The backside of the boomerang was had loads of windblown POW right from the get go.  It wasn’t hard to find.  One of our favourite runs, Billabong”, requires a hike up to the summit of the ‘boomer’ and down a broad chute into the trees, unfortunately it was closed due to avalanche danger.   The snow was incredible, heavy yet easy to move in; it had that floaty sensation to it.  Pure orgasmic powder.  Since it was only 10cm there was a lot of variability to the snow.  Shallow then deep and sometimes you could catch the crust underneath.  This only made for more fun….. love the challenge.  After a few runs the access to Billabong opened up so we hiked up with gusto.  Out of breath at the top we wasted no time and shot straight into it.  We discovered when we got to the bottom that there were only 4 of us…. Where was the fifth?  Ryan had ejected from one of his skis, which is not uncommon for Ryan, and slid head first (at a rather fast pace) through a series of trees.  Unfortunately he left his ski 40m up from he stopped.  Hiking up a powder rich double black diamond is not an easy task.  By the time he reappeared he was a little shaken and red in the face.  All’s well that ends well.

By the afternoon Tobin was feeling a little sick so he thought bumps would be the perfect cure.  Trying to brave the sickness for our benefit, Tobin took to the bumps with ease with the task that we had to follow his path, which is a seriously difficult thing to do.  At the bottom he didn’t look too good.  Apparently bumps aren’t good for a dodgy stomach.  Following this we headed for the ‘under construction’ skier/boarder cross course.  With new and improved steep rollers and a shit ton of snow to be groomed out, it was definitely a challenge.  I pussied out few times and had to speed check.  But the thing about skier cross is that you can go max speed as long as you know how to suck up rollers and not get any air from them.  The less air you get the faster you will complete the course.  But the faster you complete the course the faster the reactions need to be.  You got to deal with constantly reaching that zero gravity point, like losing your stomach when you quickly go down or up a hill in a car.  Everyone knows that feeling.  Except in skier cross you know it’s coming so you’re controlling the sensation.  So the faster you go, the quicker you have to correct your balance, suck up and pop the rollers (flexion and extension).

I hope I can do the skier cross competition on Saturday but there is a concert the night before down town.  Choices, choices, life is hard.  Snow, snow and more snow over the next few days.  Lovin it!

The focus for the today was spins.  We started out doing 180s into switch then popping a 180 back out of switch.  I found it really difficult to do 180s out of switch, because you think you would have to jump backwards and around but it’s actually easier to jump slightly forward and around.  Confused? Exactly!  We took the 180s to the kiddy park and popped a few with a relative ease off the small jumps.  Tobin and Luke made comments on our technique to get us into a more neutral position when landing rather than diving forward.  This is probably the reason why my shin hurts so much.  That and I naturally seem to fall on my left side as I found out on numerous occasions during Ice Hockey last week.  With success in the 180s we moved onto the theory of 360s.

We stood in a line, skis off, jumping and spinning as hard as we could.  The trick to performing a 360 is upper body rotation.  You have to pull your arms and upper body in the opposite direction to your spin, to give you more momentum through the jump.  I’m sure everyone’s tried this at least once in their life, when standing on the ground.  You have to approach the jump with a wide stance and pop at the very top of the lip.  Ski tips over the lip with the base of support on the lip. On approach pull your upper body back around in an opposite rotation to the spin.  As you pop and extend rotate your upper body back around in the direction of the spin.  Most people will find that they get 180 degrees and can’t go any further, and it’s literally as simple as turning the head to solve this problem.  Turning the head and looking for the landing will naturally force the legs to follow.  I know, I know it’s a lot to think about when attempting a 360 for the first time but this is why you start out in the kiddy park.  You have no idea how demoralising it is to watch a group of 12 year olds boost past you and perform these tricks that we find so difficult.  At the same time it’s pretty funny.  In the end one of us managed to hit three 360s in a row and one in the big boy park.  I got the 360 but the landings were always sketchy as hell, hence why my left leg is aching.  Fortunately I know good masseuse

I think I need a bath……

Terrain park training day 2, focussed on grabs.  After a brief recap in the baby park we headed to the big boy park.  Tobin, at one point, took us through a guided meditation of sorts to relax our minds and encourage us to visualise the trick we wanted to pull.  I didn’t do a very good trick.  Or though the run before this, I managed to pull off a mute grab, of sorts, but ended a little sketchy on the landing.  One of the big achievement for the day was boardsliding the 40 foot box and the inclined 15 footer.  I am pretty stoked, considering that prior to starting terrain park week I quite literally stacked it every time I attempted a box.  There is really only so much my left hip can take.  It is a little strange though, everytime that I go to attempt anything I have this little voice in my head saying “it’s quite easy to stack this”.  Obviously I don’t take much notice of it because things usually work out and it’s not really that bad if you bail.  It’s just a mental thing.  If you fall you will hurt.  Not always true.  However for some reason my body is aching like crazy after today’s park session.  I don’t actually remember bailing.

Part of the course requires some class time discussing the fundamentals of park and how you might take a lesson under particular conditions.  Conditions being the age and size of the group, how experienced they are and what the terrain and environmental conditions are like on the day.  It’s always good to have group discussions; it helps to get everyone thinking together, everyone on this course observes things differently so it’s great to have the variety of opinions.  However a lot of the time there is a right and wrong answer.  The technique you use to ski is modified in the terrain park.  You use a lot of upper body rotation for momentum to put yourself in a spin or railing.  Upper body rotation is essentially a “no no” when it comes to CSIA approved free skiing technique.  But all the other basics remain the same.  The same principles apply for stance and balance, timing and coordination, pivoting and pressure control.  Edging is interesting because a lot of park skiers prefer to have no edge on their skis so they don’t catch when approaching a jump, landing or rail.

This course is designed to make us familiar with the terrain park so we can eventually lead into CSIA Level 1 Terrain Park Instructors qualification.  To achieve this wondrous hallmark, one must perform switch riding at will on a blue run, 180s in and out of switch, a natural 360, 3 different types of grabs, and railing leading out switch and natural.  There are halfpipe requirements but unfortunately we don’t have one here at Mt Washington.  Suffice to say that I’m probably not at this level quite yet.  It’s all about mileage! More time in the park.

Being park week, the afternoon was spent…. Guess where…. In the park.  Not the big boy park that everyone loves to do big airs in, but the baby park.  We are officially kings of the kiddy box.  After a quick introduction to the etiquette of terrain park riding, we had some quality time practicing the box.  Everytime I have attempted doing a boardslide on skis (I don’t the technical name for it) I stack it on my hip, or catch the edge of the box on my ribs or back.  I learnt today that it was solely because of putting my body weight on my inside (uphill) ski.  Like in every other facet of skiing, the majority of the body weight is placed on the downhill ski.  It creates maximum edge and balance and also the key to railing in the terrain park.  By the end of the day I had only staked it once after about 10 attempts.  The one bail was quite spectacularly, I might add.  I was trying the opposite direction to what I am used to with my left leg (weaker leg) as the downhill ski.  My right ski somehow managed to dip toe end in the snow to the side of the box, I ejected and tumbled in a forwards flip over the front with a rather graceful rollout over the shoulders and back.  It didn’t hurt at all or though there was a resounding “oowwww” from the crowd.  By the end we had all started expressing our terrain park and freeride personalities with far more confidence.  A great start to the week.

Dodgeball night!  Another great game but we lost!  Or though it was probably the most fun I have ever had playing dodgeball, which is something because dodgeball is a shit ton of fun.  We lost 5-10 but I every game was close.  The other team did have two rather amazing secret weapons.  Every team has to have at least two females on in every game.  Two of the girls that were playing for this particular team are absolutely gorgeous.  To add further distraction, these two subscribe to the female Canadian culture of wearing tight black yoga pants that literally sculpt the nether regions with the awesome technology of Lycra.  Need I say more?  What a great game.

Skier-Cross training starts tomorrow.  There is a Skier and Boarder-Cross competition that starts on Saturday.  I am going to win!

Ice Hockey is a fantastic way to improve your balance, and it requires the same technique you employ in skiing.  Bend your ankles, knees, hips and back and always lean forward, an athletic mobile stance.  For me it felt like there was zero ankle support and way too much bend in joints that should be supported.  But we persevered.  By the end some of us were pulling some pretty sweet moves in an effort to beat our vastly superior opponents of the Mt Washington Ski School.  It was a whitewash, but we had an awesome time.

We were supposed to go on a Mystery Adventure on Saturday but due to the injuries inflicted during the Ice Hockey, and bad weather, we decided to give it a miss.  Apparently we were going caving! I am quite disappointed that we didn’t end up going, I would have loved to have seen some epic stalactite and stalagmite formations…… there is always tomorrow.  Tobin has done a fantastic job at packing in the weeks with loads of fun adventures around the island to keep us all entertained.  As much as I love this mountain, it is great to get off it as often as we do.

The weather has been terrible.  After an amazing dump on Thursday, there was literally nothing but rain that followed for 3 days, absolutely shocking conditions.  We persisted every day, or at least one of us did, but grippy slushy snow isn’t the most fun.  So on days like these the Section 8 crew focus on other distractions away from the slopes.  Females and parties are probably our two favourite vices and of that Mt Washington has a remarkably plentiful supply.  Every weekend the local bar Fat Teddy’s has some sort of themed party going on, and usually a cover band that plays all those awesome songs from the 60s-2000s.  Everyone loves a drunken sing along on the dance floor.  Where there is a dance floor there are usually women, a frightening amount of cougars but also some lovely ones in their 20s.  We at Section 8 don’t believe in modesty, we go large and drag as many people home with us at the end of the night……willingly dragged home, of course.

We start Terrain Park training tomorrow! Pretty exciting, can’t wait to pop a 360.

Monday, Tuesday was spent going through edging on particularly icy conditions.  It hasn’t snowed for a week now.  Ice is unrelenting, if you aren’t in a centred position and if you’re not putting all you weight on that downhill ski then you will lose your edge and you will keep sliding.  This has been one of my big goals for the season, carving on ice.  It’s only natural to sit back and take it easy on ice, but you have to totally commit to throwing yourself downhill and angulating your body over the outside ski, or you will not catch an edge.  But when that edge catches, you better be ready for it.  The skis will carve on their own, accelerating out of the turn.  When this occurs the skier needs to be centered and mobile (athletic stance) or they will end up in the aft backseat position and rinsing their tail edge.  It’s pretty sketchy when this happens.

Our afternoons was given up to racing a little slalom course with this new edging technique.  To add confusion there are particular techniques used for slalom racing.  I find when I have to think about more than one thing that I have to improve on while skiing, I forget everything else.  Suffice to say, I’m pretty rubbish at skiing slalom.

Tuesday night, Wednesday morning saw a flurry of snow settle on the icy slopes.  We tried to persist with the slalom course and performance carving but the trees and untracked powder were too enticing.  As is usually the way with Section 8, persist with the course curriculum but make the most of the conditions.  It’s not hard to twist Tobin’s rubber arm when it comes to backcountry/off piste powder.   After several days of icy conditions and warm winter temps, this lovely dump on the slopes was like a whole new world.  Better yet, no one was around.  For the first time I got a little wet through my snow gear.  10,000 waterproof and breathable clothing just doesn’t hold up in moist snow.  We went to bed with smiles on our face knowing that Thursday would bring an even larger dump of snow, the storm front hadn’t even arrived to Mt Washington, and Wednesday’s flurry was just a tease.

We awoke to the sound of wet sloppy sleet hitting the roof and windows.  How could this be?  The freezing level had risen to over the 1500m.  There was a lot of curiosity as to what was going on at the top of the mountain.  If it was sleet at the chalet then surely it must be snowing at the top.  Poor visibility meant that the only way to find out was to get into it.  Get into it we did!  As peculiar as the snow was today, it was probably the nicest I have ever skied.  But with all great things comes a consequence of the circumstances.  The top 1300m was amazing heavy knee deep powder, solid enough to plant a pole but light enough to speed through.  Truly spectacular skiing.  Tobin took us all over the mountain giving us little pointers along the way.  Powder skiing is different to skiing smooth groomed terrain.  Rather than carve and edge the run you have to bounce and plant your skis creating a surface to ride on in the column snow.  Inclination over angulation.  At around 1300m the conditions suddenly changed.  The snow was super saturated and extremely sticky.  The flats of our skis griped heavily and all speed was lost.  Horrible snow.  But I’m so happy to have experienced this powder.  No one was around we had fresh tracks everywhere.

Tonight, Ice hockey! Not many of us have even seen an ice hockey rink let alone a pair of skates.  This should be interesting.

The exam was pretty straight forward, everyone was giving a particular skill to teach on the fast track to parallel.  The skills being Mobility →Sliding →Stopping →Turning →Linking turns then working them the student after some mileage, into parallel turns. I was last of the day just before lunch so I was pretty hungry and not particularly focussed (low blood sugar) but it all worked out quite well teaching wedge turns (pizza slice, hedgehog house, Teepee.  The exam itself had quite a casual tone so it was easy to relax and not feel pressured about failing because of mistakes.  The idea is to give people the fundamentals of how to teach so that you can shadow lessons and become familiar with the practice before actually taking on your own lessons.  So now we are all pros.  Now the festivities can begin.

High on achievement and satisfaction we 13 Section 8ers hit Fat Teddy’s bar with vigor and an insatiable thirst that only Kokanee could quench.  Suffice to say that we rock the party and a 3am close is not how we roll.  We took the party home much to the distaste of the landlords that had come to visit….. opps.  Somewhere along the line we picked up a one of the more poorly informed and uneducated New Zealanders I have never cared to meet.  A 3^rd year law student from Victoria Uni in Wellington who believed that the New Zealand judiciary system should be wiped away and complete power and authority given to one person… the incorruptible judge.  Her sole reasoning being that the only people that would ever turn up for jury duty is under educated dole bludgers, specifically the indigenous population of New Zealand.  After trying to point out the error of her ways for the good part of an hour, she had enough and left feeling that no one truly understood nor appreciated her enlightened fascist mentality.  Weird.

Saturday was a repeat of Friday so I’m sure you can fill in the gaps.  Sunday however, saw us 2 hours south in Nanaimo bungee jumping.  For my first bungee experience I did a tandem jump with another Kiwi.  Tight in each other’s embrace we faced our fears together and laughed the entire way down.  After an exhilarating tandem experience, we jumped again individually which actually scared the crap out of me.  Waving your arms in the air apparently doesn’t stop you from falling.  Severely drained from the partying and adrenaline; we all passed on our way back to Courtenay.   Sunday was Waitangi day (New Zealand nation day), a day to remember the idea of unity and the great nation I’m from.  One of the female lifties (a kiwi) was having a party to celebrate and had a commendable attempt at making a Hungi (traditional way to cook food) which obviously failed.  The stones weren’t hot enough and not buried deep enough, but a commendable effort all the same.  All in all it was a fantastic party a laugh a minute which is usually the way with these guys.  The ride back up the mountain brought on a profound acknowledgement of the past month that I have spent with these dudes.  We are all adventurous in our own right and each has individually unique personalities.  We have had the wonderful blissful honeymoon period and the realisation has occurred that some personalities clash with others.  But the wonderful thing has been reconciliation.  As soon as any drama erupts it is quenched out by the cooling resolve of clear communication.  My point is, if anything at all, that this is an amazing unique experience and some of the coolest people I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting.  I Love Snow!

Thankfully we managed to smash out all the classroom material yesterday so we had the whole day to enjoy the slopes and doing mock instructing sessions.   Yesterday was an amazing blue bird day. Not a cloud in the sky.  It’s like insult to injury, sitting in a classroom when it was perfect conditions on the slopes.  We woke this morning to about 10cm of fresh snow and a mountain covered in ice fog.  Trust me when I say, it is an ordeal to ski through this stuff.   Your goggles ice up so you can’t see a thing. Every few hundred meters you need to stop to whip your lens to get a glimpse at what you’re riding on.  It makes for some pretty interesting runs first thing in the morning when you’re warming up.  Sketchy!  Fortunately it dropped into the basin as the sun heated everything.  So today turned out to be clear and overcast.

Day 3 was pretty cool, we got to spend it with the lovely Jen (married, unfortunately, or so the ring on the 4^th finger says).  Everyone in the group got a chance to lead a couple of people in the group through the 6 steps to an introductory lesson, while the others watched, made mental notes for a discussion afterwards.  This gave everyone a chance to observe, critique and teach.  The 6 steps to an entry level lesson are Mobility – getting the skier to walk around in boots and familiarising themselves with the skis and how they feel attached to their feet.  Sliding – the skier’s first movements in skis so a light slope to slide straight down, preferably with a rise at the end so gravity will stop them.  Stopping – making a wedge shape with their skis to stop (snow plow).  Turning – turning one direction at a time on a controlled low angle slope.  Finally linking – linking a left and right turn into the same exercise.  At this point you would get as much mileage out of the lesson so the skier could become familiar with turning.  This is helping me reiterate what we have learnt because tomorrow is the exam.

By the end of it we were pretty keen to amp things up so the Section 8ers in my group did a speed run from top to bottom.  It’s about 1.6km from the top of the mountain to the bottom and plenty of steep groomers to get hoofing it.  Any chance for a bit of competition, the lads are in.  healthy competition of course.  Using the application on my phone we managed to just beat my previous best speed score on the mountain of 103.7km/h by a tenth of a kilometer -103.8km/h.  I got too nervous in places and speed checked so I think I could definitely beat it with a bit more courage.  Still…. Pretty impressive if I do say so myself.

CSIA Level 1 course: day 2.  Thankfully we were in the class room for the morning so being hungover didn’t require too much in the way of physical activity.  We were crammed into the children’s daycare room with tables below your knees and chairs to suit.  Not the most comfortable learning environment.  There was a lot of interaction so the time passed reasonably quickly.  Our afternoon was spent discussing and participating in teaching wedge turns and snow plows for people who have no ski experience.  We went even further into analysing and assessing individuals to find the root cause of poor technique.  This whole experience has made me incredibly critical of skier’s technique.  We have been encouraged to do so.  The trick is not to let it surface.  Its all interesting and important to know, but when it is crystal clear skies and calm cool weather, all you can think about is free riding and taking on the mountain.  Just a little bit distracting.

I think tomorrow is focussed on freeriding while incorporating intermediate parallel turns in varying terrain.  I’m not sure if this is true but that would be fantastic.  The snow is amazing at the moment.  One of my goals for the season is to improve my mogul technique.  It has improved a load thanks to Nigel and Tobin but today I had a mint run and suddenly came across Nigel and his girlfriend.  I decided to show off my tricks but got too far ahead of myself, losing all flow and technique.  It was so disappointing, in a funny way…… far too eager to impress.  That’s another goal for the season, lose the ego.

So today was back to basics, intermediate parallel turns.  Reiterate being the word of the day, I shall explain an intermediate parallel turn once again.  An intermediate parallel turn is a medium paced series of parallel ski turns, emphasising the essentials of skiing technique.  The 5 basic essentials of skiing are Stance and Balance, Timing and Coordination, Pivoting, Edging and Pressure Control.  Finally the intermediate parallel turns must be performed at medium pace so that a client of intermediate ability could keep up with you (as an instructor).  After performing this for the morning we got onto individual critiquing in the afternoon.  Tobin gave us all something to work on, for me it was throwing myself downhill into my turns.  The idea is to exaggerate the drill such as describing it as ’throwing yourself downhill’, so that your muscles remember the feeling at the appropriate time during a parallel turn.  Free skiing is hardly ever like an instructed lesson so the more you exaggerate the drills the better you will perform in your own time.  It was quite a bit of a breakthrough today, I came away from feeling fantastic after a morning of misery fuelled by lack of sleep and bad head space.

Sadly we had an injury from the dodgeball game.  One of the keen skiers made a remarkable dodge, flying through the air, feet above his head and landed on his wrist.   At the time the champ kept on playing with absolute tenacity.  Unfortunately he pain persisted and after a morning at the doctors the diagnosis was a broken Scaphoid.  I have no more knowledge about anatomy to comment further on the matter.  Suffice to say that his season is not over!

Poker tonight! This will be the first Section 8 home event that doesn’t involve excessive drinking, load music and women.  Well I say that now, the night is still young.