Before I start this post I might need to introduce some terms related to the mountains and all things white:
chute – narrow passage down the mountain, normally with rocks/cliffs on either side. Often steep. Sometimes icy.
cornice – a snow drift that overhangs a precipice. These can be so big that you can ride on them without knowing if you don’t know where you are on the mountain. Given that cornices are prone to giving way when there is a human being stood on top of them, it is best to be aware of where they might be on the mountain.
I’ll come back to chutes and cornices in a minute, but first lets catch up on the missing day…On Sunday I rode the park so that I could practice a bunch of my tricks that I am working on. (For those that are interested I am still learning BS1s and switch BS1s, but these are pretty much ready to be taken off kickers now. Grab-wise I can just about grab melon, but nose, tail, stalefish and method grabs are all still in the developmental stage. Oh, and I’m occasionally having a go at FS3s. For those not interested, try and write over the part of your brain that you just wasted on weird snowboard terms with something more interesting. Or drink some wine and hope that the alcohol hunts out and kills the relevant brain cells.) Sunday night a bunch of the pro-ride crew went out to celebrate the fact that Adam, Will and Hannah had all passed their level 1 exams. Congrutulations to them.
Monday and Tuesday the Level 2 crew had Anthony as our instructor (owner of pro-ride) and he was determined to challenge us. The weather in Whistler at the moment is cloudy all the time, with the clouds acting as fog when on the mountain – so there are times when you can see fine and times when you can’t. Monday the freezing point was above 1000m so there was rain on the mountain and when the snow is full of moisture snowboards stop sliding on the snow and occasionally bite against it – attempting to throw the rider into an involuntary frontflip. When conditions are like this the best thing to do is go up. So we did. We rode the T-bar on the glacier and rode some awesome lines, working on our carving. Then we hiked off the top of the T-bar, behind a cafe and looked at probably the steepest chute I have ever had the misfortune to be stood at the top of. Fortunately (for me) there were too many rocks so we couldn’t ride this chute. Unfortunately (also for me) we instead rode along the ridge with Anthony offering us some advice “…stay to the left of the poles, if you go to the right of them then it will be the last turn you ever make…”. Filled with the confidence that this sentence was clearly designed to bestow we set off along the ridge riding in the small corridor between the poles (no ropes) and the cliffs on the left. We weren’t told not to go left as it was pretty obvious that there was a cliff. The right was less obvious as this was a huge cornice, but we all knew what it was and just focused on staying alive. 2/3rds of the way down the ridge Anthony stopped and rode out onto the cornice and peered over the edge. He then looked at us and said something worse than before… “we’re going to drop in here”. So one by one we rode onto the cornice to drop into the lines below. The drop is only about 3 foot onto a part of the mountain that gives you the opportunity to traverse left and then ride round some rocks and eventually into a huge powder field. It goes without saying that it is all extremely steep. I rode over to the edge of the cornice a little to quickly and the snow under me gave way (too many burgers?) and I fell the three foot down. Due to the steepness I continued to fall – I had about 10m in which to stop myself or I was going to go over the next edge and I had no idea what was down there. I didn’t manage to stop – so I slid about 100 metres down a chute going rediculously fast and watching rocks whizz past me on both the left and the right. It was probably the most frightening experience of my life – worse than being in a car crash. But I didn’t hit any rocks and I didn’t hurt myself one bit. So I got up, waited for the others to catch up after taking the slow way down, and then we all shredded the powder field.
Tuesday we were going to try and ride the same chute again, but the T-bar was closed due to high winds, so we rode some other gnarly lines and practiced some of the techniques for our Level 2. We also had our video analysis during which we were able to watch a fantastic crash that Will provided for the cameras. He was riding a pillow line, but after coming off the first one he catches his toe edge and did the biggest front flip into the next pillow – he probably went 10m through the air, maybe more! Fortunately for him, he landed in some powder and was absolutely fine. Lucky Will.
I’ll try and get a photo of the chute that I fell down, but it will have to be on Friday as Weds and Thurs we ride on Whistler mountain rather than Blackcomb.
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