Cantabrigienne
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@kiki Something of a mixed bag. We had 30cm (1ft) of snow on Thursday but very high winds, so over half the mountain was shut and we were relatively limited in terms of terrain. We uploaded to mid-station only and skied back on Grubstake+Schoolmarm to Blackcomb base for sorting....definitely the nicest conditions I've skied either, ever. The group consensus was to stick to groomers & since no-one was forthcoming with what they wanted to do, I asked for practice dealing better with crud/pre-moguls (thinking this is what we'd be getting with large volumes of snow under heavy traffic). I would have happily done lots of drills, given the circumstances, but that wasn't our coach's MO - we did a modest # of drills (lifting tails to get us onto new downhill ski & I spotted her doing "I'm a little teacup" while answering one student's question while we skied back to Blackcomb at the end of the day) but we honestly, it felt like she'd introduce an idea for us to try out for one stretch of the run and then let it percolate - the single concept was "let your legs extend, don't stand up." Basically, we lapped Excelerator and then Crystal - the only other chairs open were Catskinner and Jersey Cream, which I think were much more exposed to the winds.
Day 2 on Whistler was great though - the line for the Peak chair was a sh.tshow (much like the horrifying video of lines at Vail that people were sharing a few weeks back), which is to be expected when you have a sunny day right after a decent dump of snow. We did a blacks bumps run (Jimmy's Joker?) and the lagging member of our group said it was too much of a stretch for her, so we went over to a blue bumps area (Green Acres) so she could get more comfortable with what we were trying. Got to play in powder on the traverses, practiced a lot of traversing in deep snow & traversing over bumps to get the feeling for quiet torso & letting legs rise up to meet you. Went to a black bowl (Sun Bowl) and then to play in trees over at Symphony.
In terms of what I learnt, day 1 diagnosis was that I've been trying too hard to get weight onto my right foot and standing on it vs letting it extend. Day 2 correction for this was a more active lightening of the inner leg, thinking of lifting/folding in under me to leave more room for the outer leg to extend once I've rolled onto new edges. I think I'm picking a better line in crud/moguls now as well...although the test of it will be when I go back to Whistler next week for my nephews' spring break!!
The group was a bit larger this time (6 women) in the "Spicy 4" (upper intermediate) - we had one woman promoted from the regular 4s early in the shuffle and she lagged the group to the extent that another woman asked to be put up to the advanced group (level 5) on day 2, and we lost a local who sighed several times on Thursday that she wished she was on her snowboard instead. (We suspect she went boarding on Friday because it was a powder day...) It felt a lot more focused re: feedback with only 4 of us on Day 2!
My sister's coach told her that they get paid *less* for the camp than other teaching options, so I'm not surprised that the women's camp ends up as a screaming bargain (C$400/US$300 for 2 days). It was fun going on a weekday, esp as I'd never get a crack at the kind of powder we skied on Friday - it was only slightly tracked out, so plenty left for us to practice a few turns in.
My feedback to the camp organizers was that it would be worth trying a Monday-Tuesday schedule esp earlier in the season, as the long-haul visitors esp from UK and Australia would prefer that timing.
Day 2 on Whistler was great though - the line for the Peak chair was a sh.tshow (much like the horrifying video of lines at Vail that people were sharing a few weeks back), which is to be expected when you have a sunny day right after a decent dump of snow. We did a blacks bumps run (Jimmy's Joker?) and the lagging member of our group said it was too much of a stretch for her, so we went over to a blue bumps area (Green Acres) so she could get more comfortable with what we were trying. Got to play in powder on the traverses, practiced a lot of traversing in deep snow & traversing over bumps to get the feeling for quiet torso & letting legs rise up to meet you. Went to a black bowl (Sun Bowl) and then to play in trees over at Symphony.
In terms of what I learnt, day 1 diagnosis was that I've been trying too hard to get weight onto my right foot and standing on it vs letting it extend. Day 2 correction for this was a more active lightening of the inner leg, thinking of lifting/folding in under me to leave more room for the outer leg to extend once I've rolled onto new edges. I think I'm picking a better line in crud/moguls now as well...although the test of it will be when I go back to Whistler next week for my nephews' spring break!!
The group was a bit larger this time (6 women) in the "Spicy 4" (upper intermediate) - we had one woman promoted from the regular 4s early in the shuffle and she lagged the group to the extent that another woman asked to be put up to the advanced group (level 5) on day 2, and we lost a local who sighed several times on Thursday that she wished she was on her snowboard instead. (We suspect she went boarding on Friday because it was a powder day...) It felt a lot more focused re: feedback with only 4 of us on Day 2!
My sister's coach told her that they get paid *less* for the camp than other teaching options, so I'm not surprised that the women's camp ends up as a screaming bargain (C$400/US$300 for 2 days). It was fun going on a weekday, esp as I'd never get a crack at the kind of powder we skied on Friday - it was only slightly tracked out, so plenty left for us to practice a few turns in.
My feedback to the camp organizers was that it would be worth trying a Monday-Tuesday schedule esp earlier in the season, as the long-haul visitors esp from UK and Australia would prefer that timing.
