Monday 25th January 2016
The final full week before our CASI level 1 snowboard examination. I got out early to catch some fresh lines before we all met at the village centre to see who our instructor for the week was! French one week and now we were with Mao all the way from Japan. We were all starting to collect flags on the trip which was pretty sick as our teaching was being adapted by not only different teaching perspectives, but different countries perspectives, which obviously had varied teaching methods and styles. Mao was all for the trees so we were smashing runs through them with intermittent teaching scenarios to prep us for the exam the week after. We were all pretty knackered from the weekends antics so headed back to the apartment to Mondays refill of food for the week ahead – smiles and beers all round in the hot tub.
Tuesday 26th January 2016
Australia day on the slopes. Girls in bikinis going down the slopes. Bikinis aside, today we were with Mao again focusing on riding technique and surprisingly pretending you’re playing Quidditch on a snowboard actually does work wonders for your turns. After lessons we all headed straight to the bottle shop to grab some beers and head to the Hostel where all the aussies congregate with a DJ playing and a kicker set up with people throwing drunken backflips to face – good times. The whole NBS crew stayed to the end and long enough to see the token village idiot Axel do a falling leaf to face off the jump. Then we headed to Sams to fly through some jugs and play some pool.
Wednesday 27th January 2016
Today our instructors switched and Jamie – BC snowboard coordinator of the year, who took over for the rest of the week. The guy snowboards like Jesus would of and made everyone in the group feel like they were snowboarding for the first time. He was keen to sort our riding out before next weeks exam so took us through some challenging runs to bring out our weaknesses. It was sweet going from Mao to Jamie as they both spotted similar weaknesses in our riding but both had different exercises to fix them. It was also sick to be riding with one of the most qualified and experienced snowboard instructors in Canada so turned out to be one the best days so far! NBS has the best instructors!
Thursday 28th January 2016
Fat dumps overnight meant that we all headed straight up the T-bar to carve through 15cm of fresh snow. Visibility wasn’t amazing because of the amount of snow that had fallen, but it didn’t matter because we were flying through the off piste and dropping off mini cliffs and landing on pretty much snowy clouds – dope. We then all headed down to Happy Valley in the afternoon to go through some teaches which all went really well for everybody! That evening we all headed back to the apartment for a big meal and beers in the hot tub followed by more beers and cards. Snowboarding and beers. Standard.
Friday 29th January 2016
Our last day with Jamie and we were all pretty gutted. Even though we had to teach all day in prep for next week, we crammed in a little morning shred and fun challenges through moguls. It was amazing to see how after just a week of teaching, everyone had improved so much and was absolutely nailing every teach and demonstration. We headed up to Sams for our Friday chat/evaluation/pre drinks from Jamie. It was sick week of teaching and riding and everyone felt really well prepared for our exams next week. That night our Friday meal was at The Blarney Stone which is the only Irish Pub on the mountain. The food was top notch and the beers even cheaper so we all got pretty bladdered before heading to Sams for another night of antics which no one wanted to hear about the next day.
Saturday 30th 2016
Bleary eyed we all got up early doors to head out to Gem Lake where the powder was thick and the tree runs even thicker. It was fat session where we all met up at the top lift and bossed the mountain together which was sweet because the boarders don’t see much of the skiers so it was nice to see how much they had all progressed too! We all stayed out all day before heading to Sams for some beers and then heading to the SnowPines chalet where eight of the NBS guys lived for a house party. They had a kicker built and a hot tub so we all sat in the tub drinking beers watching people end themselves off the kicker.
Sunday 31st 2016
Everyone was feeling pretty sorry for themselves so the apartment was pretty lifeless before midday. Then we all got up and headed out for a board for a couple hours in the afternoon before coming back and sitting in the hot tub for pretty much 5 hours trying to steam the alcohol out of us. After a big meal that night we were all on the sofa couch potatoes, part of the furniture trying to get ourselves straight for the biggest week of our NBS careers so far!
Marcus.