With the 3rd week bringing about a slight change in the schedule with lesson starting on the Sunday, Monday was day 2 of lessons and after some spectacular bluebird days the all familiar snow clouds had rolled in and looked set to start dumping snow on this beautiful resort. There was also a noticeable drop in temperature and all signs were starting to point to powder days on the horizon.
With exams looming and only a week away there was a lot more emphasis on the teaching side. The snowboarders headed back out with Alyn and Fraser and continued working on their feedback and practice teaching. Monday came to a close with everyone heading home and hitting the hot tub to relax.
Wednesday arrived and it brought the snow. This was a welcome relief, as although the prior bluebird days were awesome, there is nothing like riding the fresh stuff. Fraser took his snowboard group over to the Black Forrest to work on riding and to do some video analysis, then headed to Happy Valley, the beginner terrain, to see how their teaching ability was progressing. Alyn after a few warm up runs started testing his group on their teaching skills with some on the spot lessons around the mountain to ensure they were picking up the correct knowledge and getting their demos down. The skiers were with Luc this week and absorbed his wise words on skiing and teaching, with the morning working on their skiing skills and the afternoon working on teaching.
It had stopped snowing in the afternoon but had picked up in the evening meaning everyone awoke on Thursday morning to a nice little 12cm dusting. Alyns snowboard group and the skiers did some video analysis so they could review themselves in the end of week wrap up at the end of the day. The day was mostly spent enjoying the snow and working on the teaching side making sure everybody was starting to feel more confident with the content. The end of day wrap ups were held back at the students house where they could take advantage of the cinema room to hook up the camera and watch how much they have progressed over the week. This is such a great tool as you cannot see yourself riding during the day and offers the perfect platform to show what your instructors mean when the say you need to bend more and be more dynamic!
Staring lessons on the Sunday meant that the Friday was a free day and did they need it. Everyone had decided it was Thursday night club and headed out for a few drinks. Couple that with a hard weeks riding come Friday the students were beat and took advantage of time off snow by heading down to Kelowna to do some shopping and stock up on some essentials. Friday evening saw the beginning of the Avalanche Training Course so some of the NothinButSnow students had their dinner early so they could dash off to the avalanche course. Dinner was held in the Gunbarrel Grill and on the menu was a roast beef dinner with the spectacular peanut butter ice cream desert. The remaining group turned up at 6.30 and devoured the meal. Next stop a few beers and some friendly competition over the pool table.