Day 37 | fine fun "friday"

Although it's only Wednesday,  I have Thursdays and Fridays off, so technically today is my Friday.  We had all levels for classes today and I took the level four class.  It was two boys from Australia who are vacationing in Whistler for close to three weeks.  They've been progressing nicely considering they were never-evers at the beginning of the week.  Our morning consisted of two laps through the Marmot Trees with runs down the Peak to Peak Gondola line.  Great pow in the trees up top, mogul'd out but the snow is still nice so the runs were fun.

Temps have been fairly cold the last couple of days.  By the time we headed in for lunch, my toes and hands were freezing!  When we finished lunch, I still hadn't warmed up and I wasn't looking forward to my afternoon.  Nevertheless, we headed up Garbanzo Chair and took our warm up run after lunch down the black run named Raven.  Next we hit the terrain park.  A run down Green Acres through some trees at the bottom.  Two runs through Enchanted Forest trees and finally a run down Orange Peel to Tokum.  Flaik recorded our day at 16 miles.  It ended up being quite a fun day and a great way to end my work week!

Day 36 | almost way cool

It was an all female ensemble today at work in Snowboard School.  Five of us were scheduled and all five got a class.  Aimee is a first year Instructor at Whistler Blackcomb but has worked in the States for the last six seasons.  She has her level three certification, which means she is a really good snowboarder.  She also seems to be quite a bit of a park rat as she says she can 360 off medium sized features and maybe even more.  I have yet to see her ride but I'm looking forward to seeing what she can do ... especially in the park.

We had a small level three class, one level four rider, two level five riders, and three level six (Freeride) riders.  Ideally, a wicked cool perfect day would mean that the level four girl would go with the level threes...  leaving me to teach the level fives and following Aimee around all day with the level six kids.  I had my video camera cocked and ready to record a fun day in the park with high level riders.  So three of us instructors took four classes down to the valley to figure out exactly how the classes were going to work out.  Unfortunately, the level four girl was way too fast to go with the super slow level threes so that meant my way cool day video'ing Aimee and her crew wasn't going to happen.  : (

So I took one girl and we rode around the Alpine for the morning.  The snow up top was awesome!  Soft packed powder, tree runs were great and many were still untouched.  During lunch, my girl said she wanted to ride with the level three kids since her friend was in that class so I team-taught with Fiona.  It's also her first season and she had never been through Marmot Trees so we took the kids through there.  They all loved it and wanted to it again.  The afternoon went by fairly fast and even though I didn't get to hang out with the park riders, I ended up having a good day after all.  

Day 35 | W.E.S.P.

Another year for WESP:  Whistler Elementary School Program.  It's a great program funded by the Whistler Blackcomb Foundation and it gives local kids,  especially those who might not be able to afford the sport, the opportunity to give skiing and snowboarding a try.  As instructors, we don't realize how expensive the sports are between equipment, clothing and lift tickets.

The program runs out of Creekside but this season Creekside is basically shut down for beginner level skiing and riding due to the Olympic games.  The Creek, as it's called, is the base where the downhill skiing events will take place in February.  As a result, the lower level kids, who would normally use the Creekside Magic Carpet, had to be bussed to the Village so they could upload to the CLC and use that beginner area.  It doesn't really make sense to me as to why the program isn't just running out of the Village to begin with but who am I to question the higher ups?  What it meant for me was a fast easy day with my level ones.

There was chaos at the CLC with all pods (Village, Blackcomb, and Creekside) all running out of the same area instead of spreading out over the two mountains.   I'm thinking we had close to 50 snowboarders on the Magic Carpet area today and over 150 kids in the Childrens' Learning Center for lunch.  I'm not complaining because I would rather have it be busy with a ton of kids instead of being quiet with only about 5 kids in Snowboard School.  I feel bad for the rookies who aren't quite use to the whole routine and they have been getting stuck with up to seven to nine kids in a class.  Ok, well maybe I don't feel THAT bad.  ha ha    

Day 34 | Valley Club

January marks the time when local kids in Whistler start their club classes.  They come to Whistler Kids once or twice on the weekend, ski or ride for six hours, and repeat every weekend until the end of the season.  Not a bad gig if you're a local kid, not a bad gig if you're an instructor.  You're guaranteed work every Sunday from January until the end of April and you have the same kids every week.   I was asked to be an instructor for the Valley Club this season and I didn't hesitate to say HELL YEA!

About 40 riders are signed up for club but only half of them showed this weekend.  We're guessing they're still traveling for the holidays and everyone should show up next weekend.  So far my Club Class consists of one eight year old boy who is a strong level four rider.  We headed up the gondola and took a couple runs down the greens before we headed in for lunch.  My day was cut short due to the fact that I'm still suffering from the flu.  I asked the floating instructor, Nick, if he wouldn't mind taking my kid for the afternoon so I could come home and rest up.

Day 33 | Happy New Year!

2010 started off with the best powder of year!  WB claimed 8cm fell overnight but I believe there was more than that.  And because it was quite windy, the wind gusts blew the snow even higher in some places.   I told my kids to report to duty for 8:30am.  My plans were to take them across Peak to Peak and ride down Blackcomb.  Because they were fairly slow riders, it would take them until lunch to finish that run and the afternoon was sure to fly by.  Unfortunately, because of the winds, the P2P never opened.   Instead our first run was down Ego Bowl.  I was stoked to be riding in such great snow but the kids kind of had a hard time of it, especially the 8 year old.  By the time we got back up green chair, they were all freezing and wanted hot chocolate at the CLC.  Bummer.  We hit the gondola and downloaded to mid-station.

Because of the blizzard like conditions up top, the kids weren't too keen on going back up there.  So we spent the rest of our morning doing valley trail laps.  It wasn't too bad as there were plenty of fresh tracks to be found.  Personally I was disappointed to be teaching a lower level group (still) when it was a perfect pow day.  With the exception of one kid, these guys weren't really progressing too quickly.

My luck had changed during lunch though.  One kid was getting checked out at noon to ride with her mom and dad.  When Dad showed up, he decided to check out the cousins as well, since they looked so tired.  I said, "Sure!" - trying not to show my enthusiasm knowing with only the strong kid left in class, we could hit the pow back up top!  That's what we did.  We had enough time to take a lap down  through the powder on Ego Bowl, then ran down Pony Trail to Expressway.  He wanted to take Olympic Chair back up and ride down to the village via Fantastic so that's what we did.  The afternoon ended wonderfully, thus also ending two weeks of Adventure Camp.

Day 32 | the snow has begun to arrive

The countdown continues as another kid didn't show up today so I was down to three for a snowy Thursday.  I sure hope at least one shows up on New Years Day so I can get paid holiday pay.  

At any rate, I was getting kind of frustrated in the morning because it's the forth day for these kids and with the exception of one, they still aren't turning.  Usually by the second full day, they are at least starting to get it.  I was feeling bad for the smallest boy.  I told his parents at the beginning of the week that if they wanted to make their kid's life easier they should rent him a snowboard - even though he technically doesn't NEED a different board.  The snowboard he brought from home is too big for him, he has trouble doing up the bindings, and the thing hasn't had any wax on it since it was new back in 1998!!!  Naturally he shows up every day with the same board and he wasn't progressing at all.... and I was the one getting frustrated!  Finally at 11am, after we did a Valley lap, I ran into the rental shop and grabbed the correct size snowboard for him.  Low and behold, within twenty minutes of being on the right equipment, the kid was s-turning like there's no tomorrow.  He had the biggest grin on his face for the rest of the afternoon because he was now a level three.  I gave his mom the guilt trip at the end of the day and sent her home with both snowboards and instructions to return tomorrow with only the rental board.  Damn, we do know what we're talking about.  We're pros after all.  ; )~

Day 31 | fighting a cold

 After work yesterday, I could feel a cold coming on.  I am trying to fight it but when I woke up this morning, I felt worse.  If I didn't have Adventure Camp, I probably would have called in sick.  But since I have the same kids all week, I didn't want to bail on them midweek.  As the week goes on my kid count has been going down.  Today I only had four.  My oldest AC girl, who is one month shy of 13 years, moved to the teenager program where she can spend the rest of her time with her peers instead of her eight year old cousins who are with me.  

We haven't had any snow in a while and lately we've been having an inversion.  It's also the second week of the holidays so there are a ton of tourists out there.   The first thing we did was take a run down to the valley.  I'm still working on getting these kids turning.  The second thing we did was build a jump with another class.  After lunch I decided to take them to the Roundhouse where it was snowing like crazy.  We did a run down Egobowl, back up Emerald Chair and then downloaded back to the CLC.

I taught the kids how to play Two Truths and a Lie while in the gondola.  Now they're hooked on that game!  Also, my one kid from Hawaii (pic below) gave me a piece of Rocky Mountain fudge - .... mmmmmmmm.

Day 30 | more of the same

Another day of level two Adventure Campers.  This time I only had six kids in my class and I lost one after lunch because he was super tired.  I also realized that one of my AC'ers is actually a Destination kid and tomorrow is his last day.  I'm not heart broken cause he is a little trouble maker.  In fact, I'm going to try my best to NOT have him in my class tomorrow.  LOL

First thing in the morning we hit the Super Carpet and got the kids working on their turns.  After an hour and a half, they could all turn on the easy bunny hill though some better than others.  We then headed over to the Olympic Chair and continued working on our turns.  I somehow (and by somehow I mean:  by mistake)  got the kids freeriding on mid and upper Fantastic (which is a blue run) and that completely wiped them out.  Ooops, my bad!

After lunch I took it easier on them and we took a Valley lap, an Olympic run, and finally a few jumps at the CLC.  

Day 29 | another week of Adventure Camp

Another busy Monday at Ski and Snowboard School. We had close to 50 kids signed up for snowboard lessons. It took us nearly two hours to get them into classes having every kid in a class with the same ability. I took six level two Adventure Campers but also had to take three more Destination riders (kids who are only signed up for a one day lesson) so I ended up with a class of nine today! Having nine kids in a class isn't as tough as it sounds when you're out on the slopes riding around.  Lunch is another story.  I have to serve nine kids hot chocolate, lemonade, chicken noodle soup, grill cheese, hot dogs, salad, fruit, and cookies. All while trying to eat my own lunch.

Anyway, we spent the morning on the Magic Carpet and did one lap down the Olympic Chair. After lunch I gave them the instruction on how to turn and sent them down to the valley. Needless to say they still need a lot of work on the turns but we got some mileage under our boards today and tomorrow is another day.

(pic: instructors' gear in the morning before upload with kids)

(video: a visual of a busy day at the Childrens' Learning Center)

Day 28 | sixth day call off

I was scheduled to work today (my sixth day in a row) but yesterday my Scheduler called and told me I had the day off.  I wasn't too upset considering I was up late Christmas night and I'm scheduled for ten days straight during the New Year.  Even though I didn't have to work, I was up early and decided to take the SLR camera up to the Peak to get some blue bird pictures.  One coffee and two pop tarts later, I was unloading off the Peak Chair with camera in hand and it was only 9am.

The weather in Whistler lately has been clear skies with an inversion (warmer temps in higher elevation with cooler temps at lower elevation).  When I arrived on the Peak it was 3°C (37°F) and the sun was shining brightly!!!  Perfect day for taking photos.

I didn't do much riding.  I rode from the Peak down Highway 86 back to Red Chair.  Back up to the Peak and then rode The Saddle all the way back to the village.  I only stopped once at Mid-Station to say hello to a co-worker.  I don't know how accurate the Flaik responders are, but mine read that I hit 30mph at one point on my run down and kept a speed of over 20mph most of the way.  That seems fast to me, especially since I consider myself to be a fairly slow rider.

Inukshuk with Black Tusk in background.

Some could say this is my office.

Day 27 | Merry Christmas

Happy HO HO HO!!  Last day of Adventure Camp and I only had the two brothers from Toronto.  My plan was to hit the Peak to Creek run after lunch but the boys seemed a little tired and whiney all morning.  We did quite a few runs in the AM but the younger one kept complaining about pain in his ankle.  I couldn't quite figure if he was really in pain or if he was just looking for attention.  When we stopped for hot chocolate, he faked limped in the CLC.

During lunch I convinced the boys to take a run down Peak to Creek.  We got off the gondola and headed down to the Peak Chair.  I guess the younger kid wasn't faking because he was saying he was in a lot of pain on that short run and seemed to be on the brink of tears.  There went the run of the day and we headed down to the CLC to call his mom.  He decided to leave and rest his ankle so I brought him to the village, Mom signed him out, and his brother and I headed back up to the Alpine for one last run of the day.

Day 26 | Christmas Eve

I think I'm the only instructor in Whistler Kids with only three kids in Adventure Camp and all three of them are Jewish.  They could care less about Christmas.  But today is Christmas Eve and I spent the day on Whistler snowboarding with these kids and I had a blast!

I felt that I haven't spent too much time this week getting these kids to improve their snowboarding skills, instead we've spent most of the week building jumps and working on our jumping.  Today I decided to get back to basics and get these kids turning with the proper form and to start learning advanced sliding turns.  First AM run I got the boys to the proper form and they stopped their counter rotation.  Next we hit blue runs and started turning with our knees.  We had about three or four runs before lunch.

After lunch I promised one kid we'd try Marmot Trees so we hit those three times in the afternoon.  We also took a lap through the Whistler Terrain Park (personally I think the Whistler Park sucks and they ruined Cougar Run by adding features to it).  Anyway, I got the boys up to a level four by the end of the day.  Last day of Adventure Camp tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it.  These kids are fun.

Day 25 | half way through Adventure Camp

Loving my AC class!  They're not very big risk takers so they are very chill with going down green runs.  In fact, I have to force them to turn on the steep parts.  Surprisingly though, they are all into jumps and boxes.  Before lunch we made a sweet jump with a gap at the CLC.  One kid perfected his 180s - another one likes to huck himself off anything and was trying to jump over two soft blocks on top of each other.

After lunch we took the Peak to Peak over to Blackcomb.  We ran into the Blackcomb Kids instructors who were working with me on Whistler all through early December.   After giving me a few ribs about secreting liking Blackcomb better, they told me the Terrain Garden was open so my class and I took a lap through.  We eventually made our way back to the CLC for a few more hits on the jump we built.

Merry Christmas!  Fun photo day!

Day 24 | jumps and trees

35 snowboarders
150 skiers in Adventure Camp (five day)
210 skiers in Destination (one day)
+ minis (ages 3-4yrs)
That's over 500 kids in Ski and Snowboard School, just in our location, which is based at the village on Whistler.  holy crap!  WE ROCK!!

Once my three AC kids showed up in the morning, we headed straight up the gondola to the Roundhouse and took a run back down to the CLC.  We picked up five more kids who were suppose to be our level, but after a lap down to the village, only one of them stayed with us, the others went to a different class.  We built a jump before lunch and practiced our 180 skills.  After lunch, the kids wanted more jumps so we spent another hour at the CLC.  Time to get moving so we headed back down to the village, taking the "secret passage", which is basically a quick run through some trees.  It was filled with powder and the kids all got stuck but loved it and wanted more.  We scooted over to the top of B-Line.

B-Line is a single track mountain bike run through the trees.  It's not an ideal tree run for snowboarders because of the table tops:  meaning there are many places that go up a hill and if you're not good enough to keep your speed, you end up having to hop up the hill or unclip your bindings and walk.  Three out of the four kids got through B-Line fairly well and quickly but one kid just had a heck of time.  He hated that run and by the time he got out, he was sweating buckets.  But it was a great time killer.  We took the Fitz chair back up and ran Crabapple down as our last run.  We had a half hour left for more jumps at the CLC.  We didn't get much snowboarding done today but the kids had a great day!!

Day 23 | Adventure Camp

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

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

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

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

Day 22 | tis the season!

It's the Saturday before Christmas and we had 30 kids signed up for Snowboard School. woo hoo.  Well, it's Christmas after all, thirty kids is nothing.   More interesting: out of the thirty, 19 of them were level ones and 9 of them were level twos (that's a lot of kids in the Magic Carpet area).   The remaining riders were two level fives.  Ski School was equally as busy with over 120 skiers.  It's the time of year that gets chaotic trying to sort 150 kids.  Personally I love this time of year!  Sometimes being in complete chaos just makes your work days so much more interesting.

I was stoked and happy to finally take a high level class.  I put in my time with those ones and twos for the past month.  We received some snow over the past few days but the freezing level rose significantly (to the Chic Pea) leaving icy conditions on anything lower than 1200 meters.  The first run down to the valley from mid-station was like concrete!  It was corduroy but it was hard and it sucked (um, what did I just say?).  The snow was amazing at the Roundhouse but it didn't take long to hit the 1200 meter mark and then it was crap.

After lunch, my two boys wanted to hit the Blackcomb Terrain park.  We hopped on the Peak to Peak, my first time this season, and we ran through the park about three times:  hitting the spines and easy ride-on boxes.  The afternoon went by fairly quick and before we knew it was time to head back down to the village and check out.  It was a good day.

Day 21 | WB Family Night

Every year, around the holidays, Whistler Blackcomb holds family night.  Employees with kids are invited and everything is set up for kids:  dinner with kids' fav: chicken strips,  pictures with Santa, horse drawn sleigh rides, jumpy castle, face painting, and everyone's favorite:  snowmobile rides!!

I volunteered my instructing services for those kids who wanted to give snowboarding a try.  They could grab some rental gear from Base II, strap on and head down the Magic Chair area.  WB had the lights on so it was three hours of night riding.  Pretty cool.  I hung out for a few hours, teaching kids how to zig zag.  I thought I was volunteering but later I was told it was a paid gig!  Can't beat that, especially with free chicken strips and fries!!

Day 20 | nothing but wet

rain - snow - rain - snow - rain - snow - repeat for 7 hours ....  Pray your Gore-tex is working!
Weird weather today.  It rained and then changed to snow, back and forth, all day at the CLC.  When it snowed, the snowflakes were huge (see pic) ~ when it rained, it was close to freezing rain.  It didn't take us long to get completely soaked first thing in the morning.  One lap on the Olympic Chair with low level three kids and we were drenched by 10:30am.

High winds in the Alpine and complete cloud cover didn't deter people from the 28cm of fresh snow.  Everyone said the snow was amazing but the wind was gusting past 100kph.  I tried getting my level threes up there but every time we stood in line at the gondola, it would stop for 20 minutes at a time (because of the high winds up top).  I decided to just do valley laps all day.  Overall it was a pretty chill day.  My uniform was wet but because I somehow ended up with a new uniform this season, I stayed pretty dry underneath.  Lucky me!

Day 19 | SNOW!!! (finally)

10cm of fresh light powder fell overnight.  It was heaven sent and very badly needed.  It's amazing how it doesn't take much snow to change the conditions from horrible to wonderful!

Today was one of those crazy days that started off with an out of control snowboarder crashing into the back of my 10 year old level three rider.  She was bruised pretty bad considering he was out of control at a high rate of speed.  I called patrol and she was done for the day.  I felt really bad for her and I hope she returns tomorrow.  Calling patrol is always a hassle as it takes a long time for someone to get to the scene.  In the meantime, you have to keep the other kids in the group, who aren't injured, to sit in the snow and be patient while help arrives for the injured party.  This can sometimes take up to hour for the entire process depending on where you are on the mountain.

After lunch we had a bit of a better day heading up to the Alpine where my remaining level three riders enjoyed some powdery conditions.   I found a few fresh tracks off the sides of runs and the snow was deep in some spots.  We ran from the Roundhouse down to the Village via Whiskey Jack, Jimmy's Joker, Expressway, Crabapple, and Northern Lights.  After that we practiced our board slides on the box that the ETC team set up outside the CLC.

My day ended on the same note as it started.  One of my kids decided to take it upon himself to ride from the CLC down to the Village on his own.  When I told him we were heading down, he snowboarded from the handle tow, past the CLC building and just kept on going down Lower Olympic.  When he passed other Instructors who questioned him about being without an Instructor, he simply told them that I told him to go down.  Needless to say I didn't tell him that but whatever.  I met back up with him at the checkout point and I told my Supervisor I wasn't going to take him in class anymore this week.

Day 18 | back to the Alpine

The fun thing about being an Instructor after a few years is that some of your students start to return year after year.  Like Kian for example.  He's a high level 6 rider and all the instructors know him.  He comes every year for two weeks and he's in Snowboard School every day of those two weeks.  He's a bit of a handful but he can also be fun.  Not to mention he gives a great back massage at lunch.  The picture is of him and James.  I didn't think the eyes of James warranted any fixing!!!

Anyhow, I took two level three kids and we did a bit of everything:  valley runs, Olympic run, and a couple laps down from the Alpine.  I haven't been to the top of the mountain since Dec 3rd.  The conditions are still the same:  hard packed with guns blowing everywhere, icy in spots (especially on Ego Bowl).  Temperatures today were back to frigid and I couldn't wait to get home and warm up in a hot bath. My kids and I took some runs with a level one guy who put a snowboard on for the first time today.  He finished his day as a level three!  He was really good.

Forecast calls for about 50cm in the next three days with about 10cm falling overnight tonight.  Temperatures are also going to warm up.  Tomorrow should be a fun day!