Our first week of level two training had gone by and many of us were tired, but exited to plunge into the more advanced riding and teaching. That day I woke up and did my daily morning routine. This usually consists of lying in bed for fifteen minutes listening to music, slowly rising to put on my bottom layers for the day, heading upstairs to make coffee, going back downstairs to stretch, and finally heading back upstairs for my gear and out the door.
This morning I caught the 8:15 Ridge Rocket chair and cruised into the VCM by 9:25. I met up with the snowboarding crew by the Big Big White chair. We divided into groups and I found myself with Kyal, Luko, Ben, Joey, Jack, and Phill, all instructed by Dom. We set off on our cruise down to Ridge Rocket and started our morning shred. We had a fun day jibbing around and working on our level two riding techniques. That night wrapped up with a hot tub session and some more film editing.
The next morning we woke up with over ten centimeters of fresh powder to shred. Tuesday we packed our lunches and headed out to Gem Lake for the day. With so much fresh snow we enjoyed great first tracks on the long run down to the Gem Lake chair from the top of the T-bar. Once we got to Gem, we all convinced Dom to let us shred around for the morning and not worry about practice teaches. Thus, we got to shred run after run with as much freedom as we wanted. We would continuously meet up at stopping points and talk about our riding but the time in between was filled with steep shin deep tracks and fresh powder. At one point I went off the trail too far and found a nice little pillow line. I was right next to Luko so I had a feeling I was in an okay spot to drop. At the bottom of the line I found myself too far down the slope to make a turn that the rest of the group took. Thus I ended up meeting back with them at the bottom. I did learn a lesson though when that happened. Dom had no idea where I was which created a safety priority for the lesson.
The day continued and we spent the rest of the afternoon doing rider improvement at Gem Lake. That afternoon once training ended, I found myself back at the road gap with about fifteen other people. We all “sessioned” the jump for about an hour. The night ended with a good meal and some time spent in the hot tub.
Admittedly, I woke up feeling sore Wednesday from the previous day’s riding. This matched with an upset stomach, forced me to stay in the following day. Again, admittedly, I shredded the road gap all afternoon with about 25 other people so the rest was short-lived. We had a blast filming and flipping around all day and I wouldn’t trade it for the regret I would feel the following morning. Sometimes like Ant you just have to say, “When in Rome.” I also found myself at Sam’s that night where I played pool and hung out Leigh, Sam, Lambo, Bobby, and a good portion of the NBS crew.
When Thursday came around I woke up sore as ever and slowly made my way out the door. That morning Dom gave us a few level two teaching demonstrations. In the afternoon we spent a good deal of time jibbing around the mountain. We had a whole lot of fun that day shredding the groomers.
On Friday Fraser stepped in to instruct us for the day. Since it was Friday we cruised around the mountain practicing some freestyle tricks while working on our level two riding techniques. We ended up spending some time at Gem Lake again where everyone practiced spinning. That day, I ended up switching boards with Jack and Luko at one point or another and we all had fun riding different styles of boards. We also witnessed Joey do her first front 360 that day. It was killer! That night we had our group meal at the Bull Wheel. It was great to get another burger in me, which was at this point becoming a regular choice for Friday group meal. I headed back to the house after dinner with Kyal and Ben and we turned in after hanging out for a bit.
Saturday I slept in a bit and headed out to snowboard at around 10:30. I met up with Jake and Liam and rode in the park all morning. We then headed out to film at Easter Chutes for the afternoon. Sunday was more of the same, filming in the park in the morning and shredding around the mountain in the afternoon. Sunday most of the NBS crew went to “Cruze the Blues” and eventually, after endless blue riding, got free t-shirts. They are pretty sweet too. We had the day off on Monday so I shredded around the mountain with Jake, Liam, Tim, Ben, and Ash. It was warm and foggy so we went to the park in the afternoon where we practiced our rail game. All in all, it was a very fun but tiring week.
TJ