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Summit Sessions Riding Clinic at Whistler
By ruth | November 28, 2007
On Saturday, Dave and I took advantage of the 40% off Discover Whistler deal, and booked ourselves onto a Summit Session Riding Clinic. The clinics are aimed at intermediate to advanced riders, and are advertised as a way to explore the mountains and increase your experience on different terrain.
They should also be advertised as a great way to cut lift lines all day, which was a real boon when Harmony had 30 minute wait times!
There were four of us in the group, of a relatively similar standard of riding, so we stayed in one group – if we’d had a wide variety of abilities or wanted to do different things, they would have split us into two groups, an instructor to each group. We all wanted to go find good snow and get to know the mountain better, so the spare instructor said goodbye and we spent the day with Jerren.
I was sceptical that we’d find powder (and had therefore brought my park board), but Harmony Chair opened for the first time that day, and powder there was. By the time we got to it, the powderhounds had tracked quite a bit of it out, but Jerren knew some great spots. There’s some easily accessible powder right under the chair that doesn’t look steep enough to ride, so nobody does – but it’s really sweet. He also took us down some bowls and chutes off Harmony Ridge.
Some of the steeper sections were choppy and quite challenging, and he was able to provide some useful tips for coping with them. The tip that helped me most was to hold my shoulders back and down and keep my chest open, to stay on balance better. It did make me hold my arms out like a penguin, but I can live with that.
Towards the end of the day we progressed to more and more challenging runs, including one of the Gun Barrels (tree-lined chutes), but we ran out of time before we could do the harder one he had his eye on. We also missed out on a few runs he wanted to take us on because they were still outside the ski area boundary, it being early season. As a private individual I’m sure he would have been straight there, but while wearing the uniform it was more than his job was worth to step outside those boundary markers. Shame, though.
It was a completely successful day, only slightly marred by a couple of painful falls going fast on the flat runs, and a hairy moment when the gondola door closed on Dave’s arm while he was still holding his snowboard outside of it. Thank goodness his grip held while his fellow gondola-goers wrested the door open for him! I don’t think the people waiting in line were particularly amused as it caused a long delay, but my main regret was not getting a photo…
Tags: snowboarding, whistler, lesson, powder
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