Kev's Extreme Pow-Wow!

For a while now, Dan and I have been keen on free skiing on Tuesdays with a few other Base Pod instructors, but for a number of weeks this hasn't been possible (my level 3 course, Darren's visit, Tenacious D etc!) so today finally saw a return to our Epic Tuesdays.

Generally the idea of Epic Tuesday is to go out and ski hard from the first lift to the last lift, leaving no fresh powder untouched. Today saw incredible conditions with clear blue skies and a light dusting of new snow on top of recent powder falls. Therefore we headed out at 8.30am and hit the Peak Chair first. After Dan and Andreas led the way with some gnarly cliff and rock drops, I started to get my hucking gear in order and started jumping stuff myself. This was not before taking what might be the photo of the season (of Dan)...

We then headed over to the Symphony Chair via the Robot Rock where recently I filmed Dan falling heavily in a Robot Costume. Incidentally I saw the fully edited Robot video and I nearly cried laughing again. The video came out better than I had imagined possible and it's going to be gutting if I win a heli-skiing trip and can't take advantage. I might just have to go before I come home at Easter.

After skiing down to Symphony, we jumped on the chair and traversed over to Flute where we hiked up the 25 minute boot-pack in order to get incredible sunny fresh lines down the shoulder back to Symphony.

Our lunch stop at the Roundhouse was an outdoor barbeque pleasure and we then headed back up the Peak chair to ski Khybers Pass down to Whistler Creekside. This was a stunning run of deep powder in the trees and is actually outside of the ski boundary.

Back to Red Chair and we collected Duncan who then escorted us up to the Peak and down Glacier Cirque, where he proceeded to huck a triple stage cliff drop whilst the rest of us sufficed with single cliff drops!

Our skiing day was completed by heading down via tha triple pillow drops underneath and to the side of the lower Gondola lift line. After survivng these, we mached back to the base of Whistler and enjoyed a well deserved few pints and a steak sandwich at the Keg. All in a day's work for us ski instructors!!! Well a day off but you know what I mean!

Tomorrow sees Whistler's Technical Skiing Championships and I'll be taking part in the CSIA level 2 category. Wish me luck... I'm looking foward to that.

Jennifer left yesterday and when I headed out for work this morning she was still flying home so my thoughts were with her after a great week over here in Whistler. As it turns out, Jennifer was diverted to Glasgow on the way home because someone had a heart attack on the flight, so her arrival back home was rather later than anticipated. Fortunately she got home safely so it's back to the once or twice daily skype calls for us for another 5 weeks.

Anyway, as I walked into work I was excited about skiing morning session with a fresh 19cm of snow in the last 24 hours. The excitement was satisfied by a few awesome runs with Ken including the awesome Unsanctioned tree run. I dashed back down to the base of the mountain to see what the work situation was and after being told by my supervisor that I could go to level 3 training I did just that and headed off up Blackcomb to catch up with my usual Sunday group including my friends George and Lian and our trainer, Guy.

Rather than doing much technical skiing, instead, we ripped through the powder like there was no tomorrow and all had an incredible day. I don't think that I've ever skied powder so well and we skied bumps, steeps and trees in equal amounts. This included trips down Couloir Extreme, Diamond Bowl off Spanky's Ladder and Fraggle Rock and Cancer Man.

Yesterday afternoon and today reminded me how to ski and I had such fun, feeling both strong and technically adept. The only problem that I'm having at the moment is extreme tiredness and foot pain from my recently adjusted boot fittings. It doesn't look like I'll be doing my level 3 exams whilst I'm out here but I think that by the time I come home I'd be ready to do them. What I'm enjoying more at the moment however, is just the feeling that I can ski... and ski well!

As James spotted, Jennifer was visiting this week and thus there have been no blog entries for over a week. It also happens that I was pretty ill late last week and only skied briefly on Friday before calling in sick on Saturday and Sunday when I was scheduled to teach some private lessons. I think the illness was only coiincidental with Darren's stay here although we did drink a reasonably amount earlier in the week!!!

On Saturday evening after sleeping for most of the day I drove to Vancouver to pick Jennifer up from the airport and we spent Sunday watching TV and chilling out together as I wasn't well enough to ski, let alone teach.

Somehow, I'd had the foresight to beg for the weekdays off work this week despite it being the second busiest week of the season for ski school. This wasn't a particularly popular move with my supervisor, who said to me today "you're not doing this for the money are you?!"... Too right! I'd much prefer to spend the week with Jennifer given that she's flown halfway round the world to visit me.

The week of skiing was great although we didn't ski (or in Jennifer's case snowboard) particularly hard given that I was still tired from illness and Jennifer was still getting her snowboard legs back. Jennifer's snowboarding has really improved since I first saw it at Christmas and I was really impressed by her ability to push herself to learn more. Her frustrations towards the end of the week were really stemming from her wanting to learn even faster!

The highlight of the week however was the surprise trip that I planned for Tuesday. We drove down to Vancouver after skiing and checked into a 5 star hotel in the downtown. We then went for an early meal and after walking a couple of blocks to what Jennifer thought was a hoe-down, she spotted a billboard advertising the Tenacious D concert that I'd got us tickets for. We had a great evening watching Jack Black and Kyle Gass rock their socks off and then had a luxurious night in the hotel.

As I write this, Jennifer's about to jump on her plane home so my thoughts are with her after a spectacular week together. Despite loving skiing and teaching in the skiing capital of the world, I still cannot wait to get home to spend time with her and start the mountain bike season!

This week I caught a bit of a cold and it's been giving me grief in the last few days. I didn't ski on Wednesday or Thursday and I called in sick today because I didn't feel able to give a good ski lesson. Yesterday I did venture out onto the slopes to try and get to the bottom of an alignment problem with one of my legs.

Having skied with a rubber wedge under my boot for a few days, I tried skiing without it and I found it didn't make an enormous difference. Therefore I came to the conclusion that it was the angle that my left foot was sitting that was causing the problem. Sure enough, whilst my right foot is completely flat, my left foot has a very high arch and this was collapsing in the boot. Therefore Erin, this week's recommended boot fitter set about creating more support and even creating a wedge under my footbed. I skied on this in the afternoon and noticed quite an improvement in alignment. When I'm well enough, I'm going to pop back and see if the arch support can be beefed up some more and then I think I'll have no more excuses for not skiing perfectly. As I said to Jason, one of my trainers for the level 3 course, once that's sorted then he might as well give me my level 3 badge straight away!!!

The biggest excitement of the day (and indeed the month) is of course the fact that Jennifer arrives in Vancouver this afternoon. I'll be hiring a car this afternoon and heading down there to pick her up. It should be an awesome week and we've been excited about it for weeks.

This week has been pretty entertaining what with teaching Darren to ski on Saturday, teaching some more on Sunday and skiing on Monday as a result of no lessons.

Yesterday was the most entertaining day this week as I was helping my colleague Dan film a video that we can enter into the ski school comedy video competition. The prize for this competition is a heli-skiing trip for two so we were taking it pretty seriously. As a result, Dan spent most of the recent evenings preparing a robot costume using cardboard boxes, spraypaint, and tin foil. The idea was to film the robot skiing all over the mountain; the mere concept being amusing in itself. The reality was even better and we soon got into the flow of filming and skiing as we plotted a route through some of the more entertaining areas on Whistler mountain.

The highlights of the day filming for me were when Dan dropped a 10 foot cliff in robot costume and tumbled into powder, when he skied in the terrain park hitting a number of jumps and boxes, and finally skiing a bumps run until he decked it and cartwheeled down the slope. Watching a human sized robot falling down a mountain with skis and arms flailing is seriously amusing and the latter fall took me at least 5 minutes to stop laughing and crying before we could resume filming!!!

Fortunately none of the tumbles caused Dan any serious damage. However, as the morning went on, the robot costume sustained more and more damage, ultimately requiring us to solicit Ski Patrol support in repairing the costume! Dan's going to edit the video together tonight so I'm hoping to have a cut to post on youtube as soon as possible. Hopefully the debut of the video will be at next week's pay day party, where Jennifer should also be able to see it.

In the meantime, Darren and I filmed an amusing video about a scary USB massager device which he picked up in Seattle before visiting. This video can be found on youtube here.

This morning saw the get together for the official Base Pod team photo and after this, my bunch of mates in Base Pod collected together and we got a few photos of just ourselves...

Unfortunately today I was feeling too tired and unwell to go skiing; this might also be the case tomorrow but hopefully I'll be back on the slopes by Saturday as I really want to try out some new skis.

I finished my level 3 course on Friday and was left with a lot to think about. Namely whether or not to do the exam in March. It's probably a bit too soon for me to train enough to pass the exam but I'm going to keep an open mind for the next couple of weeks.

The course ending coiincided with Darren's arrival in Whistler. No sooner had he arrived than we were in Moe Joes enjoying some post course beers with the rest of the level 3 course candidates.

Yesterday saw Darren's first day skiing on a proper mountain (rather than the snow dome in the UK) and I ended up being his instructor for the afternoon. After removing some bad habits he was soon turning more comfortably and was openly enjoying his skiing.

Today I taught a class of 7 and Darren was left to take a lesson with Daniel, one of my base pod mates. Again he made further progress and rode on the chairlift for the first couple of times. My class was hard work with a reasonable variation of abilities. However, using my new found level 3 course skills, I felt much better able to cater for all of the students and ensure that they all enjoyed their skiing. Unfortunately this was a bit exhausting so although Darren and I had a few beers after my call to Jennifer, we watched the Fire and Ice show and came home for dinner.

It's less than a week now until Jennifer gets here and I can't wait. A few days ago we crossed the 100 call barrier. Even though most calls end up being between one and two hours, I still don't get to chat to her as much as I'd like so coming home will be awesome in early April.

Today I skied like an absolute beginner. If I'd taken my level 2 today I would have failed I reckon!!! However, despite a number of problems in my skiing, today has resulted in me having a better idea of the standard of skiing required for the level 3. As expected I've still got lots of work to do to improve my intermediate parallel and wedge skiing to the level required by the CSIA. Combine this with the work that I need to do on my advanced parallel and short radius turns and you'll get some idea of the task ahead!!! As always though, I'm up for a challenge!

On the positive side, my teaching rocked today and I'm going to ski well tomorrow.

I've spent the week doing my CSIA level 3 ski instructor course. As with previous CSIA courses, I went in thinking that I could ski pretty reasonably, especially after a number of excellent level 3 preparation training days. However, the level 3 course has proven a complete eye opener when it comes to technique. Day one with Jason skiing advanced parallel showed me that what I thought was good skiing previously was distinctly average and that there is a lot more performance to be obtained from my skiing.

After a slow awakening on Monday, a poor start and a nasty fall (spraining my thumb quite badly), yesterday proved that I could still ski and with a number of not insignificant adjustments, my advanced short radius turns were holding up well as taught by Ken. Today after further classroom sessions, the skiing picked up where it had left off and we were straight into skiing and teaching in bumps. Ken managed not to baffle us but instead taught us some blindingly obvious stuff that had never become apparent with experience. Tomorrow we're back with Jason for some intermediate parallel, wedge turns and more teaching so I'm hopeful that he'll have seen some progress from me in the last two days.

I've come to the conclusion that making progress on these certification courses is undoubtedly the most satisfying way of improviing my skiing. Each course so far has seen a sea change in ski improvement and suddenly without even taking the exams I feel I have progressed into the expert instructor level. I still can't believe that I've reached the point where I'm taking a level 3 course. I took my first ski instructor qualification less than two years ago and my skiing has changed radically in this time. To even be in a position to consider such a high level of ski instructor qualification is hugely satisfying and as with most things that I savour in life, has provided a target to aim for over the past few months.

The feedback has been positive thus far. I've been making some decent changes to my skiing even after only three days, and the conclusion seems to be that combined with a strong demonstrated teaching effort, the level 3 is obtainable with plenty of practise. I have another month until the level 3 exams so I'm going to make every effort to make the changes required. The way I'm feeling at the moment is that I wil take the exams in March and hope for the best. If I don't make it then I fear for future years of skiing as being a completer finisher type personality, it may take some time but I will stick with it until the red badge is mine!

After the day of skiing a number of us caught up in Merlins for Apres and had a great evening. It's great to share this learning experience with people in my own group (May and Mike) and with those who I've been training with (George, Lian and Katie) and although we've all had mixed experiences, everyone has enjoyed improving their skiing and certainly enjoyed spending the evening comparing notes, drinking beer and eating burgers (yes I ate two burgers today - but they were both lovely ;-)).

Today has been a great day for Jennifer and I; we had a great chat yesterday and I'm more excited than ever to see her in a couple of weeks. She's been amazing supporting me from home and I can't wait to see her in person again. Not long now...!

Today was my last teaching day before a week off work so I turned up for morning session to ensure that my ski legs were in good shape beforehand. Morning session involved practising lots of wedge turns - good preparation for the Level 3.

As it turned out, a number of us were held back to teach this afternoon but not before we'd done some errands for ski school. These included digging a couple of picnic tables out from under 4 feet of snow and ice using shovels and pick-axes! It was quite a comical site seeing a bunch of very good ski instructors working as a chain gang for a couple of hours this morning. Unfortunately our pay didn't really reflect the effort that was put in but we had a good laugh whilst helping out.

The afternoon's lesson was entertaining. We had 50 students turn up, including 27 from Taiwan who spoke no English! My colleages May, and Sean split these up with me and we headed up the mountain to teach them to ski. Eventually we ended up with one big lesson and 27 beginner skiers following a conveyor belt of instruction through the three of us. This ended up being good fun but I for one was relieved when the teaching finished.

My right foot has still been hurting a lot. This is pretty unusual because it's normally my left foot that causes problems. Anyway, my boot is in the shop tonight for further alterations in the hope that my toes feel less squashed for tomorrow's Level 3 preparation training.

Katherine and Alex leave tomorrow after a weeklong visit. I haven't seen that much of them because I've been teaching or training almost every day this week and have been socialising with the other instructors. Hopefully Katherine will have found her second paid lesson this week useful today and she will have refined her skiing technique in the areas I highlighted to her last week. I think she appreciated feedback more when she was paying so I decided not to provide any more pointers this week!

I'm looking forward to teaching Jennifer to ski, either when she visits in a fortnight or on holiday next year. I think she's going to learn quickly given that she'll have free lessons from a level 2 or hopefully level 3 instructor for the rest of her skiing holidays!

At the end of today's work we had to fill in some employee feedback which was not unlike Nationwide's viewpoint survey. Whistler Ski School and Nationwide have a number of similarities which include a strong customer focus, an emphasis on work/life balance and an ethically sound treatment of employees. It's nice to work for another friendly organisation but whilst Nationwide can't compete on the cool job front, the ski school can't compete on the income front.

I'm past the midway point in my stint out here in Canada and I've still got a number of things to look forward to. These include the following (listed in no particular order Jennifer!):

• My level 3 course this coming week - I'm really excited about learning how to ski and instruct better
• Darren's visit the week after next - I'm looking forward to teaching Darren to ski and introducing him to apres ski drinking before passing out
• Jennifer's visit in a couple of weeks - I've been looking forward to this since Christmas because I know it's going to be another special week. Ok this should have been top of the list!

That time has come for more stats! I am consuming way more cookies than banana bread so am regretting a hasty tally choice on that one but the rest of the tallies are quite indicative of the season that I'm having out here.

Jaegermeister intake has still been restricted to the one shot when Jennifer was out here visiting. Kath and Alex haven't encouraged any further drinking whilst they've been out here this week but I have been out drinking a few times with Base Pod colleagues to keep my drinking legs exercised. The Jacuzzi count is still lagging, much to Liz B's disgust. I'll try harder but they're just not the same when Jennifer's not here!

There haven't been any powder days here for a couple of weeks now although a bit of snow is forecast for this weekend. Most days have still been spent skiing on Whistler - which is normal considering my teaching is done on Whistler mountain. It looks like I ski one day in four on Blackcomb and the rest on Whistler. This will be impacted by the 5 day course on Blackcomb starting on Monday.

My wipeout count has gone up by a couple in recent weeks. This is as a result of jumping off cliffs and not landing correctly, or experimenting with new lines in the bumps. Hearing about these falls, Jennifer is now insisting that I wear the ski helmet every day I'm not teaching. This is something that I'm endeavouring to do but my new ski school touk does look seriously cool (but it can't play Foo Fighters through the ear flaps).

Finally the calls tally is still rising at a strong rate. Anyone would think that I had a good relationship going on at home!

Today I skied with Kath and Alex. We did a couple of runs and then they needed to go inside to warm up. Instead of heading for the Chic Pea like them, I instead headed for the Saddle where I tried out the Peak - Valley race course that was being set for this coming weekend. This is a race that goes from the top of the Saddle to the base of Creekside village. En route it takes in 180 gates. Even without the gates this was quite a spectacular descent and in less than 4 minutes I'd made it top to bottom. Very few mountain safety guys were out on the course today and it was quiet so it was easy and safe to go at mach 10 down the mountain!

After catching up with Kath and Alex again, we skied the Dave Murray downhill and then repeated my run from the morning. By this time they were both waning but I dragged them up the Peak chair and down the car-sized bumps on Whistler Bowl and Shale Slope that I'd been skiing yesterday. The bump skiing was great but I think I wore the other guys out. We were actually the last people down from the Peak today and were given the hurry up sign by Ski Patrol at the top when Kath decided to keep them waiting by taking more photos. I shouldn't complain... on the previous run I took no less than 32 photos which I merged into a panoramic photo when I got home...

I worked on Monday and then had a nice day off yesterday. Unfortunately my foot was still numb and swollen from the weekend's exploits so I thought it would be a good idea to rest it. I also took my boots in for further surgery and new footbeds in the hope that this would make an improvement. Skiing today was initially a little painful but I soon felt a bit more comfortable and I'm hopeful that full feeling will return to my foot in due course. Sometimes I wonder why we put ourselves through so much foot pain and then I have an amazing day on the slopes and I soon remember!

Today the usual training posse got together ready for Level 3 prep and whilst Mark and Guy stepped away from us to take a well deserved break with other skiers, Don stepped into the fold. His was a trial by fire as he learnt to deal with five Brits in his group, all of which were offering him cups of tea and scones for the majority of the day.

As for the skiing, I found the morning difficult as I got used to the adjustments in my boot. Although I wanted more room for my feet, I found in a couple of areas that I needed more support so had to crank the boots a bit tighter. By the end of the day I was feeling it again and was nailing the short turns and bumps that Don put on our plates. I'm definitely starting to enjoy the bumps more and more; which is good because they're a key to success at Level 3.

Last night saw the base pod party at Alpenglow in the village. We basically took over a function room next to a swimming pool and hot tub and had a beach party. They also provided some great food although we had to bring our own booze. The antics were soon underway as one of our kiwi instructors brought out the beer funnel and proceeded to challenge all-comers to excess beer consumption. A number of my colleagues joined in, including my supervisor Wade. I can't imagine my boss at home, Dave, partaking in such crazy antics; I know who I think is more sensible!

Whilst I headed home early to rest my foot, a few of the guys were out until late, including Mike and May; neither of whom seemed worse for wear this morning at training... although Mike's girlfriend Briany was complaining about Mike's 1am drunken state!