs, in their gloves, up their nose, etc - they all hated it!  I loved it.  LOL!

The snow was highly disappointing.  As I mentioned, the snow the night before was super light and fluffy, however the snow on the mountain was thick and chunky.  Don't get me wrong as it wasn't terrible but it wasn't great, especially considering the amount it had snowed.

Day 46 - Spud will be your bud

It's was snowy day in Whistler with over 20cm expected to fall throughout the day and into the evening.  I was stoked for work as I thought there were going to be seven level fours coming - making two classes for Darren and me.  Much to my surprise, only six showed up and Darren got the class leaving me as a floater.

I took a lap to the valley with Jon to sort his level threes but it turned out all his kids were in the right level which meant I didn't get a class.  I wasn't too gutted about it as I'm still feeling a bit under the weather and I planned on using the day to rest.  After hanging around the CLC for about an hour, I finally ran down to the Village and called it a day.

Day 45 - snow has returned

Christmas and New Years are over but it's still quite busy.  Adventure Camp Ski is sold out and Destination was also sold out.  Mainly because most of our Instructors went to WESP to teach, leaving only about ten people available to teach Destination.  There were only 45 skiers in Destination and 35 riders.

I was assigned level threes and started with six in my class.  After spending the entire morning with level four trying to sort kids, it was finally all straightened by the end of lunch .... leaving Jon and I with six kids in level three but with a very big split.  By the end of the day, half the kids stayed level three and half moved up to level four.

It snowed 11cm overnight and the runs were amazing this morning with super soft packed runs and lots of powder everywhere.  It was the type of snow that could easily turn a blue run into a black run just from the amount of snow and moguls on it.  It was fun to finally get back to some soft snow and be able to rip through trees without feeling ice underneath.

Day 44 - Sundays are soooo good!!!!

It's the second day of weekend Club and I've known for a long time that my class would consist of one five year old who is the the best Lil Ripper I have ever seen.  Her name is Amalia and she is the sister of one of the girls I taught on Sundays last season.

She just turned five three weeks ago and she's been riding a snowboarding for almost two years now.  Her father is NOW binding designer and professional snowboader, JF Pelchat.  She definitely has snowboarding in her blood as she is as natural as it gets.

On our first run, I told her to put her back hand on her hip and to swing her front arm around her belly when turning on her toes.  I never had to mention it again and she did those two things all day long.  We went through Enchanted Forest a couple of times and she ran that tree run like it was a race course. Her big thing to work on was to skate on her board with one foot in a binding and one foot out of a binding.  I made her practice that whenever we got to the CLC.  No problem, by the end of the day she was a pro.  She also needed practice going down a small hill with only one foot in a binding in order to get off a chairlift.  No problem there either.  For the first time she rode off the chairlift by herself today (Dad usually carries her).

Her riding ability is easily as good as the level four and level five classes of older kids, it's her stamina that wouldn't hold up during an entire day.  No worries as we have two other Lil Rippers with Morgan who are working on catching up to her riding abilities.  We will be able to ride with them soon enough.  Needless to say I'm pretty excited for the season.

Day 43 - Club Saturday

Time sure is flying.  We are already past Christmas and weekend Club has started.  For the past three years, I've been teaching the same kids on Saturday Club and I thought this year they (and I) could use a change.  So I'm teaching an entirely new class this season and they are level threes.

Since it was the first day, we spent most of the morning sorting kids into the right levels.  Seven kids checked in as level three so I took the level two Instructor and we headed to the Magic Carpet.  It took us about 30 seconds to realize one boy was a level four so we got rid of him pretty quick.  With the exception of one girl, all the other kids were turning and were solid level threes.  Erin took the one level two for some laps on Olympic Chair while I took the remaining riders and we went for a lap down to the Village.

It snowed a few centimeters overnight and a few more during the day.  The base is down to 175cm and today's conditions were soft packed.  The conditions were fun after having to run hard groomers for the past two weeks.

After lunch, Erin returned with the level two girl who was now officially level three.  Levels three through six took a run to the Village to get the splits sorted one last time.  I have five girls and one boy. I was hoping the boy would fit in with Devon's level four class, just so he could have some other boys in his class but that didn't work out.  Maybe he can switch in a few weeks once he gets some mileage under his belt.

All in all it was a great day.  My class seems to be all on the same level and they all seem excited to ride and be on the snow.  Most of them are high level skiers who want to convert to snowboarding.  It won't take them long to move up quickly in levels.  I think we'll be shredding the gnarly gnar before the season is finished.

Day 42 - Alejandro Abogado

It's my final day of a scheduled eight day work week and I was assigned to Ride Tribe.  I'm still fighting a sore throat and woke up this morning without a voice.  I was hoping to be a floater, not assigned a class, and hoping to be able to go home early.  No such luck.  I was handed level three and six of them showed up before 9am.

We stopped by the Super Carpet for a quit rundown to make sure they could all turn.  They passed but once we got up to the Family Zone, I realized five of them were level four!  While only one was a level three.  We had early lunch so it was easy to put the one level three girl in the level two class and then I continued on with five.

Again, there was no new snow and I found it difficult to find good terrain without getting too bored.  I managed to work on four of the eight skills in level four.  We did a lot of riding.  The kids were pretty quick though they were quiet as hell.  None of them were really talking...  to me or to each other.  One kid was from Mexico and he tried to start some conversations.  He was the oldest of the crew at eighteen.  After a bit of questioning, I learned he was a professional Formula Race Car driver on the Euro circuit.  I googled him at lunch and showed off his images to the other kids.  We even took some photos with him.  He was a good sport.

We finished the day just after 3pm.  We didn't spend much time signing out due to the cold weather.  There was an inversion today, so while the temps at the Roundhouse were +1, it was about -8 down in the Village.  Brrrr ....

Day 41 - Happy New Year

Traditionally, January isn't a big month for snow in Whistler and today was no different.  Still no snow overnight and with an inversion, the temps in the Village and at mid-station were cold.  It's week number two for snowboard Adventure Camp but I'm not scheduled for AC.  Instead I was assigned level one Destination kids.  We had 23 Riders and 9 Lil Rippers in lessons.

Level one is good guarantee you will get a class as some kid always rocks up who has never snowboarded before.  I filled up my class with six kids before 9am and headed to the CLC.  I was afraid my day was going to drag on but it went by fairly quickly.  All the kids were great on their edges so by early afternoon, I took them to the Supercarpet.  

Oh, I had a boy pee his pants today.  I think he was 9 years old and he was so upset.  He told me "the elevator was too slow" ... meaning the Magic Carpet didn't take him up in time so he peed.  Poor kid.  He was crying.  Luckily it happened early enough in the day so we had time to wash and dry his ski pants before it was time to go home.

We finished the day at the CLC doing the jump.  I enjoyed the six kids I taught today.  Tomorrow I'm scheduled for Ride Tribe.  I'm not expecting to get a class higher than level two but we will see.  No snow in the forecast so it doesn't really matter what I get.  Groomers are getting pretty boring.  

Day 40 - jeepers creepers

Last day of Adventure Camp and once again I only had two kids.  Easy work week to be honest.  The sun was shining full force today and it was quite cold, especially in the morning.  Uploading first thing in the AM is a gong show as it's so freaking busy.  We have over 500+ kids in Snow School in the Village alone.  Add to that Private lessons, Adult lessons, and general public.  Getting up the Village gondola between 8am-10:30am is a gong show to say the least.  Since I only had two kids, I uploaded via the Fitz Chair to Garbanzo.  I think we saved ourselves an hour of waiting in line.

Our first run was down Orange Peel to Tokum back to the Garbo Chair.  After that we ran back to the CLC because it was that cold (and I had to pee already!).  We then did Jimmy's Joker, which was full of humongous moguls.  Not so icy where they were torture but they weren't powder and I didn't find it fun at all.  The boys didn't know any better so they loved the run.  We ended up doing it twice before the day was out.

Certain lift lines were huge.  The easier trails were crowded.  It's definitely a busy holiday season.  The sun is forecasted to shine for the next four days so the views will be amazing.  I just wish we'd get a bit of snow to soften up the hard packed snow.

Day 39 - ok people, I'm out of here

I'm on day four of an eight day work stint and I'm exhausted already, which is funny considering I haven't even finished a regular work week yet, never mind the overtime.  I think I'm more bored than tired.  We haven't had any significant amount of snow in about a week and riding groomers is getting old.  I have a high level kid and it would have been nice if we had some powder to play in.  Oh well.

It was a sunny morning and not too cold but definitely crowded.  I had two kids who fit well together.  We ventured through the Whistler terrain park a few times, ran down Dave Murray to Bear Paw, the new Enchanted Forest tree run specifically cut for Whistler Kids is really fun and we did that a few times.  The day went by pretty fast but as I stated earlier, the groomers are getting pretty boring, especially since they are so crowded with holiday people.

Day 38 - Lu-Lah-Lu

I moved my AC kid to level four and although he's a bit on the slow side, his turns are looking good and he needs to start getting on more advanced runs.  We had four other level fours show up who were with Jake yesterday so he and I took a couple runs together to see if there was a split or if all the kids could go with me.

For some reason, my kid - who has been of A.D.D. all week was slow and quiet.  He couldn't keep up with the other level fours even though his form was way better.  We decided to split off from them and headed down to the CLC to see if I could find some high level threes to add to the class.  We grabbed two:  one kid I've had the last couple of days and a new kid.

We ran steep blues and easy blacks.  The kids were tired by the end of the day.  It's definitely still busy as lift lines were all over 10 minutes for a wait time.  Again, no new snow overnight.

Day 37 - busy now

Everyone must have been hung over on Boxing Day because it didn't seem too busy.  But now, all hell has broken lose and the Christmas/New Years crowd has arrived in full force!!  We had close to 200 skiers in Destination and over 40 Riders.

My AC kid is still a level three so we picked up four more kids from Destination and rocked Whistler for the morning.  I wanted to get the kids on blue runs so we tried Jolly Green Giant area for a couple runs.  After lunch we headed over to Blackcomb where the blue runs are pretty steep and great for high level threes to practice their turns on.  A couple of the kids were definitely challenged on these runs and by the end of the day, they were exhausted.

We haven't had any mentionable new snow overnight.  The snow base is sitting at 203cm.

Day 36 - what ever mega loser

It's the day after Christmas and Adventure Camp is running Wednesday to Sunday instead of Monday to Friday.  It's one of the few times in the season where AC is available for snowboarding.  I was assigned level three's and though I only had one kid who is in the camp, I "topped off" the class with four other Destination kids.

We had a late lunch (12:30pm) so it was a long morning.  Temps were cold but not freezing.  I think we had 7cm overnight.  We took a lap from mid back to the Village as a warmup then headed straight to the Roundhouse.  We had a contest to see who could guess the time it would take us to run from the top back to the Village.  Julian won with 55 minutes.  Not bad for a level three class.  To kill the last half hour before lunch, we took a lap on Olympic Chair.

After lunch, we lapped mid station a couple times before heading over to the CLC to do the jump.  There wasn't much to the afternoon with such a late lunch.  Levels 1-3 were on mandatory download so we jumped in the gondi around 3pm to end the day.

Day 35 - Christmas Swim

Merry Christmas.  What do you do after you wake up at 4:30am to open presents via webcam with the family back home?  Well, you go to Fresh Tracks breakfast on top Whistler of course.  There was no new snow overnight so getting to the Village at 6:30am didn't pose a problem with getting a guaranteed spot in line.

We met up with Patrick and Hannah for breakfast then proceeded to hit some easy trees around Emerald.  Found some decent powder on the five or six laps we took.  Late morning we headed into the Roundhouse for a coffee and a bit of a break.  Irish wanted to Skype home since they are eight hours ahead in time.

Afterwards, we headed towards Symphony via the Peak Chair.  The snow on the open runs is getting kind of choppy from the cold weather and winds, but the snow around the trees is still nice and soft.  We did two runs through Symphony and on the third run, Irish and I found ourselves in the Creek area.  This spot is kind of like a rollercoaster run with one track and with dips and turns everywhere.  There were a few markers X'ing holes in the snow where the creek was running underneath.  Just as I was about to finish the run, I came across Irish upside in one of those creek holes!!  Scared me to death... as well as him.  He got a bit out of control and launched head first submerging his entire head in the water below.  He somehow managed to get one foot out of his bindings when I arrived and he quickly stood up.  Luckily he was only wet.  Needless to say we went up the chair one more time so he could rush back to the Village before he got too cold from being all wet.  Scary, scary .... Stay safe out there.

Day 34 - Prior Twins

No new snow overnight which meant a nice sleep-in for me.  Irish and I weren't in too much of a hurry to hit the slopes since the powder was getting tracked out pretty fast and nothing new fell since yesterday afternoon.  I think we got to the Creekside gondola around noon.

I needed to get a few laps on my powder board.  I put new bindings on it and they needed adjusting.  I haven't been too thrilled with the board lately so I thought I'd try to get use to it.  Irish got himself a brand new board so he was testing that out for the first time.  We figured we use today to iron out the kinks with our equipment.

We managed to find some good powder on Whistler through some trees off Garbo and Emerald.  I think we did about five or six runs before we ran out of time.  I've decided to sell my Prior Khyber as I have a hard time turning the board in the trees.  It runs great over a lot of powder when you're going straight but I have a lot more fun riding my Endeavor.  And since that board is great through trees, powder, groomers, or park - I figure I will just ride that.

Day 33 - eyeless fish = fsh

Another 17cm of snow fell overnight.  Definitely not complaining as I don't think there is much precip forecasted for the week of Christmas.  We had another 25-30 kids in Snowboard School and I was assigned level fours.  Two of the kids have been here for a week already and two kids were new.  They were in a lesson with Erin the day before so I figured their levels were accurate.  One kid was cool and he was technically a level five while the other kid was out of control with his riding and quite dangerous at times.  He was technically a level three.  But I kept them all and we rode together fine.

We were told to stay out of trees so I decided to lap black diamond runs down to Creekside.  The snow was good and we did a lot of riding.  We hit Dave Murray and then headed towards my new secret jump trail.  The kids liked that and I got to take some pics of them hitting the jump.

I had a few chats with the boy who was riding a bit too fast and out of control.  He wanted no part of me helping him with his turns so he could stop falling.  That was all well and good until he kept putting the rest of us in danger with his speed.  Finally, around 1:15pm, I told him he was going home because he couldn't snowboard with control.  That brought a bunch of tears - and amazingly enough, he rode perfectly after that down to the bottom.  Of course I was crying wolf and didn't want to waste our time taking him back to Mom and Dad so he stuck with us for the rest of the day.  He confessed his control went from a zero to a nine (on a scale of 1-10) after my threat to send him home.  He finished the day on a positive, but I still had to tell Dad about the negative.  I also told Dad he was to be put in a level three class the next day (which he was).  All in all it was a great day with great kids.

Day 32 - Harmony Trees

Tis the season, the Christmas madness is starting to hunker down on Whistler.  Irish and I met up with Tim at Creekside around 8:30am.  There wasn't much in new snow overnight but what we have is still good, especially if you know where to go .... and we do!

I had to work at noon so I knew my riding was going to be cut short.  We managed to find some amazing snow in the trees around Emerald.  We were manning our time until Harmony opened.  That didn't take long.  No lift line at Harmony around 9:30am, that was nice.  We did two runs in the Gun Barrel area and on the third time up, the rest of the skiing population showed up at Harmony.  Boo.  It was a ten minute wait in line, not bad, but I had to cut out and head down to get to work.

Irish and Tim hit up Symphony for the rest of the afternoon.  Today was the first day Whistler cracked the chair open and they said the snow out there was amazing.  A bit jealous but I have a couple days off soon.

Day 31 - how about a nice punch to the ribs??

It's still snowing here in Whistler.  Another 14cm overnight.  Irish decided to give snowboarding a try after resting his broken ribs for two weeks.  We met up with Kyle at Creekside around 9am and made our way down to Garbanzo Chair.

After riding some fresh snow on the cat track from Red Chair to Garbanzo, we hit Dave Murray for a warm up run.  Captured some great snow there and continued on towards Bear Paw back to Garbanzo. We ended up lapping Emerald a few times, hitting the wide open trees between the chair and the park.  It was deep and most of it was untracked.  We all needed to be somewhere else later in the afternoon so Kyle headed off around 11:30am while Irish and I ran one more lap back to Creekside.  It was nice snow all the way down.  The day was short but very very sweet.

Day 30 - 24inches / 24hours

A boatload of snow fell over Whistler the last couple of days.  Our base is now over 200cm.  I wasn't blessed with the day off but I knew I had a good level three class and I'd be able to roll over some powder at some point.  Boy was I wrong.

Five of the six kids in my class were returning - and one kid was new.  He was a bit of a heavy kid and he wasn't thrilled at all to be coming to Snow School.  Mom and Dad said he has been in a Private lesson for the last four days and that he was linking his turns so he was a level three.  They all seemed confident he was turning so I added him to my class and we rocked up to the Roundhouse for our one run before lunch.

Luckily I had a shadow with me as the new kid was technically a level two.  I knew he wasn't going to make it through any powder so I opted out of the super pow run down Ego Bowl.  We slowly made our way down to the CLC - by the time we got there, this kid was exhausted.

I knew I should have put him down into level two at lunch but because he was so discouraged with coming to Snow School in the first place, I felt bad for him and I hesitated.  I figured we could take one more run from CLC to bottom and if he was too tired after that, then I could leave him with the lower level.  Boy did I make a mistake!

He was sooooooo slow.  Half way down I had to tell my shadow to take the rest of the kids up the gondola and I'd meet them at the CLC afterwards.   I needed to stick with the slow kid and put him into level two and I didn't want the other kids to have to wait for him.  I think it took this kid over an hour to ride to the Village.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I didn't end up riding too much today.  On the plus side, I have the next couple of days off.  

Day 29 - Powder Supply

I had a return kid coming into Snow School today. His dad emailed me a few weeks ago and asked if I could be his Instructor again. I've been teaching Andrei since he was five and now he is eight. He is a high level three so I knew I would be getting a riding level today.

By early morning, my class card was full with six level threes.   Most of the kids have been here for the majority of the week. We headed up to the CLC for photos and to plan out the day. It was snowing like crazy and winds were gusting up to 100km/hr at Roundhouse level. 

Once all the riders were checked in, we had fourteen kids between three Instructors in levels three and four. Since we had early lunch (again!) we decided to take a couple laps from mid station to the Village as one big group. After lunch we split into teams: Jake taking the threes while Meghan and I shared eight level fours. 

Did I mention it snowed like crazy all day?  The powder was amazing. Light and fluffy and good all the way to the Village. High winds or not, we decided we couldn't keep level fours from riding the whole mountain so we headed up the gondola. Boy were we in for a shock when we exited our cabin. We knew it was windy but we had no idea how windy. I have never experienced such high winds up there. I couldn't even put my board on the ground without fear of it blowing away. One of the kids was crying because he was so scared.

We managed to meander our way down Whiskey Jack onto Banana Peel towards Dave Murray and Tokum. I'm not going to lie, the snow was awesome but the wind was brutal. We eventually made it back to the CLC and had some hot chocolate. The gondola wasn't running by this point so we spent the rest of the afternoon on the jump that Morgan made.   The kids didn't seem to mind. At three o clock we rode to the village to finish the day.

Day 28 - Dumb Ways to Die

Although it was very, very cold day - it was also a very, very good day.  I was assigned the returning Level 4's from yesterday.  Jon took the lower level and we decided to take a run together first thing in the morning.  Temps early on were -13°c (or 12°F) so we figured we would take one run from the Roundhouse back to the CLC to warm up.  We definitely had a 3\4 split so after the break, we split for the rest of the day.

After lunch, my team headed over to Blackcomb via the Peak 2 Peak gondola.  The sun was shining a bit here and there so it didn't feel as cold in the afternoon.  We did some exercises on the blue groomers, then hit a black diamond with soft moguls a couple of times.  We even went through the Castle.  We worked on a number of skills needed to pass to level five, including spraying snow to the side.  Before I knew it, it was 2pm!

We ran from the top of Blackcomb down to the Village.  The kids wanted to do the jump at the CLC so we rushed back up to the Magic Carpet so they could get their jump on.  Before too long, it was time to ride out to end the day.    

Day 27 - team teaching

20cm of light and fluffy snow fell overnight.  My fingers were crossed for a higher level class.  I was assigned level 4's and ended up with only one on my class card.  Ellen, however, had seven level 3's so we decided to do a run together to figure out how the classes would split.

We exited the Whistler gondola around 9:30am and we were greeted with strong winds right in the face.  We couldn't put our bindings on fast enough as it was really whipping up there.  Ten of us headed towards Whiskey Jack.  The snow was AMAZING!!

It didn't take us long to realize we had a class of high and low level three's.  No one was a four.  That being said, Ellen and I taught the kids together.  I mentioned yesterday that I didn't feel like I did much teaching.  I made up for that today.  We taught the crap out of the kids today!  : )
We worked on our turns, jumps, side banks, powder stance etc.  Everyone in the class was receptive about learning new things.  Ellen and I really enjoyed the day.  Not to mention we got to hit a few powder stashes here and there in the Family Zone.

Day 26 - ripped to Ride Tribe

Irish broke a couple ribs last weekend so we didn't ride on our days off this week.  I've been off the board for three days and returned to WKids at 8:15am.  Christmas is creeping up on us but we have yet to hit the crazy numbers.  We had about 15 riders and 6 Lil Rippers today.  I was assigned the wee ones with Ellen and her shadow.

By 9:15am, only four Rippers showed up and Ride Tribe was looking for another Instructor.  Figuring Ellen could handle the four - since she had the help of the shadow, I was sent to Ride Tribe.  I didn't mind as I wasn't in a mood to babysit today.  I rocked up to the GLC patio and given the gift of two Level Four riders.  Sweet!

It was cold at the Rendezvous level (-11°C, 12°F) with only 7cm of fresh snow overnight.  The two teens were pretty quiet.  One was from Mexico and one is from Germany but is living in Whistler on a school exchange program.  I felt like I didn't do much teaching as both of them were pretty good riders with no counter-rotation problems and good stance and balance.  We basically shred around all day. Nothing crazy.  We stuck to groomers mostly, ducked in and out of a few trees, road some blacks and hit some moguls.  Before I knew it, the day was over.  I was happy I got to do some riding today even if it was only groomers.

Day 25 - Who knows the "f-word"?

My blog titles are usually quotes I hear from random kids during the day.  Turns out, everyone in that class, except for one boy, knew what the f-word was.  And the girl who asked the question was kind enough to whisper the word to the boy who had yet to hear that word.  I wonder if he went home and told his parents what he learned in Ski School today.

We have about eleven kids in lessons and I had three level three girls.  We spent the morning on the Olympic Chair since it took a while to get up the gondola in the morning and because we had early lunch (11am).  After lunch we went to the top.  The sun was shining and the snow was soft packed.  Temps were a bit cold, as it's usually colder when it's clear, but it felt warm in the sun.  I had a bit of a split in the class with one girl turning quite easily and quickly and with two girls riding quite slow.  One  rode as slow as molasses.  Ugh!  Anyway, we managed to squeeze in two runs on Ego Bowl before heading back to the CLC for the usual report cards and jump work.  All three girls improved their riding by the end of the day and that's what matters most.

Day 24 - that was a great adventure

Ten kids in Snowboard School including two Lil Rippers.   I was assigned to levels 4-5, but of course, there were no kids in those levels so I took the Rippers because Morgan wanted to go home.  I actually had three kids because one girl was the sister of the boy.  She was 7 years old but she was literally the same size as her four year brother.  She was the tiniest 7 year old I've ever seen.

The day started out slow but the kids were all keen to shred and they were all capable of doing it so there wasn't a lot of "hands on" - which was nice.  It snowed all day and that kept conditions on the Magic Carpet perfect.  I made a jump for them at the end of the day and before I knew it, it was time to go home.

Day 23 - Ride Tribe shadow

I was told to report to work at Ride Tribe this morning.  Jose told me we had 16 snowboarders so I felt confident I would get a class even though I'm "low man on the totem pole" over there.  I was assigned to be a floater, in other words, the boss didn't assign me a class.  With so many teens, I was still pretty confident I'd get a class.  But once everything washed out, there was only one class for each level leaving me with nothing.

I didn't feel like going home right away so I asked if I could shadow Jose's level four class for the morning.  Tall Sean was cool with that (even giving me a lunch voucher) though I didn't get paid for my time.  I like following Jose as he's a great teacher and I was hoping to get some new ideas on exercises I could do when I teach my classes.

It was freezing in the morning.  I don't know the exact temperature but I was soooo cold and couldn't wait to go inside for lunch so I could warm up.  We haven't had much snow in the last week and conditions were medium packed.  Not soft but not quite hard or icy.  I took the tree line named Side Order on my ride out and there was nothing soft or fresh in there.  Hopefully we will get some snow soon.

Day 22 - an investigator

What do you call an alligator wearing a vest?  an in VEST a Gator!!!  get it?

Anyway, back to the grind today with twelve Riders including one Lil Ripper.  I was assigned Level One's and spent most of the day team teaching with Holly who had Level Two's.  Between us, we had eight.  With the exception of one, all of them were returns.

I spent my day on the Magic Carpet.  Two of the kids were turning before lunch so Holly took them over to the Olympic Chair for a bit in the afternoon.  All of the kids improved greatly by the end of the day with two of them turning down the steep end of the Carpet.

The rest of the Instructors came over late arvo and built a jump.  All the kids hit the ramp for about a half hour before it was time to go home.

Day 21 - Mt. Baker jackpot

Whistler didn't have much fresh snow for the last couple of days but Baker was tweeting 27 inches in the last 24 hrs with more to come for Friday.  Irish and I decided late Thursday night that we might as well give it a try.  After a 4:45 wake up call, we hit the road and landed in the lift line before 9am.  The snow report said 7 inches overnight but by the looks of things, there was a lot more snow than that.

We quickly headed to the one of the highest chairs and we were amazed at what we found.  Powder!  Waist deep, soft, fluffy, light, pillows everywhere!  Probably the best champagne snow I have ever seen and we couldn't believe how deep it was.

Mt. Baker ski area isn't that big, but the natural terrain is fun.  There are nice trees, natural half pipes and chutes, and big open bowls/fields.  We had to be careful not to ride on terrain that was too flat.  The snow was so deep that it was easy to get stuck in waist deep powder within seconds.  Irish found himself digging out a couple of times.

We broke for lunch around noon.  It snowed for most of the day, but by 2pm the winds had picked up substantially, making visibility impossible.  We decided to call it a day.  We both hit the jackpot with Baker on this trip.  We have been there twice before and both times, the snow and the weather was nothing to brag about.  But this time, it was GOLD!

Day 20 - noodling

Had a great day at work today.  We had seven kids in Snowboard School split between four of us.  I took my level four kid, Max.  We spent the morning hanging out with Darren and the level three kids.  They were practicing their turns on the Olympic Chair and since turning was easy for Max, he practiced riding switch.  When he rode switch, he was the same level as the other kids (even better).  When given the opportunity to go up top instead, he opted to practice switch.  I love that about this kid:  he had a great ambition to learn new things on his snowboard and never took the easy way out.

After lunch we split from the rest of the crew and headed off to find some powder in the trees.  Our first run we dropped off Whiskey Jack.  The next run I decided to see what Marmot Trees was like and headed there via Rat Fink.  Max didn't quite make the traverse to Rat Fink so we managed to get down through the trees before the trail.  It was fun, full of soft pow.  Max did great but it wasn't easy for him.  We came out right at the entrance to Marmot Trees.  It was "cut" but it wasn't the kids' run that was cut.  We ended up below the Peak 2 Peak tower.  By the time we got to that point, Max was exhausted and sweating.  Even though he did great, he did fall a few times and ended up walking out in snow up to his knees at one point.  We rode to the CLC to take a much needed break.

After a break, we took two of the level three kids back up to the Roundhouse for one last run.  We kept to the green runs since everyone was tired and it was the end of the day.  The boys worked hard at their turns and I kept it fun by finding some jumps along the way.

Day 19 - Peak Chair Opens

We had five snowboarders and one Lil Ripper in Snow School.  I took my level three boy from yesterday and had an amazing day.  The snow was super soft packed with powder on the sides on the runs.  We took a few runs in the morning on Whistler, greens and blues.

After lunch we went over to Blackcomb because there are more Blue runs on that mountain.  We worked on level three and level four exercises.  It was a pleasure teaching Max because he was always doing what I told him to do, even when I didn't tell him.  Although it was pretty cold, the day went by fast.

Day 18 - 22cm overnight again

How I envisioned my day to go today was nothing like how it actually went.  It snowed another 22cm overnight and I knew I was teaching my returning level three girl.  I was looking forward to shredding a bit of pow, even if was only in the Family Zone area.

With the overnight snow came high winds.  Gusting over 100km/hr on both mountains.  The Village Gondola was only uploading to Midstation until 9:30am.  No chairs higher than Excelerator opened on Blackcomb until after 11am.  Meg and I stepped out of the gondola around 9:45am.

The snow was weird.  The high winds were blowing all over the mountain.  Not just at the top.  Normally the wind blows down the hill, but today it was blowing up, down, sideways, diagonal, every which way.  Normally on high wind days, the snow is a bit "crusty"- hard but soft.  It usually disappears once you drop down onto a run.  But today, that snow lasted all the way down to Emerald Chair.  Weird.

My student was a bit out of it today too.  Yesterday she finished as a strong level three turning down everything green.  This morning, she wasn't even trying to turn.  I told her numerous times I needed her to turn but she slowly zig zagged.  I was a bit annoyed.  She told me she wasn't feeling well so I gave her the option to go home after lunch and she took me up on it.

Jon had five level two kids and one was turning confidently.  So instead of leaving at noon, I ended up teaching him for the rest of the afternoon.  He was pretty good and by the afternoon, the snow was chopped up enough where it was soft packed.  We finished on the jump at the CLC.

Day 17 - another 22cm overnight

Another 22cm fell overnight bringing the snow total for the past seven days to 143cm or 56".

Snowboard School rocked out with four kids today.  Three never-ever's and my girl from yesterday - who was a high level two.  It was only Jon and I working and it worked out perfectly that the new kids had never ridden before.

We were told to teach on the Super Carpet because it was the first day of Valley Kinder, meaning there were about 130 of the little yellow munchkins running around the CLC area.  No problem as that's just where I wanted my girl to practice.  Unfortunately, the Lifties were a little late at getting the Carpet open.  Over an hour late to be exact.  By the time they got it moving, it was past 10am and almost time for lunch.

After lunch I felt Meg was ready for the Olympic Chair.  I figured she would zig zag most of the way but she started turning and turning confidently.  We did two laps on the chair when I decided to head to the Roundhouse.

The snow up top was amazing today (if you had to stay in the Family Zone).  Super soft packed and well groomed ... nice and smooth.  We took two laps down Ego Bowl, where Meghan was turning amazingly, considering she just started snowboarding yesterday!!  She finished the day as a strong level three and she will be returning tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to spending the day away from Mid-Station.

Day 16 - Morgan

After almost a week off (for lack of snowboarders taking lessons), I was back to work today even though we only had five kids.  There were a couple returning kids who were already spoken for so Morgan and I were set to fight over a level two class.  Luckily a girl rocked up who had never snowboarded before.  Perfect, now Morgan and I both had a class.  By lunchtime, my girl was pretty much the same level as Morgan's other kids, and although I could have gone home, we decided to team teach and headed to the Super Carpet after lunch.

Although we haven't had epic amounts of snow yet this season, the last 48 hours has produced 30 inches bringing our snow base to 66 inches.  Peak Chair has yet to open but Harmony Chair opened today.  You can imagine the lineup.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to enjoy any of the chaos or the fresh powder.

Day 15 - Blackcomb's where it's at!

Irish and I were awake at 7am but we didn't get to the Roundhouse until 11am.  It was raining in the Village but 17cm fell overnight.  Since Blackcomb was so great yesterday, we decided to head over there straight away.

First run was down to Jersey Chair as we wanted to hit some trees off 7th Heaven Ave.  Again, the traverse out there was kind of a pain but the rewards at the end were so amazing.  We both launched off the cat track into untouched knee deep pow.  Then down into two different sets of trees.  The snow was super light and fluffy.  We eventually made our way back over to the area again but not before hitting the snow all along the terrain park, the trees along the side of the park, Bark Sandwich, and the Castle Run.

When we returned to Whistler, we were surprised at how heavier and chunkier the snow was on that mountain compared to Blackcomb.  We definitely made the right decision going over there for the day.

It snowed all day and the freezing level is below Red Chair.  We've received 40cm in 24 hours and two feet in the last two days.  Forecast is calling for another front to hit us at the beginning of the work week.  The base right now is 152cm or 60in.