Whistler, 11-Week Instructor Course ‘08

WEEK 3 NOW IN, SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE

WEEK 1

After long flights we have arrived and are enjoying the new digs, all the ‘must knows’ and ‘local spots’.

Our first few days consisted of us becoming ‘familiar with the snow’ - some more then others - with numerous face plants and tree hugs, but we’ve all survived.

Whistler Blackcomb has never seen a group like this before, we will be taking over, creating a new language and running this place soon!

On snow we have been kept amused by our coaches tales and sugary candies. There have been some funny moments getting on and off lifts.

All in all it has been a pretty awesome - we’re all looking forward to what’s to come…

WEEK 2… The skiers had this to say…

Over the last two weeks we’ve been working on core skills for personal skiing and teaching and have had our intro into the level 1 demos. Who remembers plough turns? Oh the pain! Apparently it’s good for your butt (ladies take note).

Whistler has the most amazing terrain, steeps, deeps trees and bumps (oh, and the occasional groomer!). Tuesday saw a dumping of fresh snow overnight and knee deep on the Horstman Glacier. We took a break from the wedges and hit the pow pow. Lost count of the number of wipe outs. Some of us attract more snow than others. We’ll leave it at that.

Not sure any of us expected our skiing to change so much in such a short time. Hate to sound creepy but we feel lucky to have Taylor and Mike on our side, both level 4 instructors. Shame about Mike’s jokes but hey, you can’t be good at everything eh?

Last weekend saw some of the group go on their first credit activities, snow mobiling and cross-country skiing. May we recommend to those who haven’t tried the former that they don’t attempt back flips on the first run? As for the latter, it isn’t Alpine - if you lean forward you WILL eat snow.

WEEK 3 - A snowboarders perspective:

I’ve been in Whistler for 3 amazing weeks thus far and with another 9 to go we’re working and playing hard.

This week we went tubing (sliding down slopes on a huge rubber ring) and experienced the 1000 ft of tubing excellence.

The majority of us have also completed our 2 day avalanche coarse, involving transceivers, digging holes and a lot of probing.

Our instructors, JC and Paul (ultimate destruction) are excellent. Everyone has learnt loads and with only a week until our level 1 everyone is very confident.