Date: 20th of January 2008

Hi All,

With over 5 weeks on snow for most of the group it’s getting harder and harder to get everyone out of bed in the morning. Beggsy who was on wake up this morning had to go back three times to get most out of beds. The banging on the door and lights flicked on didn’t even budge them!

Today the freeride group was out early and was greeted with clear blue bird skies.  While sunny it was quite cold at minus 10, brrrrrr! The aim for the day was to get the guys spinning and after a nice warm up lap and stretch the group worked a few drills with Chris to build them into 360’s.  Mike, Kate, Marnie, Bassett, and Piers were the team for the day and Chris took them to the bottom of the half pipe and packed in a little ramp for them to use.  Piers was working on his pop to get a little more height most of the day so he has time to do the spin while Bassett had her 180’s dialed and is ready to take the next step into 3’s.  Kate and Marnie had some great jumps with both nearly making it the full rotation.  Both skied out of a couple and should be proud of their efforts.  Mike had a great day and everything was working nicely but just needs to work on committing to the full rotation and  he will be doing them in his sleep soon enough.  Conrad, Hamish and Nick were tagging along helping the crew along the way as well as hitting up the bigger features including the new beautiful jump line.  Conrad has his 270 off of the flat rail dial as well as his lip slides. 

The boarders had another big day in the park and the blue skies certainly helped to ensure everyone was out the door on time. Rohan was in fine form doing smooth backside tailpresses on the bigger boxes and even getting 5050 to boardslides on the gap to gap box, very impressive! Nathan was working on his frontside and backside 180's and he managed to get some nice ones towards the end of the day. He was also getting tech with some nose press to front board on the up flat box and not to mention smooth boardslides on the battleship box. Jordi was nailing the battleship box all day with smooth 5050's followed by some nice 5050 to boardslides on the flat down rail. Jamie once again was throwing himself off the first jump in the park with his smooth backside 3's which he has to perfection. He was also working on his front 360's all afternoon and managed to nail a perfect one, even managing to throw in an indy grab. Jay was the standout for the day, boardsliding and nosepressing every box in the park with style.

The bumps crew made a b-line for the skills course to revel in the sun. The gang headed over with a number of goals in mind for the day. The boys were working on delaying their pole planting while Alex E was working hard on getting his weight forward. Kate and Airlie were working on putting together a top to bottom with small airs. Brighid had joined the free riders in hope of learning a 360, however the moguls group was also hard at work on their 360’s. Kate and Airlie were doing well however struggled to rotate past 180. The group’s addition for the day, Sammie was stomping her first 360’s in no time at all.

The afternoon was just as nice with the group again heading for the skills course for an afternoon of fun. The boys hit a jump in the area with Bryn and Brodie pulling some nice 3’ and attempting some unsuccessful 5’s, while the girls kept working hard on their 360. They unfortunately did not get any around today to complete the trick but plenty of great attempts. The boys began some duals in the bumps course with many skiing simply as fast as possible and forgetting to turn. The girls also worked on some switch skiing with all making great improvements while gaining confidence.

Phil and his alpine/snowboardcross group headed out on soft boots today. They spent most of the morning to Whiskey Jack and the terrain park as well as some easier runs to work on edge pressures and angles. The girls worked very well and had showed some solid improvement. Chrisy had a better grasp of using more her ankles in her turns while combining her knees. Julia kept on being aggressive and focused on using more of her ankles which is allowing her to maintain even better carving control. Ash made some great improvements in her heel side turn using her ankles and really rolling her board over to make the turn. After lunch they went out to the terrain park for a run and they headed over to Attridge to see if they could find a few powder lines to ride. They also hooked up with Sam and did some photos in the great weather.

Well I’ve resisted for the last few weeks but finally the smell has finally got me and I have to let you all in on the exploits of the smelliest person I’ve had on the camps in the past 15 years (over 1000 kids). There has been a smell permeating though the hostel every afternoon for the past few weeks that without a doubt smells like rotting flesh! People are gagging and running for the toilets when they smell it as it absolutely awful.  So no it’s not some random piece of food that’s been stashed somewhere that’s  now rotting but it’s Jamie Callis’ feet / boots. As soon as he takes his boots off after training the place fills with his awful scent. His boots are now banned and he must put them in a sealed rubbish bag along with his sox when he’s not wearing them. Yuck!!!

Pinky has to go to Jamie for the foul smell he’s been emitting lately (see above)

Big day tomorrow, first of all it’s a well deserved day off plus the always popular paintball session down in Vernon. We’ll be splitting the day into two sessions and with the first two groups heading off at 9.30 and then the second two groups heading just after lunch. Should be a great day check tomorrow update for all the action.

That’s about it for today.

Until Tomorrow

Stowie