I want – I got

I wasn’t interested in snowboarding. I was a happy skier who didn’t really understand the appeal of these kids riding around on one plank and their feet strapped to it. Thanks to Seema Dhillon and Kelly Etsell of Roxy was provided the opportunity to learn how to snowboard with the ROXY All Star Snow Camp at Whistler Blackcomb.

The Roxy Snow Camp is a two day snowboard and ski camp for legal age women of all abilities from absolute beginner to experts. The idea of the camp is to give women a chance to learn or improve in a women friendly environment. All the instructors are amazing women riders who are there to impart their wisdom to the attendees. It’s pretty cool to have these great role models to learn from and break the male stereotype of hardcore riders.

This program is designed for women over the age of 19 in all skill levels from their first stages of skiing to those who like to dabble in the park. This is a warm positive environment that will help you get to that next level. You’ll get great coaching from top level female skiers to help you along and the après is a riot, complete with your new friends, a few prizes and lots of the day’s triumphs to share. Meet in the morning and start the day with coffee and muffins. Plus special shopping benefits at the Quiksilver Store in Whistler, BC.(source)

Day 1 was led by Nina a 10+ year snowboarder. She was only 22. Nina let me know that the Roxy instructors were warned of my (the blogger) arrival and that they must be awesome. I was a little surprised to hear this but I laughed. I guess my reputation is going to proceed me in certain situations. This could be a good thing. There were three girls in my group which was perfect. We learned some of the absolute basics like board terminology, how to use the bindings and the difference between goofy and regular foot. We learned some basic movements in the morning like proper snowboarding stance, heel edge & toe edge slides. After lunch we worked on how to do toe edge and heel edge turns individually. Once we got the two parts down, it was time to string them together into a complete movement of heel to toe edge turning.

Nina was an amazing instructor. She was articulate when describing what we needed to do with out bodies and when correcting our mistakes. It’s really helpful when learning when your instructor knows the mechanics and can describe them in a way that is easy to understand and emulate. By the end of the day, I was able to put the turns together without falling too much. Day 2 would see us get on a chairlift and do some longer and steeper runs. The hardest thing of Day 1 wasn’t the falling or learning the movements; it was sequesterment to the bunny hill and magic carpet. Eric came to visit me and laugh at my turns towards the end of the day. He also rubbed in that it was puking up top and the conditions were awesome.

Snowboarding and skiing couldn’t be anymore different. The easiest analogy I can use to describe it to skiers that have never touched a snowboard is that Snowboarding is all about letting go and skiing is more about holding on tight. Of course the there are the differences in equipment: a single board and way, way more comfortable shoes. No poles to worry about and only single edges. Upper body movement and pressure on the lead knee is how you steer in snowboarding. You swing your upper body and the board follows. This requires a degree of trust that your board will follow that isn’t present in skiing. Both require a lot of leg strength and snowboarding works the knees like crazy. If your legs are straight in snowboarding you are in trouble which explains the relaxed, slack snowboarder stance. The stand, turn and sit principle applies to both sports with a major difference being that in skiing you want to keep your shoulders and upper body facing down the mountain as much as possible for control. You legs absorb the bumps and you use lower body leaning to catch edges for turning. If your shoulders are facing down the mountain in snowboarding you probably picking up a ton of speed and might be in a wee bit of trouble if you can’t initiate a heel or toe edge turn. One of the biggest fears to get over in snowboarding is letting yourself point the board down the mountain during turns. As a beginner, turns would go from an edge (heel or toe depending on how you are starting) to the board being flat to another edge. Trying to skip the flat board transition often resulted in catching an edge at the wrong time and a major faceplant or butt fall. You can see some of my wipeouts from this incorrect transition in my videos.

I think snowboarding is easier to learn than skiing. You don’t have all the equipment to worry about. Progress comes more quickly in snowboarding than skiing. I remember my first lessons as a child, we didn’t touch poles until we got our snowplow down. Once we graduated to poles there was all the instruction in learning how to turn with legs together. I definitely didn’t pick it up in over two days. I spend many years in lessons to get to the level I’m at now.

I awoke for day two without any major body parts hurting. Even my butt was fine. I was stoked for learning how to navigate a chairlift on a board and getting some longer, steeper runs in. My day one mate, Sarah and I moved to Myia’s group on day two as we were ready to head up the lift for more challenging practice. Myia, like Nina, was amazing. She was very articulate, enthusiastic and supportive. Sarah and I learned a lot from her on Sunday. Our first foray on the Magic chair was successful and no one fell the first time. We wouldn’t be fall free that day but as Eric said to me, everyone falls. We did a few longer runs practicing out turning and control before Myia proclaimed that we could head up the Wizard chair for more difficult and longer green runs. As the day progressed my fears eased and I got a lot more aggressive with my turns and speed. That aggressiveness caused some wipeout but I learned from each of those. After few more green runs, Myia saw that the group was progressing enough to tackle some blue runs. It was intimidating a first and I bailed a lot on the first blue run we tackled. As the fears eased the blue runs became easier to manage and falling became less of an issue. It was great to finally experience more of the mountain on a board.

I was ecstatic. Here I am, someone who has never touched a snowboard before, taking on intermediate runs. I was getting hooked on snowboarding. The feeling of putting those turns together isn’t something I can describe. It’s like catching a wave on a board and once your hooked like a crackhead always chasing the next fix. I was beginning to understand these snowboarders and why people give up skiing to board. I was slowly being converted to the darkside. Thoughts of buying boarding equipment were entering my mind. I could use the horrible skiing in Collingwood as a snowboarding training ground for my next trip to Whistler. I want to be a mountain renaissance woman who skis and snowboards with ease. How freaking cool would that be? The weather conditions would dictate whether I ski or snowboard that day. People who do both tell me that they leave their skis at home on deep pow days as snowboarding is really like surfing on those days. The thought is like a virus slowly taking over my brain. I couldn’t drop snowboarding after these two days and return to skiing; it has to continue.

Myia and Nina were both really impressed with my progress over the two days. I never did tell them that I was a former athlete and pick up sports pretty quickly. My friend Andrew has called me an amazing natural athlete, which is a major compliment from him.  Soccer, field hockey, basketball, track and volleyball were my sports in high school. I went to Junior nationals for Long and Triple jump back in my university days. All that training and body awareness helped me in picking up snowboarding so quickly.

The Roxy Snow Camp is really for all ages. I figured I’d be the oldest but at après I met women in their 40s learning how to handle the jumps in the snowboard park. It was inspiring. I would recommend this camp to any women who are in Whistler and are looking for instruction. I got so much out of the camp that I’m giddy about it. I went into the camp with a goal to be able to turn and ride green runs without falling all over the place. The excellent teaching from Nina and Myia blew my goal out of the water. I never expected to board intermediate runs from the top of the Jersey Cream chair.

The camp is great value of the money. You get amazing instruction for two days in small groups. There were some women who got one on one instruction because there was only one person in their level. Private instruction at Whistler Blackcomb runs around $700/day including lift ticket and rentals. The Roxy Camp is $265 including a lift ticket and $199 without. Season’s pass holders get $50 off and the Edge Card gets you $35 off. There is a cool Roxy All Star Snow Camp hoodie for each camper and a little après ski with snacks and beer. You really can’t beat the camp in terms of value. Rental equipment if needed isn’t included in the camp fees. There are two more Roxy Snow Camps this year (March 18 – 19 and April 9 – 10, 2011) and they are filling up fast.   The camp is very popular with good reason.

Roxy graciously provided me access to the Roxy Snow Camp free of charge.
See all my Whistler Photos on flickr.com and Videos on vimeo.com

My first 4 days in Whistler were spent skiing, sleeping and eating. I kept up with the blogging a bit. I tried to keep up with the fashion weeks unsuccessfully. Once the craving for sleep got to me the blogging dropped off. I usually ski 4 or 5 days in a row while in Whistler. This trip I did 7 days. Two of those days were spent learning to snowboard at the Roxy Snow Camp. My body is hurting.

I did a lot of skiing alone this trip. My friend Eric came out a few times but had to work. He’s a local and has a season’s pass so he gets out a lot. I’m very jealous of his lifestyle. Eric likes to tease me with text messages about the conditions while I’m sitting at my desk in the Financial District. It’s absolute torture. I was hoping to meet up with my friend Mo who took me on my first double black diamond runs that last time I was in Whistler. Our paths weren’t meant to cross this trip and we didn’t get to meet up. It was a shame since I knew he would push me to try other double blacks I could handle. To be safe I didn’t get to some of the runs I wanted to. One of the first statements of the Alpine Responsibility Code is to ride with a buddy.

Flute Bowl is a part of Whistler Mountain that taunts and tempts me every season. It requires a 20-30 minute bootpack up the Flute Ridge (find correct name). The bootpack I’ve affectionately dubbed the death march. The death march, it looks like hell but the rewards are amazing. The death march really deters people from riding the Flute Bowl which means pristine conditions and deep pow. On my list was Spanky’s Ladder which leads into the Gemstone bowls (Garnet, Sapphire, Ruby and Diamond). I skipped out on doing a lot of crazy stuff I wasn’t familiar with at all when alone. I still had an amazing time. I rode favourite areas of both mountain like 7th Heaven, Blackcomb Glacier, Peak to Creek, Symphony and Harmony.

The last time I was in Whistler they were building the Peak 2 Peak gondola that would link Whistler and Blackcomb mountains. It’s the only gondola of it’s kind in the world.

Spanning the distance between Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains, the new world record-breaking PEAK 2 PEAK Gondola is a breathtaking, 4.4-kilometre journey to infinite possibilities. Redefining the Whistler summer experience by creating limitless new ways to get up-close-and-personal with the mountains, this engineering marvel breaks three world records.

• Longest unsupported span of 3.024 kilometres
• Highest lift of its kind at 436 metres above the valley floor
• Completes the longest continuous lift system on the globe(source)

I was slightly scared my first trip across. There are only four towers and gondolas usually have many towers to get you from place to place. There is beautiful view of Fitzsmmons creek (which I ziplined across) and the valley between both mountains. I didn’t get a chance to ride one of the two glass bottomed gondolas. That would have been cool.

The first day on the mountain was painful. I didn’t do any leg training ahead of time, even though I said I would. I had to take a lot of breaks. I even had a beer which is something I never do when riding. It got better over the next days and I was able to handle runs over 6 kilometres without stopping all the time.

Orb Clothing provided me a jacket and base layer. It wasn’t one of their more technical jackets but it worked well. It was waterproof, breathable and combined with my 4 base layers it was really warm, too warm some days. My only issue was the buttons. They were hard to snap on with gloves and one popped off on my sixth day on the mountain. I’m still wearing my K2 pants from when was 18. I love the colour but I need an upgrade to something waterproof and windproof. I way over packed for this trip. I could halved my clothing budget as I spent most of my time in gear or PJs.

The weather was a mixed bag. I saw the whole gamut of options: clear and sunny, overcast or snowy. The weather always changes in the mountains and you take what you are given. On Wednesday, a storm came into the area and closed many of the chairs heading up the mountain. Creekside was pretty much shutdown. Eric and I caught one of the last rides up the mountain. We didn’t get too far after that and headed over to the Whistler village side of things which was marginally better. The alpine saw winds of around 100 km/hr and really low visibility. That probably was the worst day I had but I still went out and rode what I could. It was a good day for warming up after my hurting day 1 on Tuesday.

Thursday was the best day. The storm of Wednesday dropped some good snow and there was some pow to be had. I was skiing alone again so I avoided a lot of the unknown fun stuff. First order of business was 7th Heaven on Blackcomb which offers some beautiful views and great gladed skiing. It lives up to the name in spades.

I also made a point of hitting up the Blackcomb Glacier which is my absolute favourite spot on the mountains. The glacier is so immense. The sheer enormity of the place can’t be captured in pictures even with a wide angle lens. If you look at my photos taken from the top of the glacier you’ll see some little black specs that could be mistaken for noise. Those are people, that’s how big it is. When you finally ride out of the large glacier there is a 10km cat track that takes you back to the Excelerator chair where you can head back to the glacier if you have the patience for two more chairlifts, t-bar and a small bootpack. In all it’s probably about 13km from the top of the glacier to the end. A lot of distant to cover for one run, take that Collingwood.

Monday, my last day on the mountain, was phenomenal too. It was sunny and clear for most of the day and the views of the Rocky mountain range from the alpine area were insanely beautiful. I felt really good that day despite the two days of snowboarding and using different muscles than skiing. I probably did about 25km of skiing that day. Blackcomb Glacier was revisited to see it on a clear day. I also did my favourite run Peak to Creek twice which is a 6km run from the peak of Whistler mountain all the way to the base at Creekside. Monday was a major mileage day.

Whistler Blackcomb is why I can’t be bothered to ski in Ontario anymore. You go from runs that could take anywhere from 30 – 45 minutes to less than 5. It  just doesn’t sit well with me anymore. Of course black diamonds in Ontario don’t even come close to what you see in the mountains. Double black diamonds are just none existent.

See all my Whistler Photos on flickr.com and Videos on vimeo.com

Getting to Vancouver was hell. I missed my flight with the perfect seat setup. I ended up on another one that way flying to Hong Kong. It was huge 777  the 3-4-3 seat configuration. I had a middle seat. It sucked, but thank god I was so damn tired that I slept the whole way. I was totally off my vacation vibe and was a super stress ball. That disappeared when I saw Denise and her car at the airport. Denise is the wife of my one of my best friends from childhood, Andrew. Denise is awesome. She arranged a surprise reunion with Andrew and I on my last trip out west to hit up Whistler. Facebook is how she tracked me down. I posted about being on the west coast and the rest was history. It was great to reconnect as we hadn’t spoken in a several years.

The weather in Vancouver was a trip. It was like Toronto, cold and snowy. I was astonished and sad. Where was my 12 degrees dammit! I heeded the warnings and decided to pack like it was Toronto. After lunch, my first order of business was to watch Andrew play soccer with his team. Soccer is Andrew’s game and I’ve seen him play many times. Andrew has coached teams I played on in high school. Yes, I was going to watch Andrew play in the cold and snow. I didn’t know who to feel sorry for me or Andrew at first. It was cold and horrible. After the game started I knew that my sympathy needed to goto the players. The pitch and ball were slippery. It was a messy, sloppy game of football. Despite that Andrew’s team won and he scored the winning goal. It was a great welcoming moment watching Andrew do the airplane celebration down the field.

Denise prepared a wonderful home cooked meal and my plans to hit the Tiki Bar at the Waldorf Hotel disappeared. The crazy snowstorm didn’t help the situation either. Seriously, it was like Toronto and depressing. Sunday was another day of failed plans with friends of the family. I was just tired from the commute the day before. I planned to do more in Vancouver but I promptly got very lazy on arrival and didn’t get everything I wanted to.  I did keep one commitment on Sunday. I attended an Oscar party at the Opus Bar.  The next day I paid a visit to Orb Clothing and got a peek at the new fall collection.  I went to bed early to catch the 5am bus to Whistler Tuesday morning.

See all my Whistler Photos on flickr.com and Videos on vimeo.com