BlueB Posted February 3, 2023 Report Share Posted February 3, 2023 They are lousy riders/skiers, can't deal with a 4" trench? Just tell them to stop making moguls. We had a nice carving session tonight. Good snow, for Cypress evening, at least. Group frustrates me a bit, done are already decent, some just won't progress and new ones keep on showing up for every next session. Then I have to dumb it down for those, while still keeping the good ones entertained... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted February 3, 2023 Report Share Posted February 3, 2023 We has absolutely spectacular snow today, very compact, yet grippy. My student made great progress too. We rode with Tony, few laps. I brought a board with palte and both alpine and monoski bindings on it. One of the supervisors wanted to try the mono version. Will be fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roch Posted February 3, 2023 Report Share Posted February 3, 2023 (edited) Who rode that monster We also may have contact at prior soon Edited February 3, 2023 by roch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarcode Posted February 4, 2023 Author Report Share Posted February 4, 2023 (edited) Day 45, Manning Another fun day, but they didn't groom Orange or Featherstone today which was a shame. Still carvable, the snow just got a lot firmer. Lots of debris from the wind yesterday was kicked around onto the runs. Shadow was still really fun. Started the day with training, I was the one giving the feedback for the other single snowboarder available today, and the skiers did their thing alongside us. Gary used me as training material and encouraged the skiers to follow my tracks. My first staff lesson was cancelled because said staff got injured on her warmup laps before the time slot My second lesson was productive, but it started on the chair when it really should have been on the T bar. I don't mind since it was a 1 hour private, so I let it slide and took our time getting down. She was happy to conquer the chairlift early. My third lesson, also staff, was carving specific. Intermediate progression: setting the edge early, planning the turn better, bringing the weight back at the crux of the turn, and speed control. I used Shadow as a corridor for forcing him to use all the available space, which worked well! Patrol was short-handed again, so I helped with sweep. The snow really picked up at the end of the day. I managed to run one lap on my new GS board... HOLY SHIT! This thing is unbelievably damp, feels like I'm riding a piece of rubber. Setting it on edge feels like I'm riding on a railroad track. I don't feel much from the snow with a plate, but I really like the feeling of it! I want a lighter plate for my WCRM now... Looking forward to learning how to make the race board bend. I'm going to have to work my way back up to riding orange streak on this thing! Some staff took my camera for a couple laps of their own. Got some good clips of them enjoying the soft moguls on skis. Edited February 4, 2023 by Jarcode Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted February 4, 2023 Report Share Posted February 4, 2023 (edited) 3 hours ago, roch said: Who rode that monster Mat did. Monster is in the board shed, you can try it, board or monoski style. Edited February 4, 2023 by BlueB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roch Posted February 4, 2023 Report Share Posted February 4, 2023 (edited) Once I can put my alpine boots on again I will give it a shot Edited February 4, 2023 by roch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted February 4, 2023 Report Share Posted February 4, 2023 Absolutely miserable day. Wind, rain, fog, cold... Funny enough, snow is kid of good, compact enough that you can do fun stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarcode Posted February 5, 2023 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2023 Day 47, Manning Started the day with some warmup laps, got once more in with the GS board... my toeside sucks on this thing. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but it feels like I'm just falling over, I assume I really need to "push" through the turn to make it bend. The muted feeling from the snow is is unbelievable though, I guess that's what the Vist plate and rubber + titanal board is going to net me. The rest of the day was packed with lessons. First was two intermediate students, very different skill levels, but we accomplished a lot in an hour. Taught one student carved J turns and switch, and got him doing static 180s. The other needed a lot of work on toe side, but I spotted her at the end of the day with major improvements and she called out to me to show it off! Next lesson was the staff lesson from yesterday that was cancelled. A lot of work rebuilding confidence after the fall from yesterday, but we worked on a lot and made good progress. Pulled out my phone to record for feedback on this lesson. Next lesson was bunny hill, with two kids. Unfortunately one of the kids was given a comically oversized rental board and it turned into a nightmare to teach. I had to personally raise the issue to figure out what happened, because it wasn't even close to her size. The final lesson was a last-minute adult private lesson, someone wanted to work on their turns... turned out this older guy was a huge fan of Ross Rebagliati, so he was pretty receptive when I showed up on hardboots. He improved a ton, needed a lot of work to develop more dynamic turns and edge control, but he was doing perfect uphill carves by the end of the day. First time I was able to "nerd out" on technique discussion because this guy had an engineering background and wanted every bit of information possible to explain carving on a snowboard More tomorrow! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarcode Posted February 6, 2023 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2023 Day 48, Manning (yesterday) Was a fairly mellow day, had a two hour lesson booked but the student didn't show up. Freeriding all day for me, which was mostly trying to conquer the GS board. I'm moving the plate over to my WCRM now so I can get the benefits of it on a much more forgiving board, the 19m sidecut on the RG189 is insane and I need to slowly work my way towards it. It's incredibly difficult to ride with people around, and requires me to ride aggressively, so I found myself getting exhausted at the end of the day. It's pretty astonishing when you compare it to my '98 Coiler Pure Race, things have changed a lot since then in slalom. I really love the VIST plate though. I also realized that its heavy weight is part of how it helps the board cut through chop better. I'm looking forward to using this at Cypress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted February 7, 2023 Report Share Posted February 7, 2023 (edited) Nice L4 and L3 staff training today. We had some very wet stuff, that still could be called snow. Very poor vis. Someone came up with an excellent idea of painting a red line all along the middle of Collins, to give the people some compass of where are they going. We used it as a training device for short radius turns - always have either the nose, or the tail on it Edited February 8, 2023 by BlueB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gtanner Posted February 7, 2023 Report Share Posted February 7, 2023 FYI - work dependent, I may be headed to Cypress for the day Friday. Hardboot first thing, then switch to some new skis I just picked up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarcode Posted February 8, 2023 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2023 Day 49, Cypress Carving training was cancelled for strategic reasons. Turned out to be a good idea since the slop that fell from the sky today was borderline uncarvable... even after it packed out in the evening, I could only make two turns before losing all my speed (and leaving a massive, unsafe trench behind me). I split my group into half, handing off some unusually proficient students to another instructor, and waiting for the other two to arrive. Turned out those students were a no show, so I ended up as a floating instructor today. Joined up with Edu's group and we co-taught a lesson, since we seem to work together well I brought the WCRM w/ VIST plate for a single lap. Not exactly suited for the conditions. On the drive back to Manning, I seemed to have run back into the storm that hit Cypress this morning. Heavy snow, and the good kind. Seems like Ray will be joining me at Manning this week, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarcode Posted February 9, 2023 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2023 Day 50, Manning Powder everywhere. About a foot of it at the top. After enjoying a quick morning lap, I taught an advanced lesson with the students I taught on my first day this season. They had become really skilled riders, so I skipped greens entirely today and warmed up on a blue. I then introduced a short lesson on riding powder, told students to experiment with exploring the sides of Shadow and dropping back into the chute, and before I knew it my students were having a blast and laughing every time they fell in the incredibly soft snow. I then took them into a much more difficult line, all fresh powder, and connected back into the very end of shadow. It went well, so I decided to take them down Gulley for the last run. I refrained from telling them it was a black diamond run, but they all did fine and enjoyed the rolling terrain with all the fresh snow. Once I broke the news at the bottom of the lift that they all just did their first black run, they were shocked. I was free to ride the rest of the day. I enjoyed the powder a bit more on the bastard, and then I went to carving the "medium" pack with the WCRM + Vist plate. Kind of slow to carve in, needs grooming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted February 9, 2023 Report Share Posted February 9, 2023 Why not brake out that big Donek on a pow day? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarcode Posted February 9, 2023 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2023 @BlueB I thought about it! I just found the bastard to be perfect in the trees, and wanted to work on getting used to the VIST plate in the afternoon. I also found the extra weight of the plate to be useful for cutting through chopped up snow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charliechocolate Posted February 9, 2023 Report Share Posted February 9, 2023 (edited) Hello from MCC where the lift line is short the food and people are great the snacks are tasty the snow is good and the toys are plenty Edited February 9, 2023 by charliechocolate Links 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gtanner Posted February 9, 2023 Report Share Posted February 9, 2023 Any word on how mushy Cypress is today? Looks like drizzle/rain at the bottom today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarcode Posted February 10, 2023 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2023 Day 51, Manning School group lesson in the morning, a bit of freeriding, and then another group lesson from the school in the afternoon. Beginner lessons, had a couple students give up today. I was stretched thin on the bunny hill since we were short instructors. At the very end of the day, I taught a staff carving lesson to a newly certified snowboard instructor (who is one of our best ski instructors). Pretty fun! I got recruited to help patrol sweep the mountain once again. We got a lot of surprise snow today, a bit warm and very empty, so the riding was pretty slow with all the new stuff coming down. We're still dealing with "medium" pack for carving. Blue chair has about 35cm of untouched powder built up, it's opening tomorrow. I originally had organized a course on that chair for tomorrow, but we had to call it off since it's unlikely it can be groomed enough by then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted February 10, 2023 Report Share Posted February 10, 2023 Don't do race course on soft pack, it's dangerous. Evening carve session, pretty fast well skier-packed moist snow. Some bumps... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarcode Posted February 11, 2023 Author Report Share Posted February 11, 2023 Day 52, Manning Today was the best blue bird pow day I have enjoyed for a long time. Last night, the grooming staff were working hard to pack down all the snow that came down lately. They were already skipping orange streak and featherstone, and got tower six groomed early in the night. Then, completely by surprise, about 15-20cm of snow just dumped during the night all of a sudden. Not forecasted at all. This added to the crazy amount of powder already on Blue Chair, leaving it to about 45-50cm of heavy powder. The groomers had to then re-do all of their work, and abandoned repeating tower six. This ruined the little chance we had at setting up a slalom course, but the runs that were groomed twice over were actually quite nice. This morning, most of the staff went straight to Blue chair, including myself, riding the bastard on hardboots. The pow was unbelivably fun, and we got a bunch of footage of it. Ray and his girlfriend joined in early in the morning to enjoy it with us, riding bordercross setups! Runs that used to be moguls were just flat with powder, clifs were completely coated, and landing anything was so easy because of the layering in the snow... it seemed to just absorb all the impact for you. There wasn't too many people on the chair that morning, so it was about 2 hours of straight powder riding before it was all tracked out. Ray seemed quite blown away by how few people were there, knowing how crazy Whistler has been over much less snow. In the afternoon we all switched to our carving setups, and enjoyed the groomers. Ray commented "too soft, needs more ice" and got a look of horror from one of our ski instructors. I obviously agreed, but after baking in the sun a little, the snow should be perfect come tomorrow morning. I cut my day short by 30 minutes, noticing a bit of fatigue and conserving energy for tomorrow. I then noticed my plate had come completely loose! Upon disassembly, only one of the four rear bolts had any threads in the inserts. Probably a dangerous situation. We got a lot of footage today, going until the camera battery died. Clips to come, and I think I'm going to be editing for a couple hours now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted February 11, 2023 Report Share Posted February 11, 2023 I told you to torque the bolts properly. Maybe put some locktight on them too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarcode Posted February 11, 2023 Author Report Share Posted February 11, 2023 I think they should be okay for now. I will be checking the plate periodically for "shifting" from now on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarcode Posted February 11, 2023 Author Report Share Posted February 11, 2023 From today, another instructor featured here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gtanner Posted February 11, 2023 Report Share Posted February 11, 2023 Friday report: Totally fogged in for the morning - skiing/riding by feel, with lots of mush - total survival mode. Afternoon things cleared up and the snow turned into spring snow - must more fun to let my new skis run a bit and get a proper feel for them. It was easy to trench the mush if you pushed too hard...too mushy for my hardboot setup. Crowds started to arrive after school was out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted February 11, 2023 Report Share Posted February 11, 2023 On and off vis today but better snow than what Gord had yesterday. I did the trainer duty in the am, just fooling around in the pm... I brought, from the retirement, an old Rad-Air Jam 159, with plates of course. It's the shortest and softest board I would ride. Funny enough, it has really long scr, 10+ m, my guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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