Date: 19th of January 2008

Hi All,

The weather has started to cool down today with a high of around the minus 10 mark and looks like it will stay that way for the next week. One good thing though is that it’s also supposed to be sunny, something we have not seen much of over the past 5 weeks.

Chris’ group teamed up with the mogul skiers today and headed out one a big rat pack. They had the normal warm up run before they started lapping the park.  All the big jumps were up and running in the big line but most of the crew stayed pretty mellow and hit the boxes.  After a couple of laps Chris took a few to the Silver Woods area and filmed a few tree runs of the guys and girls skiing and jumping off everything they could find.  The found all sorts of tree runs – some good and some not so good.  The afternoon was very similar to the morning with a few laps in the park before heading back to Silver Woods where they had a Chinese downhill though the trees and play around on different features.  The last couple of runs of the day they found a gap jump that went over a little ditch with most of the crew hit it up with Pez shooting photos.  Hamish was the last to go and surprised everyone with a massive back flip over the gap.  He stomped it clean and the group cheer him on. 

As mentioned above the moguls gang joined forces with the free riders today to cruised the park and freeski. Hitting the park first up Brodie, Bryn and Alex W were impressive in the air, as was Annabel and Brighid on the rails. Alex E has also progressed on the boxes sliding almost everything in the park. All the boys were showing how solid they are on the rails and boxes until Alex C took a spill on the down bar and knocked the wind out of himself. Alex W showed his strength on the flat box with some great 270 on 270 off slides.  After a run of human slalom the crew headed for Silver Woods for some mountain bike action. The very tight mountain bike track that winds its way from top to bottom almost brought grief to a few skiers, including the chook footers (cross country skiers) getting in the way.

In the afternoon the crew was again showing their steeze on the rails with Pez getting some great shots. They again headed for Silver Woods for a couple of Chinese Downhills and jib runs before hitting a new found pow jump. Chris hit first will a 180 to crash followed by Ridley with a big floated grab to double ejection. Brodie, Alex W and Alex E all proceeded to put down some solid jumps with solid landings. A great, fun day had by all.

The boarders had a big park day today and with the cool weather so everyone was keen on laps to keep warm. It was Jacks last day today so he was jumping off every little bump he could find and impressed with his smooth backsides 3's over the first kicker followed by some tech nose press to frontboardslides on all the boxes. Jay was continuing his impressive improvement with some nice backside tailslides on the big box followed by some smooth straight airs over the 20ft kicker. Jordi got a chance to fore run in his first GS competition, apparently he had some nice speed going on until he shot out of the course near the bottom. Mr Steeze, Nathan was again showing his smooth style working on some new tricks on the up flat box with some good attempts at nose press to front board combos.  The group spent the last hour inside watching a snowboard movie. To make things a little more interesting the group had to write down what tricks the riders were doing.

The alpine/snowboardcross group headed out on soft boots this morning. They rode on Whiskey Jack for several runs to work on the rollers and get used to the absorption and finished each run by hitting the terrain park rollers. Julia had some massive airs and a good fall and her carving was really good also. Chrisy made improvements on the rollers, and her carving really picked up as well while Ash had some great roller sections and her carving and body position are really coming along. We also took some runs to work on edge control and pressures. In the afternoon Phil took everyone fopr a tuning session. Everyone wax, scraped and brushed their own boards while Phil did all  the edges. Now everyone is ready to go for the last few days.

James P competed today in the Interschools Canada Cup race here in Silver Star.  The event was a GS with two runs with the best combined time. James skied very well and took out the division two boys and managed to pick up a medal for his efforts.

Pinky today goes to Piers Fitton for forgetting that snow is actually quite cold. His hoody ended up outside (not sure how) but he decided to head out to receive it in bare feet, yes bare feet. He ended up in waist deep powder and then whined for the next hour about how cold his feet were. Maybe next time you could use those things called shoes!

Happy birthday to Piers who turned a big 13 today – finally a teenager.

Beef, burgers, beef burgers, beef burgers, the smiles on everyone’s faces as they came in for lunch and found that Emma had been busy on the BBQ all morning were huge. As like the chicken burgers, most people in the group manage to demolished two, all jammed with fixings. Coach Chris still holds the burger record of 3 which he managed last week. Dinner was lasagne, garlic bread and salad. Dessert ice cream cone but most opted for the birthday cake.

Finally tonight’s activity is bowling down in Vernon. Chris headed down with a van load of kids for a couple of hours of fun. Once again they managed to not get themselves kicked out – especially considering the locals take their bowling so seriously.

Until Tomorrow

Stowie