(left to right) Helen, Siobhan, Sonya, Aimee, Lisa and (of course) a total random stranger. Waiting for the chair lift after doing Whistler’s famous Peak to Creak run.
Somehow a week has raced past whilst I’ve not been looking and there is so much to write to my blog again. I will split it up and write some more tomorrow…
Last week there was a trip to Mt Baker on Tuesday, but apart from that I was preparing for my Level 2 exam, which meant riding with 5 girls and being coached by Lisa. It was strange riding in a group as the only guy (as normally the groups have more guys than girls), but it meant that I have learnt how to penguin slide, do pony jumps, break-dance on the piste and also how to snow-ballroom dance. Plus there was some real snowboarding which included riding switch loads and improving my carving. It was appropriate that I was riding with all girls as it was charge of the goddess week in Whistler. When not in lessons I have been riding the park a lot and working on a whole load of grabs that I still can’t do. I also hit some of the jumps in the blue park. Hitting the jumps in the blue park is totally different as you have to be going fast enough to scare yourself at the point that you take off the jump – otherwise you don’t reach the landing and landing on the table between the jump and landing is extremely unfunny. I am so happy to have landed my first step-up jump (where the landing is higher than the take-off).
On Friday I rode with the freestyle crew for the day. I practiced the boardercross, halfpipe, blue park and worked a lot on my boardslides on boxes. The advanced freestyle group (which I am not in) had two of the best halfpipe riders in the world coaching them – including Crispin Lipscomb. Not only had Crispin just won the Showcase Showdown in Whistler but he also rode in the Olympic halfpipe final 2 years ago and there are not many occassions when you get the chance to be coached by an Olympian so that crew were stoked at the end of the afternoon. Being the happy, fun-loving snowboarding people that we are, we did what you should always do when meeting an Olympic finalist and went to the pub for Apres-beers with Crispin. Friday nights are always a night out as it the end of the week and there are normally people leaving on Saturday.
I took the day off on Saturday as I had managed to pick up a couple of injuries (nothing serious) from practicing boardslides on boxes – or rather from crashing when practicing. But I was back on my board on Sunday and tomorrow I will tell you how I managed to fall 100m down a chute from the top of the glacier.
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